By now, nearly all who follow the media paying attention to Detroit
know “the British supermodel comes to town” story. For the few who
don’t, here it is again, in brief: Kate Moss, one of the most noticed
women in the world came here this summer with the world’s most famous
fashion photographer,
Bruce Weber, for a street-level, funky Detroit-style shoot on the run.
The
photography was done in rock and blues clubs, in black churches and in
old Polish-Ukrainian neighborhoods, a shoe store (Red’s) on Oakland and
a hat shop (Henry the Hatter) on Broadway, at the Kronk Gym on the
Westside and the Heidelberg living art museum on the Eastside. It
appeared in a whopping 50-plus page spread in the September
issue of W,
Conde’ Nast’s massive coffee-table-style, fashion and beauty magazine.
And more shots will show up in the November issue, due out later this
month.
Weber’s lens also caught the glittery gritty splendor of
the Detroit soul, sans Moss. He photographed high school kids from Cody
High and Charlotte Forten Academy wearing sequined silk from MaxMara
and black wool from Gucci; he found a 19-year-old girl named Chanel and
posed her between two sexy men while wearing a tweed jacket by, natch,
Chanel; he shot a prayerful young man in a white Dolce & Cabbana
coat who, by night, calls himself Black China Doll, a female
impersonator who routinely transforms into Brandy and Lil’ Kim.
It
was a simple but powerful essay on people and place, with the slithery
blonde everywoman Moss photographed at the busy intersection between
the two.
Diamonds and goldWhy Detroit? The short answer: soul and inspiration. When
W
creative director Dennis Freedman flew to Detroit earlier this year, he
wasn’t sure what he’d find, says the magazine’s bookings editor, Rena
Lazaros.
“He found diamonds; he found gold,” says Lazaros, who
grew up in the Detroit area and attended Wayne State University. She’s
worked in New York for the past 13 years. “Dennis was blown away by
Detroit.”
Model D photographer
Dave Krieger,
who worked in New York from 1991 to 2002, was enlisted as a location
scout for the spread. While in New York, Krieger published his work in
Mademoiselle, Marie Claire, and the
New York Times Magazine,
among other glossies. Since returning to Detroit, he says he’s
gravitated toward the “heart and soul of the city, the tremendous life
beneath the over layer.” Krieger says he knew exactly in what direction
he wanted to point Weber and Moss for the shoot.
“There
is the architecture that makes the downtown appear trapped in the
1920s, 1930s and 1940s,” Krieger says. “But I wanted to find those
unrecognizable but identifiable aspects that give Detroit its special,
off-the-radar vibe. We went looking for what makes this such a creative
place. We wanted to find its heartbeat.”
Where did the crew look for that beating heart? Inside Cass Avenue’s
Old Miami bar,
where Krieger says patrons treated Moss like “Kate Moss, the girl …
just another soul walking the earth,” and at the Bohemian National
Home's ballroom on Tillman Street near Michigan Avenue, where a cluster
of glammy electro-punks adoringly danced the night away with the
nonchalant celebre who just happened to be wearing black nylon leggings
by Prada.
But
the focus also tightened on the vibrancy of spiritual life in Detroit
churches, like New Bethel Baptist — where Aretha Franklin’s late
father, the Rev. C.L Franklin, founded the church in 1946. The original
location was on the site of the current Detroit Medical Center, and
moved to its current spot on Linwood in 1961.
Krieger says Moss
said little during her trips around the city — "She’s a '90s girl, a
cool Brit-pop icon who fit perfectly into the garage and blues culture
here," he says — but Weber often verbalized his fascination with
Detroit.
"Bruce
understood it in a very intuitive way, and it showed in the piece," he
says. "He brought out the voice of a city, its people crying out for
justice, through music, through art. The photo story is a dream
sequence filled with people sitting around listening to records,
dancing, making love. (Weber) picked up on the culture and the
lifestyle, and captured the essence of the place, because he really
loved it."
More love Though
one local art critic chirped at the indignity of seeing Moss — a "mere
façade," she wrote— pictured with an "authentic" Detroit icon like Meg
White, and saw "‘desecration" in the crew’s use of the Michigan Central
Train Station as a backdrop, real love and inspiration appears to have
accompanied
W’s visit to the city.
Weber’s
camera found the gravestones of the Dodge Brothers, Horace and John;
Rosa Parks and DeShaun Dupree Holton — a.k.a. Proof — all buried at
Woodlawn Cemetery. It found 83-year-old Detroit Poet Laureate Naomi
Long Madgett reading at Oak Park’s Book Beat; it found 85-year-old
Richard Macon, who served in America’s first black flying squadron, the
Tuskegee Airmen, with mist in his eyes and a hand on his heart; and it
captured Moss, eyes closed, laying with a young man clutching her knee
with one hand and a copy of Cornel West’s “Democracy Matters” in the
other.
Lazaros says the next step is a follow-up piece on the Heidelberg Project in
W's
November issue. One notable shot, of Moss descending the stairs of a
house strewn with polka dots — while also wearing a red-on-white
polka-dotted tee shirt herself (and black hot pants) — made it into the
September piece. But more photos of the project were taken during the
early summer shoot, including many that included Tyree Guyton, who has
been working on one of the world’s most famous public art installations
on Heidelberg Street since 1986.
Lazaros says it gives her a thrill that W has turned its attention to a place that she knows so well.
“I
always knew Detroit was a special place, and Dave Krieger knows how
special it is,” Lazaros says. “But when Bruce Weber goes there and
comes back inspired by it, that says it all.”
Walter
Wasacz is a regular contributor to Model D. This is his fourth
installment of his Global Vibe series. Past articles in the series have
been about DJs and electronic music, and
international visitors.
Photos:Bruce Weber and Assistants at the Michigan Central Train StationFaith Christian ChurchHenry the HatterMotown MuseumThe Old MiamiRed's Shoe ShineKronk Gym
All Photographs Copyright Dave Krieger