Former Vogue fashion director Tonne Goodman's new tome is a rarefied look at the world of high fashion and one of its most formidable arbiters of style.
It’s been over a year since Tonne Goodman stepped down as fashion director of Vogue. For decades, her regular uniform of sensible Belgian suede loafers, Organic by John Patrick sweaters and white Levi’s 511s were, to the fashion intelligentsia, every bit as recognizable, fear-inducing and respected as the signature fringed bob and windshield sunglasses of her celebrated boss, Anna Wintour. Throughout her career, Goodman made the famous stylish and the stylish famous. She seemed born to it—a model discovered in the elevator of Condé Nast by former Vogue Editor-in-Chief Diana Vreeland, her career soon evolved to working at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Calvin Klein, The New York Times Magazine, Life and Harper’s Bazaar, where she was the fashion director before joining Vogue. No there’s Tonne Goodman: Point of View ($75, Abrams), a visually stunning, 352-page tome and exploration of her life and career. “I was encouraged to put the work into a book by Ivan Shaw, the corporate photography director of the Condé Nast archive,” she tells Capitol File. “The work spans roughly 40 years, and the nature of fashion photography has changed during that time. We felt it was interesting to catalog the change. The images are from the best photographers and best talent of the time.” Goodman was recently in Washington to help announce the honorees for the upcoming Smithsonian National Portrait Gala, which includes Wintour. Any chance Goodman advised the style icon on her portrait? “No chance. She needs not one bit of help—an understatement,” she says in her matter of fact way.
Photography by: Photography by David Sims
