Roxanne Lowit, one of the most extraordinary and nonconformist contemporary photographers, thanks to whom we had access, through an intimate and personal look, to the backstage of the fashion world, has passed away at the age of 81.
Lowit’s style helped define an era of hedonism, pleasure and glamour through her unique, free style.

“We are very sad to say we lost a remarkable woman today. Roxanne Lowit was a legendary photographer who provided an intimate look into the world of fashion and showed us a side of nightlife that most people didn’t get to see…”, these were the words through which the family, in a post on the photographer’s Instagram account, announced her passing.

Born in New York City in February 1942 and raised between Long Island and the Bronx, Roxanne Lowit never studied to become a photographer, but instead graduated from New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology in art history and textile design.. 

“I paint, and there were people who wanted to pose for me but didn’t have time, so I started photographing them. I liked the gratification of getting an instant image, so I traded my brushes for a camera”, this is how Lowit herself tells how she got started in photography. 

Introduced to the glamorous world of 1960s Greenwich Village by designer Antonio Lopez, the photographer had the opportunity to share evenings and nights with the likes of Jean Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. 
Her work as a textile designer was going great but her love of photography and that tension and attraction to the chaos and exuberance typical of those years and that context.

Mick Jagger, André Leon Talley, Kate Moss, John Galliano, la drag queen Divine, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista are some of the celebrities Roxanne Lowit has shot. “Back then there was definitely more playfulnessModels really had great personalities and charm. Today I find that girls are all kind of the same…supermodels really have it all figured out”, Lowit told The Star in 2014.

A woman and a photographer capable of showing us the glitz and excesses of fashion in the 1990s with a true, real, genuine but above all unrepeatable edge.