Robert Rich discusses his new photography book with the formidable actor at her most candid, 90s New York, and whether Winona’s kind of cool can still even exist
“I myself am strange and unusual,” says everyone’s favourite goth teen Lydia Deetz in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Then just 15, Winona Ryder captured the cultural consciousness, and from the late eighties to today, has held it as an inimitable actor with a distinctive yet amorphous air of cool. The phrase ‘Winona Forever’ endures, the 90s aesthetic continues to be defined and formulated around her uniforms of leather, denim, and suiting, and the self-described 'coolest publisher in the world' IDEA continuously sells ‘WINONA’-emblazoned tees and caps. All while Winona herself stays intensely private.
It was in the basement of Marc Jacobs’ New York store that Robert Rich brought another side of Winona to the fore. It was 1999, and Rich was vice president of public relations for Marc Jacobs. Situated on Mercer Street, the store’s bottom floor became a bit of a “secret clubhouse” for famous friends like Kate Moss and Sofia Coppola, who would hang out in Rich’s office, where the walls were plastered with Polaroids and magazine pages. Rich always had his camera on hand to capture them playing dress up and hanging out. Winona arrived in one day and the two struck up a deep friendship that went from Mercer Street to the Met Gala, LA to New York, Soho bars to sleepovers – and he snapped away, becoming her 'shnookie' and Winona his 'shnookums'.
Two decades on, Rich is releasing an intimate photobook that speaks to their closely held friendship, and sees Winona at her most candid. The book is published by IDEA, and was made in collaboration with creative director Francesca Sorrenti with a foreword by Marc Jacobs. It includes over 100 photos – Rich’s Polaroids of Winona making wacky faces and dressing up, hanging with Grace Jones and Keanu Reeves’ mum, at the Met Gala. There’s also clippings from Star Magazine and red-top tabloids featuring the pair, where Rich is billed as a ‘mystery man’. It’s funny, vulnerable, glam, surreal.
Before the book launch at Dover Street Market New York and from his house in Pennsylvania, Robert Rich discusses their friendship, archiving a scene, and why Winona is truly forever.
Hey Robert. When did the idea of a photobook first come about?
Robert Rich: Years ago, I was talking to Sofia Coppola about doing a book. She's a good friend of mine, but it just never happened. I forgot about it. She did her own book, and my office wall – with the Polaroids and tearsheets – is in it. Then around last September, I was looking at IDEA and all their Winona posts and merch. So I DMed them and asked outright: 'You guys do all this Winona stuff. Would you be interested in doing a book of over 20 years of pictures?'. They said yes. That's how it started. I ran into Francesca Sorrenti and I asked her to be the creative director. We've worked on it for about a year.
Before you met her, what was your affinity to Winona? What was your gateway?
Robert Rich: I fell in love with this poster of Winona shot by Annie Leibowitz for The Gap. She's looking to camera, her shoulder exposed. It was in the 80s, and very of a time. I begged a friend who worked at Gap for the poster, but she wouldn't give it to me!
I was working at the Marc Jacobs store and Winona walked in. I went right up to her and told her I loved Girl, Interrupted, which I'd just seen. She said, ‘that’s a girl’s movie!’. Well, I said, ‘I’m a girl’s movie kind of guy’. Our friendship just started from there.
What was it like going from seeing her as a cultural artefact, to fostering a true friendship?
Robert Rich: I mean, I'd have to pinch myself sometimes. Working at Marc Jacobs, you'd have Winona come in, and then Kate Moss would appear. Grace Jones would drop by. Somehow, everybody was always in town at the same time. We'd be introducing everybody to each other.
Winona would come into the store, and because she'd always have a different look for a different movie, I wouldn't even recognise her half the time. She’d be blonde, we'd be talking and it'd just dawn on me! I travelled to LA a lot for Marc with trunk shows and she'd be there. We had a bicoastal friendship.
“I love that [Polaroid cameras] can capture the magic of these quick little moments – or they might not develop right and it disappears. But that's fine! They can come out amazing, bad, or not at all – it didn't matter. A thrill, or five, that you'll always find again” – Robert Rich
Your office walls are an incredible backdrop – an artefact itself!
Robert Rich: Most of the book’s images were taken in the basement. The wall was covered in pictures, it had like 20 layers. It started off as pictures from Marc's campaigns and magazines. I'd put an image up of a person, they'd come in soon after. Magic. Manifesting! I was obsessed with W, Paper Magazine, Dazed, you name it. I bought every magazine set up in Europe. And everyone was wearing Marc.
With an archive like that, how do you even begin the editing process?
Robert Rich: I have all these Marc Jacobs shoe boxes of Polaroids. I know all these photos so well, but when I sat down to pull them all together, it was a lot. Having Francesca [Sorrenti] look at them with a fresh eye – to say what her favourites were, what images brought others together – that helped. Now I have the boxes organised by who they're of – Winona, Sofia, Selma Blair, Natasha Lyonne…
How did you work with Winona on it?
Robert Rich: She went through a few rough drafts and gave edits, took things out and had additions. It was a real journey for her as much as it was for me. We'd take 20 Polaroids at a time when we were together – some good, bad, goofy. I'd keep a few in my back pocket to develop and at the end of the day, we'd see if they were good.
There's no captions or textual narrative markers. Was that deliberate?
Robert Rich: One thing I really regret is not dating them. But their meaning, mood, the scene they represent is still so clear to me. Like the one photo of Winona with Kate Moss and Keanu Reeves' mother – I just remember what an amazing, spontaneous day that was. There were a million paparazzi outside all day, while Kate was in our basement cutting away at gowns on Winona to make mini dresses. We went for dinner that night in Soho.
Do you have a favourite memory with Winona?
Robert Rich: When we went to the Met Gala together, when Marc and Kate hosted [in 2009]. I was blown away. Madonna was there. I wore a Marc Jacobs tux of course, and Winona had her hair short and wore a short black dress.
I love your 'Winona Wednesday' Instagram posts. Has the online space influenced your relationship to your work, to archiving, and memory?
Robert Rich: I have so many Winona fans following me now that start chasing me to post when I miss a Wednesday! It's so fun. It gives me a fresh perspective on what are really precious memories, that they’re these cultural artefacts to people. But my Instagram otherwise is puppies and sunsets, as my friends will tell you. Winona will never be an Instagram girl, either.
It's funny to see different photography mediums make little resurgences – the Polaroid, and now the digital camera.
Robert Rich: I worked for Keith Haring in the 80s and I ran the Pop Shop in Soho. He always took Polaroids with celebrities – Madonna, Farrah Fawcett, Grace Jones. He was with everybody. I love that they can capture the magic of these quick little moments – or they might not develop right and it disappears. But that's fine! They can come out amazing, bad, or not at all – and it didn't matter. A thrill – or five – that you'll always find again. I filled a whole refrigerator at Marc Jacobs with film when Polaroid was going out of business. I'm bringing a camera to the launch party.
There's also paparazzi shots and tabloid pages in the book – of the both of you! It's interesting to see them here now that there's a contemporary lens reconsidering tabloid and celebrity culture. There's more of a sense of humour here though, and they're quite dynamic.
Robert Rich: I love those natural, moving shots of Jackie O, Madonna, and Sean Penn in the 80s. And I love the 90s shots of Winona and Kate. I would paste paparazzi shots on the wall. I mean, paparazzi used to come to me and give me a CD of the shots of us outside the store or the Mercer Hotel, that whole block. It was fun! I knew them all. Now, everyone's a paparazzi with their phones.
The paparazzi-celebrity relationship has evolved too. I interviewed Julia Fox recently and we talked about the staging of paparazzi shots and how she's leveraging it to control her privacy and wider cultural narrative.
Robert Rich: There's less opportunity for the spontaneous paparazzi shots too – and they're some of my favourite images.
Both you and Winona's humour really comes across too in the photos. Who's the bigger joker?
Robert Rich: I love the pretend makeout photos – they're my favourite. Winona has always had a great sense of humour. Wicked, sharp. We’d have sleepovers and just laugh and laugh.
“I love the pretend makeout photos [of us] – they're my favourite. Winona has always had a great sense of humour. Wicked, sharp. We’d have sleepovers and just laugh and laugh” – Robert Rich
What's the key to a decades-long friendship?
Robert Rich: Humour definitely. Trust. Doing things and sharing moments together. I went to Jimmy Fallon with her, I was at SNL with her mom and dad and helped her get ready. We've been through so many life moments together. All the people in my photos I feel are lifelong friends – Winona, Kate, Sofia, Natasha, Selma, Maya Rudolph.
Who would you do a book on next?
Robert Rich: I'd love to do a book of just everyone who came by the office, our clubhouse! But I'd love to do Selma, or Kate.
Is there a Winona era that you particularly love?
Robert Rich: I have this black and white photo of her from the 90s in my house, it’s just of her face. She’s all hair, intense and beautiful. I told her I loved it a few times and she just gave it to me.
Winona defines an almost inarticulable kind of cool that existed in a very specific cultural and social landscape. Is that style of 'cool' still possible, or was it alchemical in the time?
Robert Rich: I don't know how anyone today could ever match up to those figures, like Winona, when we by default know so much about everyone. We know what brand of toilet paper everyone uses. Where's the mystery? With people like Winona, you know exactly what they represent, but you could also make them into whatever you wanted in your mind to love and admire. We know everybody so completely now. I don't think that energy exists anymore. Does anyone come to mind for you?
Maybe Alexa Demie? She's in one of the most generation-defining TV shows and drives this prominent aesthetic with her character Maddie, and chooses to work with really cool people carefully, but very much leads a private life. You can fill the gaps around her. Lily-Rose Depp and Frank Ocean maybe emulate that too.
Robert Rich: Yes! The mystery and allure. They can still do things that are unexpected.
When everyone knows the blueprint, it's not as beguiling anymore. Winona forever!
Robert Rich: And ever!
THE WINONA BOOK by Robert Rich is out on IDEA. Get yours here.