Melanie Ward: Remembering the trailblazing stylist in her own words

On the evening of Wednesday, October 22, the family of Melanie Ward announced that the British fashion icon had passed away after “a brave battle with cancer”. Remembered for her trailblazing career as a fashion editor and stylist, Ward quietly pioneered the grunge aesthetic of the 1990s alongside David Sims and Corinne Day, helped launch the career of a 15-year-old Kate Moss in The Face magazine, and was Helmut Lang’s muse and collaborator throughout the 90s and 2000s, among countless other achievements. In this touching personal essay, originally published in the February 2010 issue of Dazed & Confused, Ward reflects on her career in her own words.

Up until the age of 18, I was taught by nuns… I was always getting sent to the chapel to pray for forgiveness! I got a BA (hons) from London University in Politics and Languages and was studying Sartre during the day, but by night I was on my aunt’s sewing machine making clothes. They would be sexy but often androgynous, like I would find a way to twist a man’s dressing gown. A few years later, I was wearing one of my creations at a party in London when a woman who worked for L’Oreal came up and said, ‘I love what you’re wearing, where did you buy it?’ I didn’t even know what styling was, and there she was offering me £300 to do it!

I met David Sims and Corinne Day and instantly clicked with them. It was very unglamorous – David and I would set up backdrops on the fire escapes of a London studio, and Corinne, Kate Moss and I would spend freezing afternoons on English beaches. The whole grunge thing was the polar opposite of what was going on in fashion. At that time, it was all about supermodels, maximalism, even the way the film was processed – but our collaborations were very grainy, raw, and black and white. We would go on appointments with our portfolio and people didn’t know what to make of what we were doing. They said, ‘This isn’t fashion, this is documentary.’ No advertisers would touch us. The only people that really got it were bands, who wanted that loose thing with your pants hanging off your hip bones. I’ve always found the undone look really sexy.

Our collaborations and ambitions were never defined by money, success or ego. It was really about experimentation

– Melanie Ward

Our collaborations and ambitions were never defined by money, success or ego. It was really about experimentation, having fun with friends and creating images, documenting voyeuristic moments. There were no rules, we just did what we felt in our guts, and that happened to be the antithesis of what was going on at the time. Then I met Ronnie Cooke and Calvin Klein, who saw something and believed in it. They flew us to New York where we did those early campaigns with Kate, and they gave me full creative freedom.

Helmut [Lang] wrote me a letter after liking things that were published in The Face, and we decided to collaborate. They were 13 prolific years. I got into minimalism, but I’ve always had a certain irreverence, and have never been afraid to cut a hole in a cashmere sweater. I think the role of stylist has completely changed since then. When I began, it was always about inspiring ourselves, and in the process we were often inspiring the designers. Our editorial pictures would be on their inspiration boards – it was flattering.

I’ve been at Harper’s Bazaar for 15 years. When I met [former editor-in chief] Liz Tilberis, she was admiring the work I was doing with Jil Sander and Calvin Klein. She had been the ‘naughty girl’ at Vogue and she wanted me to be that for Bazaar. Once, David Sims and I went all the way to Miami to shoot a story to get the right light. I could never repeat what it cost, and Liz was cross, but within a couple of days it was one of her favourite shoots ever.

Throughout the years, all of my friends have been saying, ‘Why don’t you make your own collection?’ because I’ve been making my own clothes since I was a child. The starting point for Blouson Noir was making things that women really want to wear, and the name came from Les Blousons Noirs, who were the precursors to punk, these rebels who ran around in leather jackets. I still feel that there is a little bit of a rebel in me…