Fairer was born in 1966 in London. He grew up on
King's Road and was never without a camera. Being part of London's emerging art and fashion scene in the 1980s and 1990s, he began photographing friends and was encouraged to pursue a career in photography. Fascinated by wildlife photography, he traveled to Africa for three months with a telephoto lens to document the animals on the savannah. With the help of his wife and agent, he gained access to London Graduate Week in 1992, and photographed the
Central Saint Martins graduate show which featured the collection of
Lee Alexander McQueen. Fairer graduated from
London School of Printing in 1993, and soon became a household name at fashion week in
London,
Milan,
Paris and
New York. With his
Hasselblad camera, he discovered the backstage area by chance and began photographing behind the scenes beauty stories and supermodels minutes before they walked onto the catwalk. He was one of the only backstage photographers and the stories didn't exist in the fashion magazines at the time. He used a 35mm camera and changed to medium format in the 1990s before changing to digital. He would try to sell his stories after the catwalk shows and bring a suitcase with transparencies and a portable lightbox to magazine editors including Fashion Editor
Isabella Blow at
Vogue magazine and
Terry Jones at
i-D magazine. From 1995 to 2001 he worked as a contributing photographer for
Elle UK, ''
Harper's Bazaar US and InStyle
magazine. In 2001 he was hired by American Vogue'' and became the magazine's contracted lensman working with Editor-in-chief
Anna Wintour and Fashion Editor
André Leon Talley on backstage, runway, editorial, celebrity and wedding stories. Directed to capture "life in the pictures," his backstage photographs would cover up to 15 pages in
Vogue front of book. Having exclusive backstage access for a decade was made to a halt with the 2009 recession and arrival of social media. Fairer began digitizing his archive after working with the
Victoria & Albert Museum on their publication accompanying the
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition in 2015. He has published five books devoted to his backstage photography. In 2021 his first solo exhibition 'Robert Fairer Backstage Pass: Dior, Galliano, Jacobs, and McQueen,' was held at
SCAD Fash Museum of Fashion and curated by director of fashion exhibitions Rafael Gomes. The exhibition showcased the glamour and spirit of backstage from 1998 to 2010. It featured shots of supermodels
Gisele Bundchen,
Naomi Campbell,
Kate Moss, makeup artists
Pat McGrath and
Val Garland, hair stylists Julien D'Ys and Orlando Pita, and milliners
Stephen Jones and
Philip Treacy. == Publications ==