One of his first jobs was for fashion designer
Halston as an illustrator. Meisel taught illustration part-time at his alma mater, Parsons School of Design. Later on, while working at ''
Women's Wear Daily as an illustrator, he went to Elite Model Management where Oscar Reyes, a booker who liked his illustrations, allowed him to take pictures of some of their models. In his spare time, Meisel would photograph models. One was future film star Phoebe Cates. She went to a casting for Seventeen magazine to show her portfolio, which held some of his photography, and the people at Seventeen'' subsequently contacted Meisel and hired him. Meisel worked for many different fashion magazines, most notably
Interview and US and Italian
Vogue. His first Vogue cover was for the August 1986 issue of the British edition. For almost three decades, he captured the photographs for each cover and main editorial spread in Italian
Vogue. He also shot most of the covers for
Anna Wintour's Vogue from the mid 90s to early 2000s. In 2014, he portrayed 50 models for the 50th anniversary of
Vogue Italia. In March 2024 he photographed again another group this time of 40 personalities for Edward Enninful's final issue of British Vogue. The July 2008 issue of
Vogue Italia featured only black models, and was entirely photographed by Meisel. It was a response to increasing criticism of racism in the fashion industry and became the best-selling issue in the magazine's history. When asked about the issue, Meisel said: "Obviously I feel that fashion is totally racist. The one thing that taking pictures allows you to do is occasionally make a larger statement. After seeing all the shows though I feel it was totally ineffective. I was curious—because it received a lot of publicity—whether it would have any effect on New York, London, Paris, or Milan, and I found that it did not. They still only had one token black girl, maybe two. It’s the same as it always was and that’s the sad thing for me." Meisel has contributed photos for the covers of several popular albums and singles, including two RIAA Diamond-certified albums,
Madonna's 1984 album
Like a Virgin and
Mariah Carey's 1995 album
Daydream. and Mariah Carey's single "
Fantasy" (simply a different crop of the photo on the cover of the
Daydream album). He also directed the music video for
Deborah Harry's single "
Sweet and Low" alongside fashion designer
Stephen Sprouse.
Fashion campaigns Meisel has shot for
Versace,
Balenciaga,
Loewe,
Calvin Klein,
Alberta Ferretti, and
Barneys New York. Since 2004 to 2016, Meisel has shot
Prada campaigns each season. Then he moved to
Zara. and later that year he shot her for the 2009 spring campaign by
Louis Vuitton. He is a close friend of designer
Anna Sui, for whom he has also shot several campaigns, even though Sui rarely uses advertising to promote her clothing.
Influence As one of the most powerful photographers in the fashion industry, Meisel is credited with "discovering" or promoting the careers of many successful models over the last 40 years, including
Linda Evangelista,
Guinevere Van Seenus,
Karen Elson,
Kristen McMenamy,
Raquel Zimmermann,
Sasha Pivovarova,
Naomi Campbell,
Iris Strubegger, He frequently satirizes the mannerisms and extravagance of the fashion world. One example is the editorial "Makeover Madness," which spanned eighty pages in
Vogue Italia in 2005 and depicted models undergoing various body interventions, dressed in couture but wrapped in
gauze. A September 2006 photoshoot for the magazine, entitled "
State of Emergency", was also criticized for eroticizing torture and
police brutality.
Books and exhibitions In 1992, Meisel collaborated with Madonna to develop the controversial book
Sex. A book collecting some of his photographs, titled
Steven Meisel, was published by German
teNeues Buchverlag in 2003 and sold out. In 2014–2015,
Phillips held an exhibition called "Role Play" that featured some of the photographic work of Meisel throughout the years, and which took place in the cities of Paris, London, New York, and Miami. In April 2023, it was announced that a new book showcasing the collaborations between Meisel and his longtime muse Linda Evangelista, titled
Linda Evangelista Photographed by Steven Meisel, would be released in September 2023 by
Phaidon Press. ==Personal life==