The cover of the July 1986 issue of The Face is a portrait of the Parisian model and designer Marthe Lagache with swept-back blonde hair and winged blue eye shadow looking every bit high 80s. Among the cover lines, right below “Billy Idol: The Rock Fantasy Made Flesh,” is a curious entry: “Beirut Fashion: The Trappings of Terror.” At the time, Lebanon was in its 11th year of what would be a 15-year war that would leave some 150,000 dead and nearly a million people displaced. The corresponding article, on page 81, starting opposite an ad for the American jazz band Hiroshima’s new album, was a photo series by the photographer Oliver Maxwell, shot in studio of models dressed and outfitted to represent the different factions then fighting in Lebanon. It was a curious addition to the British magazine that covered music, culture, and fashion magazine known for launching Kate Moss’s career.
The photographer, Maxwell, came up with the idea for the photoshoot when he was flipping through books at Foyles on Charing Cross Road and came across Osprey publishing the “Men-at-Arms” book series. Osprey was known then and now for publishing soft-cover illustrated military reference books. Men-at-Arms currently have over 500 titles and are “packed with specially commissioned artwork, maps and diagrams, the Men-at-Arms series is an unrivaled illustrated reference on the history, organisation, uniform, and equipment of the world's military forces, past and present.” The year prior to Maxwell’s shoot, Osprey had published the Men-at-Arms title “Armies in Lebanon 1982-84.” This would serve as the main inspiration for the piece.
Maxwell “took the notion to Features Editor Paul Rambali, who was always open to new ideas outside of the usual remit,” he wrote in a 2019 forward for a republication of the photo spread on The Face’s website. Talking to Combat Threads, Maxwell explained why he was drawn to the subject, “There was all this stuff going on in the Middle East, mainly in Beirut, with all these different factions, and they're not very clear.” In an email to another blog in 2015, Maxwell added, “I instigated the story when realised that I had no idea who exactly were the many factions fighting each other in Lebanon and no one else could really explain it clearly to me.”
After getting the green light from Rambali and the owner Nick Logan (“basically he'd do anything if it didn't cost him anything.”), he set about researching and gathering the needed materials, including the Men-at-Arms book and speaking to journalists with experience in the region. “I got some of those books, but it didn't really tell you much… it was quite curious trying to make out who would shoot who, 'cause it's not like, but they've all got uniforms,” said Maxwell in our interview.
After first floating the idea of going to Beirut to shoot the series (nixed due to insurance and safety concerns), they settled on shooting it in Maxwell’s studio with hired models. Unfortunately, Maxwell can’t recall much of the process of securing the uniforms or props used for the shoot. “It took a while. I had to put everything together, and it was as accurate as I could get,” said Maxwell, remembering, “there used to be a very good store called Laurence Corner, and that was the source of anything military. They just sold ex-military uniforms and the like, so definitely got loads of stuff there, and for some of them, you just had to wing it.” (Edit note: Laurence Corner was a “famous chic Army Surplus store” in London, which closed in 2007. Some of the storied customers included Kate Moss, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Vivienne Westwood.)
The subsequent photo spread, with text and hearty captions by the editor Paul Rambali, was published under the headline, “Who’s Shooting Who?” in the July 1986 issue of The Face. As you can see, the photos do a fantastic job of capturing the details documented in the Men-at-Arms book. Considering this was all photographed in London, the fact that the conflict was ongoing, and much was based on a book covering the previous years of the war, the details of the spread are remarkably well done. And of course, much of this is subjective, as it is documenting armed groups that wore no unified uniform.
Response by some was negative. Time Out and The Guardian both took issue with The Face’s story. “It all kicked off; it was great,” remembers Maxwell. It is hard to take the sparring that took place in the column inches of these publications out of the context of both British media and the era. While the critics called the piece “silly” and the result of “moral numbness” while also using joking, ironic language. “We appreciate that those who work at The Face stand in front of the mirror for an hour each morning before they day enter street combat, but is this a joke or what?” wrote Time Out. The media critic at The Guardian complained that the spread didn’t have a credit line for the “natty neck-scarf” worn by the Italian peacekeeper.
Maxwell thinks most of the criticism stemmed from the magazine’s cover line. “The problem was the sub-editor, whoever did the cover, put it as ‘Beirut Fashion.’ Now, I could have told him this was going to confuse some people,” says Maxwell, adding, “People just didn't get it.” He insists the spread was never meant to be a “fashion” spread but a genuine attempt to make sense of the different factions in Lebanon. Of course, all the fuss about it only led to it spreading far and wide. With Maxwell still having the copyright of the images, he was able to sell them to other publications. Harpers in the US and Actuel in France both published the images.
I think another reason contributed to why this particular story hit a nerve when it came out. It has to do with how people — living in mostly peaceful societies with volunteer armies — understand and process images of war. For many of us – including myself – the only way we “experience” conflict is through media. War is siloed off into categories of media understood to be appropriate. Like the evening news, well-respected broadsheets, history books, documentaries, and reference works like the Osprey Men-at-Arms books, to name a few. These are the contexts that allow for war to be shown. When war escapes these contexts, it can shock the viewer. The Face is not the publication you’d open up expecting to see a photospread on the ongoing war in Lebanon – it is shocking.
I have talked about this before with clothing not associated with conflict, is seen in images from war. I argue in that case, and here, that the collapse of any barrier between the viewer and the image forces the viewer to reconsider it. For many, war has become content that one can decide to consume or not. Your media diet can avoid it, or you can seek it out. It can be seen as inappropriate when it intrudes and wanders outside of its bounds. But truly, what is being deemed inappropriate is not the images themselves but them being where they shouldn’t be. In the case of the photos in The Face, none of the critics took issue (or likely knew about) the Osprey book published years earlier. By being published in The Face, people who would never crack open an Osprey book had to notice and formulate an opinion – which is a good thing.
* * *
If you want to learn more about the 15-year war in Lebanon, I’d suggest Robert Fisk’s Pity The Nation (1990). And special Thanks to Oliver Maxwell, who spoke to me for this post. You can see his current work here.
Till next time,
C.W.M.
* * *