Special And Certainly Unusual: On Paolo Roversi's New Book, Iconic Creative Process, An...

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In April 1986 a set of fashion photographs appeared in the latest British Vogue that even the most casual of readers could not fail to notice – and be struck by their quiet beauty. Here was something different, something special, certainly something unusual. Most fashion photography in the '80s was showy and provocative – this was, after all, the era of sunshine and sportswear, of the iridescent colours of disco couture, of Brooke Shields and Calvin Klein . These pictures were removed from all that: they were subtle and still; the pages themselves appeared washed in a luminescent turquoise tone. The styling was out of kilter. The models' heads were swathed in bandages as if in preparation for a collective entombment, their features all but bleached out, their expressionless faces adding to a prevailing sense of misadventure. Just the sort of motifs that made British Vogue so idiosyncratic…

This was a calling card from Paolo Rovers i, born in Italy's Ravenna in 1947, who, in the years since, has become one of the most sought-after photographers in fashion. His distinctive painterly style has spawned many imitators. A monograph of his work, the first to examine his output in its entirety, is out on 15 May.

Content apart, what made his images stand out was their unusual form. Roversi was the first to make use – for mainstream fashion – of 8x10 Polaroid film, the peculiar tones and unpredictable colour balance giving impressionistic results, which was again out of tune with the times. By their very nature "one-offs", the stillness was due to the long exposure times that Roversi preferred. As he considers his fashion pictures as, in essence if not in practice, portraits, this allowed them to be "more touching and more human".

The instantaneous nature of Polaroid film led to a completely new way of working, certainly for his fashion editors. As Grace Coddington recalled, "When I first started working with him I was more than a little intimidated. Not only did I have to be quick to react to the Polaroids, I realised that if I didn't speak up immediately there could be no excuse later… It's a brave and confrontational way of working." When Polaroid discontinued its large-format instant film, he bought up as much of the existing stock as he could afford and then turned to digital.