Photo Gallery: Corinne Day - The Face

The Eighties, the decade that fed us the creed of “greed is good”, spawned the fashion “glamazon”. She had supergloss looks and a full décolletage, and, naturally, she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than 10K. In the Nineties, the decade that ushered in grunge and Cool Britannia, an entirely different creature emerged. She was very young, very skinny, and had a look that somehow combined the exquisitely ethereal and the very ordinary. She came in the gamine shape of Kate Moss.

Day, who sadly died of a brain tumour in August 2010, became both a celebrated and a controversial figure. She did achingly cool fashion shoots for magazines that were part of a new youth culture. But much of the mainstream press blamed her for promoting anorexia and “heroin chic”.

But the pictures below, which can be seen in a small exhibition at London's Gimpel Fils Gallery, tell a rather different story. In them, Moss embodies a lively, lovely spirit of girlish innocence. She also looks recognisably like a girl from Croydon. The exhibition focuses on two 1991 fashion stories from The Face magazine: "Heaven is Real" and "Borneo". In the first, Day evoked the intense joys of teenage female friendship, while the second feels like a series of beautifully composed holiday snaps: Moss is seen wandering down the road in flip-flops, wearing a snorkel and making friends with the local kids.

The gallery below (and the exhibition) also features playful images from other shoots, including those with Michael "flea" Balzary from Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

Click image below to enter gallery

[bg|/ART/Fisun_Guner/Corinne_Day]

1. Kate and Lorraine holding hands, from "Heaven is Real", The Face, February, 1991
2. Corinne Day portrait by Mark Szaszy, 1987
3. Kate in phone booth, from "Borneo", The Face, August, 1991
4. Kate with her eyes closed from "Heaven is Real", The Face, February, 1991
5. George and Rose on sofa, from "England's Dreaming", The Face, August, 1993
6. George crouching in landscape, from "England's Dreaming", The Face, August, 1993
7. Kate in floppy sun hat, from "Borneo", The Face, August, 1991
8. Big Splash, from Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Face, August, 1992
9. Flea, from Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Face, August, 1992
10. Flea and baby, from Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Face, August, 1992
11. Kate in snorkel, from "Borneo", The Face, August, 1991
12. Rose in spider top, from "England's Dreaming", The Face, August, 1993

• Corinne Day: The Face at Gimpel Fils Gallery until 1 October
• Talk and Screening of Corinne Day: Diary at The London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Art Gallery on 25 September
• Find Corinne Day on Amazon