Slim Aarons, the photographer who captured high society in drama

Slim Aarons made a career documenting the lives of the rich and beautiful.

Working for publications such as Town & Country, Harper’s Bazaar and Life magazine, the late photographer spent five decades taking glamorous photographs of elites and socialists. Whether hanging out in Italian villas, boating on the coast of Monaco or fox hunting in the English countryside, his globetrotting subjects symbolized high society – and old money.

“He was a reporter,” Waldron said over the phone from New York. “You have to think that a lot of these photos were made on assignment. They were sent somewhere to record what was happening in that particular place.”

The photo agency Getty Images acquired Aaron’s entire collection in 1997, several years after his retirement. Waldron, who also serves as a Getty curator, said that of the nearly 750,000 images so far, only 6,000 have been digitized.

At the time of purchase, Aaron “forgot about” and was “a little out of favor,” Waldron said. But now, nearly 15 years after his death, experts and viewers are reviewing and reinterpreting the photographer’s vast body of work. With social media giving today’s jet-setters close control over how their personal lives are portrayed, their work offers a refreshingly clear glimpse into a bygone era.

And while Aaron moved smoothly through the most elite circles of society, he maintained his objectivity and remained “very grounded,” Waldron said.

“He obviously got close to some of these people,” he said. “He photographed subjects sifting through society and then decades later photographed their children. These are long-term relationships … but he was also (very) a fly on the wall and always kept that professional distance.

“He was constantly moving from place to place, but he always came home to his little farmhouse in Westchester County, New York.”

Olivier Coquelin, who opened the first American discotheque, and his wife, Hawaiian singer and actress Lahaina Kamehameha. Credit: Slim Aaron / Getty Images

style, not fashion

Aarons may have spent half a century surrounded by affluence, but his fixation on glamor may be rooted in experiences of poverty and war.

Using his birth name George Alan Aaron instead of his later surname Slim, he escaped poverty by joining the military as a photographer in his early 20s. Serving during World War II, he honed his craft not in polo matches or pool parties, but in military maneuvers, including the Allies’ ill-fated attacks against Italy at the Battle of Monte Cassino. The photographer later “published” his experiences, but they stayed with him, Waldron said.

Kleenex heir Jim Kimberly (far left, in orange) talks with friends on the shores of Lake Worth, Florida in 1968. Credit: Slim Aaron / Getty Images

The photos also show the evolution of luxury fashion through the decades, from the formality of the post-war years to the patterned ski jackets of the 1990s. But while Aaron did some traditional fashion shoots early in his career, he eschewed the norms of style. Never using a stylist, and often carrying little more than a camera and a tripod, he did not identify with the fantasy associated with fashion photography, Waldron said.

“Fashion photography is about creating a story and a typology and acting out it… but Slim didn’t want to do that,” Waldron said. “They were interested in the real person — not just what they were wearing, but what they were driving, where they would go to dinner later. It’s all about the different parts that make up a personal style. That’s what he’s really connected to.”

Here is what Waldron describes as the difference between fashion and style – between the ephemeral and the timeless. Indeed, Aaron appeared unconcerned about his subjects’ wardrobes or the trends of the day.

“I didn’t do fashion,” the photographer once said. “I did people in their clothes which became fashion.”