The Life and Times of Fashion Photographer Clive Arrowsmith

I have had the pleasure of being the hairdresser for famed photographer Clive Arrowsmith and his clients over the years when I was one of the few session hairdressers of the day in London.

Arrowsmith’s clients were the great magazines, Vogue, Tatler, Nova, and Harpers, along with some of the most renowned advertising agencies of the day that had a clientele in the beauty product industry, including Revlon and Max Factor.

Arrowsmith, an internationally celebrated portrait and fashion photographer, left North Wales at the age of 17 and headed for London. He had just finished studying at Queensferry School of Art, which was across the river from the Liverpool School of Art where a certain John Lennon was studying. As a fellow art student, Arrowsmith spent some of his teen weekends in Liverpool sleeping on the floor of the flat shared by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. At the time they were called the Quarry Men. They later, of course, became The Beatles.

“It was an amazing time. I remember asking George if I could have a go on his new Stratocaster guitar, and him saying ‘No’ even though I offered him my six pack of beer. We laughed about this years later,” says Arrowsmith.

In the years since, Arrowsmith has carved a niche for himself as a photographer, director (videos and commercials) and also as a songwriter. He has photographed His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Prince Charles, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Michael Caine, Liv Tyler, and a multitude of stars from the celebrity and fashion firmament. His vast archive of portraits also includes many British prime ministers, such as Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher.

Arrowsmith has worked very closely with Sir Paul McCartney and shot the cover of the legendary album “Band on The Run” and “Wings At The Speed of Sound,” and took a large collection of portraits of McCartney and his wife at the time, Linda. He also worked closely with George Harrison on many occasions and photographed him with Ravi Shankar.

Fashion has been a huge part of Arrowsmith’s career, having photographed the collections for Vogue and all the great designers: YSL, Yamamoto, Tom Ford, Gucci, Vivien Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, and Jean-Paul Gaultier. For the past two years he has been collating all the work he did for Vogue in the ‘70s and ‘80s, most of which was styled by Grace Coddington in a book called “Arrowsmith: Photographs From Vogue.”

“After many requests I felt it was time to put all these images together. I did portraits of David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Alain Delon, and Mama Cass. There are beautiful fashion shots taken in 1970s New York with my former girlfriend, the model Ann Schuaffus,” he said.

Commercially, Arrowsmith has shot campaigns for De Beers, Revlon, Lexus, Haselblad, Castigliano, L’Oreal, John Frieda, Shi Cashmere, Fortnum and Mason, and Harrods.

The photographer’s personal life has been equally colourful, having been married four times and fathering six children. He is well known for his outrageous sense of humour and amusing anecdotes. Art Garfunkel famously commented while Arrowsmith was directing his video in Paris, “Here comes Clive with the jokes.”

His zany, mad-cap personality has carried him and his team through the many trials and stresses of being a hard-working photographer. Still, things have not always gone according to plan, such as when he used the wrong kind of film to shoot the “Band on The Run” album cover for Wings when he was first starting out. He confessed this to McCartney many years later, and McCartney recently sent him the re-issued “Band on The Run” album with a note saying “I love the yellow light,” and signed with a smiley face.

On another occasion Arrowsmith and his team got their jeep stuck in a desert in Spain, and their outdoor studio blew away as the result of a violent sand storm. One assistant ran off, crying “I can’t take it anymore.” He was later found in the makeup caravan barely clothed, passed out, and holding a tequila bottle. The caravan had been blown upside down.

Arrowsmith remains deeply passionate about photography. His crazy antics through the ’70s and ’80s meant that he has led many lives within one life. He gave up drinking over 20 years ago and became a practicing Buddhist.

“Photographing His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been the greatest blessing of my life” he says. “My teacher leads The Tibet Centre in New York and I visit him as frequently as I can, along with my friend Nicky Vreeland who is a monk and an excellent photographer.”

Vreeland, the grandson of legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland, recently had an exhibition at the Lieca Gallery in New York. He was an assistant of Vogue photographer Irving Penn, who became known for post World War II feminine chic and glamour photography.

Harold Leighton has worked in the beauty industry for decades in both Europe and the United States. He can be reached at hleighton@bellsouth.net, and his website is at haroldleighton.com.