“Culture Shift” Revisits the Radical Legacy of One British Magazine’s Boundary-Pushing Photography

Recently, curatorial consultant Lee Swillingham told Observer “…a completely true story.” Photographer Sean Ellis and stylist Isabella Blow collaborated on a photo shoot inspired by the 1981 film Excalibur. Blow oversaw the fashion: armor against a dark, cloudy sky. “There was [Alexander] Lee McQueen holding the sword, and just for a moment, it looked like an extremely old painting—it all of a sudden felt timeless. I said to Sean jokingly, ‘I think this will hang in the National Portrait Gallery one day,’” Swillingham recalled.