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George MichaelTopping off what’s starting to be known as “the year the music died” – with 2016 bringing the shocking cumulative deaths of David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Glenn Frey, Earth Wind and Fire’s Maurice White, Merle Haggard, Sharon Jones and Paul Kantner – George Michael passed away today at age 53.
His family in England is not giving a reason for death yet, and asking for respectful privacy from the media at this time. It was not widely known that Michael had been ill.
During his days as co-star of hit pop band “Wham!” – with school friend Andrew Ridgely – Michael always had an evolving “look” – white haired 80’s pop band sex symbol, then later on, toughening it up with motorcycle jackets, tight pants and biker boots – and always ubiquitous mirrored aviator glasses; he eventually cropped his platinum hair super short.
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As his solo career kicked off in 1987 with the album “Faith,” he morphed his image into a sort of bad boy sexual provocateur with very come-hither lyrics. All in all, Michael released five studio albums, forty singles, sixteen music videos – and sold ninety million records across the world.
Michael officially affixed his place in the fashion and beauty world in 1990, when he and then video director David Fincher – who would go on to direct Madonna’s “Express Yourself” video and the movies “Seven,” “The Social Network” and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” – came up with an idea for a video for the song “Freedom! 90.”
At this point, Michael no longer wanted to be in front of the camera, so he and Fincher hired the biggest supermodels in the world at the time: Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Tatjana Patiz – to lip synch the words of the song, the ladies mostly in various states of undress and a whole lotta steam (literal).
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Evangelista stayed up most of the night before, having her dark hair dyed platinum just for the occasion. If you were around in the beginning of the Nineties, you know that got major headlines. The whole video was an homage to a famous British Vogue cover in 1990, shot by the so-called “supes” – these ladies the original supermodels – based on an iconic cover photo by famed fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh.
Another major fashion business fact about the video: it was styled by Brit stylist Camilla Nickerson, who has styled for both American Vogue and W Magazine for many years.
As we’re likely to hear the report leading up to Michael’s untimely death in the next weeks, for now not just the fashion business mourns the death of a great – but the whole world mourns what was a major pop star of the Eighties and Nineties, who understood the power of image and music videos before much of the rest of the entertainment business did. And the power of the pretty much perfect pop song.
