TO CELEBRATE the opening of Tate Britain’s new The 90s: Art and Fashion exhibition, GLASS’ inaugural Picture Editor, Susie Babchick, looks back on her time at the beating heart of this scene as agent of the legendary photographer Corinne Day.
Corrine Day & Susie Babchick. Photograph: Kerry Brown
How did you meet Corinne and what were your first impressions of her? How did you come to be her agent?
I was working with Ignition Management, the company that manage the band Oasis. Corinne’s boyfriend, Mark Szaszy had directed the video for ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ – Mark had directed the first five videos for the band. Corinne had styled that video with the help of her friend, stylist, Tara St. Hill.
The management company were launching a new British rock band called Pusherman and I first met Corinne at one of the band’s underground parties in an old railway arch near Bankside, south of the River Thames.
I knew what Corinne looked like as she had been in a handful of magazines as this groundbreaking photographer of the time. I was quite shy to interact with her, when I was introduced to her I kept it brief and then I stepped back. I don’t think she meant for people to feel that way. She wanted to be there at the gig just like anyone else. She was sitting with a few friends, on the floor, smoking cigarettes and waiting for the band to start.
And after that the management company had sent me over to Corinne’s flat on Brewer Street in Soho to discuss a photo shoot they wanted to do with her and the band.
Corinne Day & Rosemary Ferguson. Photograph: Susie Babchick
I think you used to accompany her on shoots. What were your most memorable ones?
Yes, once I became her agent, I went on all of the shoots, I produced all of her editorial and commercial work while we worked together. Back when I was still at Ignition Records we worked on all of these shoots together with the band, and she would come with us to music festivals and parties. Sometimes we would turn a small party situation into a photoshoot. Other times we would go to the band members’ homes or Corinne and Mark’s flat on Brewer Street in Soho and do shoots in a more intimate, lived-in way.
I then went on to work in the press office at the ICA, London (Institute Of Contemporary Arts) and I had met Billy Name who was known for being the photographer on the scene with Andy Warhol’s Factory in New York in the 1960’s. I introduced Billy Name and Corinne as I could see that they were both passionate about documenting cutting edge, creative people of their respective eras.
From there, Corinne asked me to be her agent as we naturally worked well together and we would also invite each other to go and do interesting things, interesting art and social events in London. We were out all the time.
One of the most memorable shoots we did was for Vogue Italia in the summer of 2000. We went to France with the Fashion Editor, Sissy Vian who was overseeing a shoot for Ungaro with Giambattista Valli who was the Creative Director of Ungaro at the time. We were all out there, Corinne, Sissy, Giambattista, makeup artist, Inge Grognard and model, Helena Han. It was at a beautiful, old chateau in the French countryside and we were all moving around and creating an environment and atmosphere in each part of the location.
Everyone was so into being there together and it was so collaborative each moment. I remember Giambattista seeing one of his gowns on Helena in the setting and lighting that Corinne had put together – he smiled and whispered ‘poetry,’ and that’s how that day felt. And that is most often what Corinne’s photography sessions felt like.
Mark Szaszy, Corinne Day, Susie Babchick, Panos Yiapanis. Photograph: c/o Susie Babchick
What was the mood like in London and the fashion industry at that time?
I remember people in London really loving vintage clothing. People would find really unique jackets, coats, jeans, even US Navy P-coats and US Navy dress trousers at second-hand clothes stores like Olivier Vintage and Souled Out in Portobello and The Glorious Clothing Company in Islington. The second hand clothes would be mixed with fashion brands and pieces from designers at shops like Sign Of The Times and Red Or Dead which showcased alternative fashion and brand new designers. Fashion Editor/Stylist, Melanie Ward and Corinne would find these unique pieces and work them into fashion shoots. Sometimes they’d get on their sewing machines and alter the second-hand clothes for a better fit, or better silhouette for photographing.
The rave scene of the 90’s also brought very form-fitting designs like Body Map as well as very loose-fitting clothing with new brands at the time like Stussy. Vivienne Westwood was a designer that just about everyone wanted a part of and people would do what they could to afford a piece here and there or try to buy second hand or sample piece. There was the Antwerp Six and Martin Margiela who were having a steady and extra cool underground effect on fashion. And then came Alexander McQueen.
That upped the sex appeal of designer clothes for everyone paying attention. Lee McQueen was someone who was close in age and social circles to many of the most cutting-edge visual creatives at that time. He was wonderful not only because he was ‘of the people,’ but he emerged with extraordinary tailoring/ patternmaking talent and super revealing and off-the-map, daring designs.
Katie Grand – cocktail bar, Soho. Photograph: Susie Babchick
What was Corinne like to work with/have fun with?
Corinne was a perfectionist in some ways and in other ways she was very ‘hang loose and see what happens’. We would work extremely hard and use every day, every minute researching and preparing for a shoot and then when the model arrived on the morning of the shoot day, everything was in place and everyone was ready and then the days would be so relaxed and creative.
Because Corinne was a model herself in the eighties, it was really important to her that the model felt very comfortable and at ease. She liked when the models contributed at times by doing their own thing on set. Corinne also made sure that the team around her were the best at their art form and many of them were her dearest friends – people she trusted and people she could have a total laugh with.
Her best friends, Karl Plewka, who was Fashion Director of Interview Magazine and who she shot with for Interview, iD, Vogue Japan, Vogue Homme and several other international magazines and design houses, and also hairstylist, Neil Moodie who works with every Vogue title and a multitude of designers, and was on every one of Corinne’s shoots. Karl and Neil are both extremely talented and definitely good vibe masters on set. I think I was like that too. We all liked to spend the time keeping people talking and laughing with Corinne on the shoots, and this lighter energy would come out in the photographs in the model’s expression and body language – even in the darker moodier photographs, the models have a knowingness, a peaceful quietness and depth to them.
Corinne loved to go to parties, she loved music – especially music from the ‘60s and ‘70s – rock bands like Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Can, and singer/songwriters like Nick Drake. Her set designer and close friend, Paul Drummond is an author and absolute expert on ‘60s and ‘70s culture. He brought an authenticity to the art direction on the shoots that referenced influences like Yoko Ono’s interactive art and the psychedelia of the ‘60s and in particular the band, The 13th Floor Elevators.
We all went out a lot – to friends’ parties, nightclubs, art openings, festivals, gigs, fashion parties. One of the most exclusive and exquisite events Corinne took me to was when Conde Nast/Vogue Paris had a dinner at the Baccarat Cristal Room in Paris. Corinne would attend everything, including most of the finer events, wearing Rick Owens, it’s what she felt most comfortable in. Her look was a little bit tomboy and punk. But getting to know her throughout the years, I realised that her ultimate fashion influence for herself was based quite a lot on the simplicity of Katherine Hepburn’s style and that of her own grandmother, who she thought was pretty, down-to-earth and elegant.
Fashion Editors like Kate Phelan from British Vogue and Cathy Kasterine, who Corinne worked with often for Italian Vogue, have that elegance that she admired and incorporated in her work. You’d typically see Corinne in a Prada jumper and well-cut APC jeans, black Converse high tops or Westwood pirate boots or flat, black Gucci leather boots.
Corinne had a wicked sense of humour – and she could crack up laughing at herself sometimes. No one could get her laughing like Karl and Neil. I do remember times when we laughed so hard we were crying and couldn’t stop. And although Corinne was very tough and really stubborn, she was also very sympathetic. The minute she felt someone needed help, she would want to be there for them.
Rankin & Susie Babchick. Photograph: Susie Babchick
Corinne practically launched the career of Kate Moss. What can you tell me about their working relationship and why Day chose Moss as her muse?
The story goes back at bit further, as far as I know, Sarah Doukas, founder of Storm Models, had first seen Kate at an airport and signed her as a ‘new face’ to the agency.
When I became friends with Corinne in the early ‘90s, there were some things I wanted to understand about her fashion/art work. I had recently graduated from University Of Texas in Austin and within my Journalism degree, I had been taking women’s studies, culture and ethics classes. I arrived in London at the time that Corinne’s impressive black and white photographs of Kate Moss in the feather headdress shot at Camber Sands in Kent, was on the cover of The Face magazine. Then a little later, the British Vogue ‘Underexposed’ shoot came out which was a really cutting-edge idea for a luxury fashion magazine – to photograph Kate in her own bedroom in t-shirts, vests, underwear, lingerie and tights.
I really liked the style and the naturalism of the photographs, but I was concerned that teenage girls and young women were starting to idolise and trying to emulate Kate Moss’ skinny and petite figure. So I asked Corinne why she chose to photograph such thin models like Kate.
Corinne explained to me that when she was a model herself, doing fashion editorial shoots and campaigns for designer jeans like Guess, she loved what she was doing but wasn’t getting booked as much as some of the taller models like Christy Turlington – who she thought was the ultimate beauty. Corinne also explained that when she was living and modelling in Milan, she had started to take photographs of her fellow model friends where they were staying, in low-rent pensiones that the model agencies booked for them. She loved how the models looked when they woke up in their t-shirts with their hair undone and sometimes eye makeup and mascara running down and smeared under their eyes.
A photographer friend of Corinne’s showed these photographs to The Face magazine where Sheryl Garratt was Editor and Phil Bicker was the Art Director. They offered for Corinne to do a shoot with Stylist/Fashion Editor, Melanie Ward. Corinne went to the model agencies to find a model to photograph and, because she was an unheard of photographer, she was mostly shown the ‘new faces’ polaroids of models who were just getting started. Corinne said that when she saw Kate Moss’s polaroid, she saw a bit of herself in her. Corinne was also naturally petite and thin. As Kate wasn’t as tall as and as filled out as the ‘Amazonian’ models of the time, Corinne wanted to photograph her. She loved Kate’s smile as well – she loved her teeth and she loved Kate’s particularly skinny legs – she thought Kate had so much loveable character.
I understood that Corinne was representing her own body shape, her own figure which she thought was overlooked in fashion and in society. For me, I still felt that girls and women didn’t need to be shaped like Kate Moss to be attractive. At the same time, I also had a new appreciation for Kate as an icon. Having met Kate quite a few years later, for the British Vogue ‘Gold’ story in 2000 and then other times following, I could see for myself in person, how adorable she is, how very bright she is, how friendly she is and what an engaging storyteller she is.
Jefferson Hack. Photograph: Susie Babchick
Corinne’s ‘Underexposed’ Kate Moss shoot for Vogue was groundbreaking and controversial in equal measure. Was Corinne deliberately trying to push the boundaries or was it just her natural, relaxed style? And was there any pushback from Vogue?
Corinne was definitely trying to push boundaries. She disliked the false approach to feminine beauty that she felt male photographers usually depicted.
She was taking it back, stripping it back to the real girl, the real woman in her own intimate and unique beauty. Corinne pioneered this natural and relaxed, minimal style, rather than glamorous environments and this movement soon became popular in fashion editorials and advertising and the influence is still seen in photography today.
At the time there was a backlash, yes, that went on for a while. Feminist writers and psychotherapists like Susie Orbach were very unhappy with the body image portrayed, saying that it was promoting and causing anorexia. ’Moral leaders’ including US President Bill Clinton were denouncing this ‘heroin chic’ style.
So what I do know from speaking with Corinne and working with her is that she was not promoting anorexia and her models were not on heroin. British Vogue, Italian Vogue and Japanese Vogue, iD magazine and many more ultimately stuck by Corinne and she was published throughout the rest of her working life by these fashion magazines.
Paul Drummond – Corinne Day’s set designer/art director on location
You, yourself were something of an ‘It Girl’. You were also featured in The Face? And I know you have a longstanding relationship with some of these titles. Who were your other favourite photographers of the 90s and what did you like about them?
I had made a lot of really good friends in London who invited me to clubs, gigs and parties. Influential people like Marion Sparks, founder of Darling Department music PR, who was the publicist for Fatboy Slim, Leftfield, Faithless, Dick O’Dell and William Orbit amongst others.
Also artist and Creative Director of Coco De Mer, Debbie Sim who ran nightclubs with her then partner, Phil Dirtbox. I knew everyone through my boyfriend at the time, Mark Vincent, who lived at the legendary Grays Inn Buildings which was a colourful, graffiti-covered squat in Clerkenwell that eventually turned into a housing association. Mark knew David Sims from growing up outside of London and modelled for David and Melanie Ward for shoots for iD magazine and also music videos.
We also became friends with Amy Raphael, the Features Editor of The Face. I wrote a couple of pieces for The Face. Also, I had brought over some of the first ever pairs of Rollerblades from the US to London and Amy Raphael commissioned a photographer to photograph me and Mark skating around the South Bank for a double-page spread. In that issue of The Face there were about six other people we knew who had also been featured for various reasons – nightclubs, record releases, live shows, etc.
At the Dirtbox Club, which was literally underground in a basement near the British Museum and started after midnight, I met Katie Grand and she and I became pals. She introduced me to fellow Dazed founders Jefferson Hack and Rankin and I started to work with them when the magazine was on its third issue. Everything started to unfold. My friend, Marianne Hyatt came over from Austin, she had been part of the cast for Richard Linklater’s film Slacker and in London she started a band called Dragstripper. She and I started a Sunday brunch cabaret at a restaurant in Covent Garden.
There was really no such thing as brunch in London back then and when the idea of after-hours ‘chill out’ clubs became popular, I thought it would be even more elaborate if people actually had some breakfast or brunch at the weekend. The Big Issue magazine published an article about my unique and fun approach and addition to London club life.
At the time, I was friendly with the American indie duo, Voice Of The Beehive, and also I had become acquainted with Stella McCartney when she was still a fashion student. I went to the nightclub, ‘Smashing’ one Friday night because both Melissa from Voice Of The Beehive and also Stella had called me to say let’s meet there.
Smashing was run by four cool cats – Martin Green (who still DJ’s for Pulp and Jarvis Cocker shows), Matthew Glamorre, Michael Murphy and Adrian Webb who managed the band Menswear.
At the ‘Smashing’ club, amongst all of the bohemian, extraordinary and rebellious crowd, you’d see Leigh Bowery, Pulp, Elastica, Suede, Blur, Oasis, Shampoo, Dodgy, Courtney Love, and it was a marvellously eclectic and friendly mix with music from every genre – glam rock, punk, New Wave, dance, disco, and even show tunes. I met the singer Andy Frank from indie rock band Pusherman. He was managed by Ignition Management who manage Noel Gallagher/Oasis.
Andy was the one who introduced me to Marcus Russell, founder of Ignition, who hired me to be the PR for his new label, Ignition Records. We’d commission Corinne to take photographs for singles, album covers, tour dates and posters.
Corinne Day. Rose lying on orange sofa 56 Brewer St Soho London, 1992 ©Corinne Day Estate. Courtesy of the Corinne Day Estate
If there was one element or quality of the ‘90s era that you could bring back to the fashion industry now what would it be?
The one element I would bring back from the ‘90s era is the non-existence of smartphones with cameras in all areas of life. People could create and experiment and just be in the moment without feeling as self-conscious, perfectionist and controlling. I feel like more happens when people don’t feel watched.
by Nicola Kavanagh
The 90s: Art and Fashion is on at Tate Britain 8 October 2026 – 14 February 2027