David Sims, fashion photographer

Fashion photographer David Sims is born in Yorkshire, England in 1966. He leaves secondary school when he is 17 and soon starts assisting photographers Robert Erdmann and Norman Watson. At 19 he steps out on his own and gets his work published in i-D. He also starts collaborating with make-up artist Dick Page and hairstylist Guido Palau. He becomes one of the ‘new photographers’, who are partially responsible for the changes in fashion photography in the 90ties.

In 1993, David Sims is hired by Calvin Klein to shoot an ad campaign with Kate Moss and for this David Sims becomes internationally recognized. He signs a one-year exclusive contract to Harper’s Bazaar (USA).

In the post ‘fashion photography changed in the 90ties’ I showed some early pictures of David Sims, modelled by Emma Balfour and his first i-D cover of February 1996, starring Kate Moss covering one eye with her hand. Another series that stayed with me is published in Harper’s Bazaar in ’93, modelled a young Linda Evangelista.

Harper’s Bazaar US, September 1993. ‘Anatomy of a suit’

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David Sims’s photographs appear at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York and in ’94 and he is named Young Fashion Photographer of the Year. But it is his ’95 campaign for the Japanese avant-garde designer Yohji Yamamoto that is the real turning point in his career.

Yohji Yamamoto campaign 1995

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In ’96 David Sims is named Photographer of the year at the International Festival of Fashion Photography, beating Steven Meisel, Juergen Teller, Craig McDean, Mario Testino and David LaChapelle. He also starts working with menswear designer Raf Simons. Together they produce ‘Isolated Heroes’, a collection of portraits of Raf Simons’s unconventional models dressed in his s/s 2000 collection. This eventually develops into a book and a traveling exhibit.

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