Documentary looks at the life of fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez

Antonio Lopez, fashion illustrator, photographer

Jessica Lange...Jerry Hall...Grace Jones...Pat Cleveland...Tina Chow...some of the biggest fashion icons of the 1970s and early 80s and all discovered by the captivating fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez,  as well as Andy Warhol's girls - Donna Jordan, Jane Forth and Patti D’Arbanville among others. 

Lopez and Donna Jordan and Pat Cleveland

             

Lopez and Grace Jones

Lopez and Jerry Hall

Known mostly for his illustrations that appeared in Vogue, The New York Times, Interview, as well as couture and prêt-à-porter labels, Lopez was a major player in the fashion world for three decades, until his tragic death at age 44 from complications of AIDS.

Aside from his vivid, innovative illustrations, Lopez was a genius with a camera, capturing the seductive, fast life of disco, fashion, drugs, and sex.  These photographs are some of the best fashion photography I have ever seen - sexy, glamorous, decadent, and fun.

Iris Chacon

Grace Jones

Grace Jones

Karl Lagerfeld

Grace Coddington

Pat Cleveland

Tina Chow

Michael and Tina Chow

Jessica Lange

Jerry Hall

A new documentary film by James Crump, Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco, looks at the influence of Lopez on the fashion scene in the 70s, from New York to Paris and the lives that he touched along the way, which aside from his aforementioned muses included Karl Lagerfeld, Bill Cunningham, Bob Colacello, Charles James, and frequent collaborator Juan Eugene Ramos.

The film charts Lopez's charts his humble beginning, Puerto Rican, Bronx raised living in lower Manhattan in the late 1960s seeking creativity, pleasure, and like minds in the fashion and art scene during a tumultuous period of war protests, political assassinations, and unrest.

Lopez and Ramos

 It moves on to Lopez and Ramos' journey to Paris, where they become fast friends with Karl Lagerfeld and embark on a wild time, punctuated by social and cultural change.  Homosexuality and gender fluidity was flourishing, sexual promiscuity and clubbing fueled their evenings, as the emergence of ready to wear dominated traditional couture and inspired their work, and Lopez began to make his biggest discoveries and lasting marks on the fashion world.

Lopez returned to New York in the 1980s, his creativity jump started by the cultural shifts taking place in the city and his love of fashion and art.  Lopez had a new crop of designers to influence his work, including Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and Vivienne Westwood, as well as the emerging, colorful hip hop scene.  He collaborated with icons such as Crazy Legs, Doze, Pop Master Fabel, and Mare 139 through portraits, performances and murals.

Lopez and Andy Warhol

This colorful, youthful energy fueled and sustained Lopez even as his final years began to creep up on him.  Soon, AIDS would become rampant, cutting a swath through the fashion, art and music scene and claiming the lives of so many of the brightest icons of that age.  It was a decline of an idyllic time of decadence and exuberance and a beginning of a sobering reality of dwindling mortality. 

Lopez and Yves Saint Laurent

From the director:  I became fascinated with Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos through Interview magazine when I was a young teenager in rural Indiana. Their magical lives and milieu aroused me to no end and made me fantasize about the early 1970s in New York and Paris–a period I was too young to experience. In 1997, I met Paul Caranicas, Antonio’s and Juan’s heir who since that first meeting gave me unlimited access to many thousands of drawings, photographs and 8mm and 16mm films and video.

Given the elements of race, ethnicity and sexuality that Antonio injected into fashion–a Puerto Rican-born, Bronx-raised bisexual–the film needed to be produced now at a moment when Latino, African-American and LGBTQ rights and issues are still being contested and underrepresented in dominant media and culture. Antonio, envisioned what the future could look like–he is an ideal emblem of freedom and attainability worth remembering, especially now in the current post-election malaise. 

The film will be released early this year.