The legendary fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier, portraitist of celebrities such as Lady Di or Madonna, has died this Thursday at the age of 78, as reported by his own family through his official Instagram account.
"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Patrick Demarchelier on March 31, 2022, at the age of 78," the post explains.
"He is survived by his wife Mia, his three children Gustaf, Arthur, Victor and three grandchildren."
So far the causes of his death are unknown.
Demarchelier, known for his innate ability to highlight feminine beauty —with his ability to create scenes that are both serene and grandiloquent where the clothes worn by the models take on a life of their own—, became one of the great legends of the sector, along with the Peruvian Mario Testino.
The French portraitist was the favorite of the most prestigious headers and the first choice of the most varied celebrities.
So much so that in the 1990s Princess Diana chose him as her official photographer.
Born in 1943 in Le Havre, in northern France, he grew up with a widowed mother and four brothers.
He discovered his vocation when he turned 17, when his stepfather gave him a Kodak analog camera and he began photographing friends and acquaintances at weddings and events.
Self-taught, he learned to develop negatives and retouch images in a small home studio.
In 1963 he moved to Paris and began working as a photo assistant and later in a modeling agency taking instant photos.
In the early 1970s he began collaborating with current affairs weeklies such as
Newsweek,
but thanks to fellow photographer Hans Feurer he was fully introduced to the world of fashion.
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Once in that circuit, he moved to New York, where he began to collaborate for
Glamor magazine,
although he soon made the leap to
Vogue
, a header that, thanks to the fundamental support of his art director Grace Coddington, a close friend of his, catapulted him to the stardom and made him a benchmark.
Madonna, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Hopkins, RuPaul or Kate Moss, among others, passed in front of his goal.
It was from that position that Diana of Wales, a great admirer of his, asked him in 1989 to photograph her with her two children.
The result is a photo session that has become the most remembered and recognizable of the ill-fated Diana.
Demarchelier's collaboration with the publishing group Condé Nast, a giant of fashion and high-end magazines, was put on hold for ten years when he was signed as a star photographer at
Harper's Bazaar
.
She returned to
Vogue
in 2004, during which time her son Victor became her second essential.
Dermarchelier became part of popular culture thanks to his cameo in the series
Sex and the City
and the indirect mentions made of him in
The Devil Wears Prada
, the film in which Meryl Streep played Anna Wintour , the director of
Vogue
.
The prestige and good name of the French photographer was seriously tarnished in 2018, when an investigation by the
Boston Globe
newspaper brought to light that several international mannequins identified him as a sexual harasser.
Demarchelier totally denied the accusations, but Condé Nast, who had also removed photographers Terry Richardson, Bruce Weber and Mario Testino for similar complaints, dispensed with his services, which is why in his last years he never did great work again. .
