Around the middle of the twentieth century, princes, polo players, political scions, movie stars, and indolent heirs hopscotched around places like Marbella, Palm Beach, and the Amalfi Coast.
Always there to capture their globe trotting antics was the legendary society photographer, Slim Aarons. His lush color saturated photographs of the haute monde lounging, lunching, gossiping and drinking in palatial splendor have become a source for present-day style icons.
'I didn't do fashion,' he once said. 'I did the people in their clothes that became the fashion.' Now, a new photobook titled, Slim Aarons: Style, showcases a collection of the late photographer's most iconic images of the fashionable elite.
It features the legendary photo of Joan Collins laying in bed in a silky negligee while clutching her pink poodle, the shot of Jackie Kennedy looking dewy in a satin evening dress, and the picture of Princess Margaret and Peter Sellers aboard the Aga Khan's yacht in Sardinia. There is also C.Z. Guest, the society doyenne, standing in front of the Olympic-sized pool at her Palm Beach estate. Flip the page and there's the grand-dame Babe Paley, wistfully lolling about her cottage in Jamaica.
These are the exalted precincts of Comtesse Jacqueline de Ribes by way of Mick Jagger - both, also pictured in the book.
The volume, published by Abrams Books, focuses on the evolution of style, spanning fifty years between the 1940s and 1990s. With over 200 images, Slim Aarons: Style doesn't just chronicle what café society wore, but how they lived in 'unapologetic self-indulgence.' As interior designer Jonathan Adler, writes in his foreword: 'Slim Aarons' glamorous jet-set snaps were the big bang of FOMO that made Instagram possible.'
Slim Aarons was a society photographer who chronicled the fashionable jet set crowd between the 1940s- 90s. The Irish film producer Kevin McClory (above) cruises Nassau Harbor with his family in 1967. The amphibious car was an abandoned prop from the McClory-produced James Bond film, Thunderball
Slim Aarons' midcentury subjects tended to be the moneyed set of Hollywood, Acapulco, Palm Beach and Palm Springs. Party-goers above mingle poolside at Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House in Palm Springs. The famous backyard was immortalized in a series of photos taken by Slim Aarons, and epitomizes midcentury glamour in 1970. Now the iconic house is currently on the market for $17million
Jim Kimberly (far left, in orange), known as a 'three-car, three-yacht sportsman' and heir to the Kimberly Clarke Company’s Kleenex fortune, talks with friends on the shores of Palm Beach in 1968. Slim called Palm Beach, 'the gathering place for families of fashion and fortune,' where 'the party is the principal indoor and outdoor sport'
Aarons set off for Hollywood after WWII to photograph movie stars like Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich, Lana Turner and Audrey Hepburn while freelancing for Life magazine. Alfred Hitchcock was so taken with Aarons that he modeled Jimmy Stewart's character in Rear Window after him. In his famous 'Kings of Hollywood' portrait—Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper, and Jimmy Stewart enjoy a joke at Slim’s expense during a New Year’s party in 1957 at Romanoff’s in Beverly Hills. The Smithsonian once described the photograph as 'a Mount Rushmore of stardom'
Though Slim Aarons became famous for capturing the rich at play, the reality of his childhood was a far cry from the glamourous lives of his subjects. Like all great American legends, George 'Slim' Aarons was his own magnificent invention.
It began with a fabricated origin story. For his entire life, Aarons claimed that he was an orphan who grew up on an enchanted farm in New Hampshire. 'This WASPy narrative allowed him to operate freely among the bluebloods he documented,' wrote Town & Country.
A new photobook of Slim Aarons' pictures focuses on the evolution of style, spanning his five-decade long career as a society snapper between the 1940s and 1990s. Featuring over 200 images, the book offers a rarified glimpse into the the private playgrounds of the rich and famous
In actuality, Slim's childhood was far more traumatic. Born on the Lower East Side in 1916 to Yiddish-speaking immigrants, his impoverished family life was plagued with tragedy: an absentee father, a mother committed to a psychiatric hospital, and brother who killed himself. It wasn't until 2016 when a posthumous documentary revealed the truth about his background, which was a revelation even for his wife and daughter.
Nonetheless, Slim was given unparalleled entry to his jet set subjects in the private places they played and preened: French châteaux, Italian palazzos, ski lodges, members-only clubs, and yachts. 'They would invite me to one of their parties because they knew I wouldn't hurt them,' he told The Independent in 2002. 'I was one of them.'
The New York Times once wrote: 'Noël Coward and Truman Capote used words to record this rarefied universe, but Mr. Aarons' photographs in magazines like Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country and Life showed it.'
He didn't just embrace high society, he looked the part too. The affluent snapper exuded his own effortless charm. One writer described him as 'perpetually ascot prone' with a cigarette permanently fixed to one hand, and a camera in the other.
Before chasing la dolce vita, Aarons cut his teeth in photography while covering some of the deadliest battles in World War II as an Army photographer. He was wounded and awarded a Purple Heart for bravery, but disillusioned by war. Combat had taught him that the only beach worth landing on was 'decorated with beautiful, semi-nude girls tanning in a tranquil sun.'
After the war, Aarons worked for various magazines of calcified gentility such as Holiday and Town & Country. He developed his unique oeuvre of chronicling 'attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.' Marching orders from his editor before heading off on assignment were always simple: 'Slim, bring back the snaps and make sure it doesn't look like Brooklyn.'
Slim Aarons followed the seasons of style, spending winters at ski resorts like Aspen, Charmonix, and Gstaad before chasing the jet set at glamorous summer resorts on the Amalfi Coast and Cote d'Azur. Above, Alexander Cochrane Cushing (in yellow), the son of a longline of American aristocrats, enjoys cocktails atop Squaw Valley ski resort in California in 1961. Cushing developed the resort in 1949, and is said to be responsible for elevating the post-war American ski industry. The New York Times described him as 'a shrewd lawyer, dealmaker and corporate cajoler who favored a tweed jacket cut by Davies of London over mass-produced ski clothing'
The socialite, C.Z. Guest was Aarons' greatest muse. His collection of photographs starring C.Z at her Palm Beach home, Villa Artemis (above) 'remain some of the most iconic and influential pictures of their time,' says the book. Before her 1947 marriage to a Phipps steel heir, C.Z. was one of Boston society’s most sought-after debutantes. She had a vivid social life, which included a tight circle of friends like Cecil Beaton, Truman Capote, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
Singer Marianne Faithfull, the Honorable Desmond Guinness (son of the Guinness beer baron), and Mick Jagger attend a party at Castletown House, Ireland
Dimitris Kritsas, a young Greek couturier, shows off his latest collection
