European Fashion Heritage Association

Journal Object Focus

EFHA Focus: SMILEi-D, 1999

30.09.2018
European fashionfashion exhibitionfashion photographymagazines

Retracing the story of an exhibition series celebrating the 20th years of i-D Magazine

 

The image represents the cover of SMILEi-D, a book edited by Terry Jones in 1999. It reprises an iconic shot of model Kate Moss from photographer David Sims, which was used as cover of I-D Magazine February 1996 issue. The book accompanied an exhibition series, whose first venue was MoMu in Antwerp, that wanted to celebrate the 20th birthday of the magazine i-D.
Traveling to fashion capitals of the world, Smilei-D highlighted the spirit of the magazine. Featuring an heterogeneous set of materials, touching upon fashion but also on social documentation, the exhibition retraced the history of i-D as one of the most innovative editorial experiments of our culture.

The installation was made of different media, and contained over 80 images from the pages of i-D, most notably i-D’s signature ‘straight-ups:’ head to toe shots of people ‘looking good and cool’ in their clothes. The most memorable covers were also presented: Madonna, Sade, Björk, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Gisele Bündchen. The exhibition travelled in many locations all over the world, including London, Milan, Paris, New York (all in 2001), Buenos Aires (2003), Mexico City, Santiago de Chile, Barcelona and Caracas (all in 2004).