Ferdinando Scianna’s foray into fashion photography happened by chance. The then new label, Dolce and Gabbana, wanted to commission a photographer not from a fashion background and chose him. The characteristic approach Scianna developed to photographing fashion drew heavily on his background as a documentarian of his home country, with Italian social traditions, religious iconography, and the concept of the matriarch as the head of the family coming together to shape his style.
This contact sheet contains the Dutch model Marpessa in a in a Villa Palagonia, Bagheria, Sicily, Italy, 1987.
Ferdinando Scianna joined Magnum Photos in 1982.
