Editors' note: This article was originally published in August 2015; we're resurfacing it here in tribute to the late pop icon.
Vogue Contributing Editor Camilla Nickerson is responsible for some of the most indelible fashion images of the nineties, not least of all this can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head video from George Michael. Here, in her own words, are Nickerson's memories of the shoot and the surrounding fashion scene of the time.
Back in the ’90s, videos were a really huge outlet creatively. At that point, you had The Face and i-D, and then the established magazines, but you didn’t have all that many places to make a living. I did work on videos then, and they were unbelievably hard work. I remember I did one Soul II Soul video, and I went to a car junkyard and got metal hubcaps and welded them into armor. It would all happen within 24 hours, cause there was obviously not enough money to go into a second day. It was grueling, but you were pretty free to do what [you wanted]. You know, it was before brands. Nothing was really conceived before it happened, so it was trial and error. That seems sort of remarkable in today’s world.
I got a call that this film director who I hadn’t heard of, David Fincher, wanted to meet me at Shepperton Studios for a video he was doing for George Michael. It was “Freedom! ’90.” And I went there, and he had this room, and he was surrounded by these drawings for Alien 3, and it was incredible. I remember it being very, very dark, and just all these sketches. And I was very surprised when he wanted me to work on it.
He was incredibly specific about how he wanted Christy [Turlington] to walk in this white sheet. It had to be incredibly long and made of Irish linen, so that the thread count was light enough for the light to come through. And that used up the budget. So then everyone else’s clothes had to come from my wardrobe. So you have Naomi [Campbell] wearing my boyfriend’s boots and Linda [Evangelista] pulling my sweater over her head. George knew all the girls, and partied in the back room with them, and I didn’t see them. You know, I was hired help. Very happily hired help.
I remember Cindy [Crawford] was the most professional. Like, she came fully ready to lip-synch. She was always incredibly professional, in a way that everyone else sort of cobbled it together and just got out of bed and got there, and were having the time of their lives living night and day. But she was remarkable, because that’s how she approached everything.
Through the end of the eighties, Linda, Naomi, Christy—they were all playing roles. They were film stars; they were celebrities; they were super-glamorous; they were, you know, creating dreams. And then suddenly there was this new mood, which was about reality. It was okay just to be you, and it was okay to borrow your boyfriend’s clothes, have chipped fingernails, tell it as it is. And that there’s a dream in that as well, and a beauty. That was very exciting. And important, because at the time, you know, you were also starting to have Kurt Cobain and grunge. It was a reaction to there not being any money, and being all right with that.
In the early nineties, designers started co-opting different show spaces. So there was this disused department store, or a railway station, or an old factory with water puddles, or it was somebody’s home. I remember at the Xuly Bët show we all had to sit on the floor, and there was Polly Mellen [the legendary Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue sittings editor and then the creative director of Allure] cross-legged. And we were all just sort of huddled in, and the models had to walk over us. You know, it really was just breaking with any of the normal traditions, and bringing everyone to the same level.
A lot of the designers didn’t have backing. You were going to see shows that did not cost a million dollars; they cost £150. Galliano was running the clothes over by hand; McQueen was borrowing a space, sewing the clothes that night, asking friends to model. Margiela invited us for tea in his flat. There was no big branding; there was no big money. You know, there was no money, and still they were able to put their ideas across.
Also designers were given time to do a collection, because there were six months in between, rather than. . . . You know, Resort shows used to be six or seven looks; there wasn’t Pre-Fall, really, in the same way. But that said, there are many good things that have happened. Clothes are made to the most incredible standard today. It’s like you’re seeing couture now on the runway. And the skills, and the people who are making the clothes, and developing the fabrics, or you know, exploring print techniques are amazing. So it’s not a bad thing that there has been a lot of money and a lot of focus on fashion. It has kept it really alive, and it’s become such an influential force in the world. When I grew up, there were no clothes shops on the high street, really. There would be a department store, but high street fashion didn’t exist. You bought clothes in vintage shops.
I arrived in New York, and it was so exciting. Like, it was very think-do. And you know, I suppose a large part of it was the idea of narrative being broken. Suddenly you had images that were not consecutive, you had clothes that didn’t fit, you had things that were fractured. But people were moved by it, and they were excited. I remember Neville [Wakefield] and I were asked if we could do the book, and so I said yes. It was pretty seamless, the whole thing. You know, I asked Anna [Wintour] if I could work with Corinne Day for Vogue, and she said, “Yes, as long as it doesn’t cost too much.” And so Corinne came to stay in my hotel. She forgot to mention that she was bringing her granny as well. So the three of us shared a room. It was really bad. But it was really fun. And it’s exciting that that time still has traction and it has attraction.
I haven’t watched “Freedom! ’90” in a while, but I listen to it. I listened to it with Phoebe [Philo], and we laughed. Cause everybody in the room, you know, has their own rendition of it. And like, you see people’s eyes gaze off into a distance, cause it’s bringing back some night that they were doing something, or. . . . You know, it’s like a happy glaze of memory.