Spotlight 10 of 30
I was obsessed with Ellen von Unwerth before I even knew her name, and I still get butterflies when I see her work. The same butterflies I had as a teenager in the early ’90s, ripping glossy pages out of magazines and wallpapering my room with them like they were the holy grail.
As a JW girl, I wasn’t supposed to dream about the lush, naughty worlds she created. But Ellen made those worlds look irresistible. It’s hard to explain the kind of impact her work has had on me. She didn’t just influence my aesthetic. She shaped how I saw womanhood, sex appeal, and freedom.
Before she was one of the most sought-after photographers in fashion, Ellen was a model who knew exactly what it felt like to be stared at, posed, and flattened into somebody else’s fantasy.
Born in Frankfurt in 1954, she didn’t come up through art schools or old-guard institutions. She hustled her way through the fashion world, took notes on everything, then picked up a camera in her 30s and blew the doors off the industry.
That late start is part of her magic. She wasn’t trained to follow rules, so she never did.
Her breakout moment came in 1989 when she shot Claudia Schiffer for Guess. You know the ones.
She took the stiff, buttoned-up vibe of the ’80s and injected it with mischievous grins, playful nudity, and unapologetic sensuality. Fashion had never looked so bold or so free. That campaign launched Claudia’s career and announced Ellen as the disruptor fashion didn’t know it needed.
That’s her super power. Ellen’s subjects are co-conspirators, making sexuality look less like a performance for men and more like a playground for women.
For decades she’s told visual stories that normalize exploration, resist shame, and turn desire into art with a wink and a laugh. Long before mainstream culture could even say “kink” out loud, Ellen was shooting it for the glossies.
Her images have graced the pages of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, i-D, and more, and she’s photographed campaigns for iconic brands like Chanel, Miu Miu, Versace, and Vivienne Westwood.
Along the way, she’s collected top honors at international photography festivals and been recognized by American Photo and other outlets as one of the most influential photographers of her generation.
Over three decades later, her DNA is still everywhere. In music videos, magazine covers, TikTok aesthetics, and every fashion kid trying to remix her visual language for a new era.
From Madonna to Rihanna to Beyoncé, Naomi, Britney, and Kate, the throughline is always the same: women on their own terms, enjoying their own pleasure, unapologetically.
Her work is proof that stripping shame away from pleasure is power. And that freedom begins the second we stop asking for permission to play—and start exploring.
A small sampling of Ellen’s work.
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xo, FlyDuo
