'Ossie Clark Aeroplane 1969', photographed by Jim Lee in 1969, printed by Brigida Mendes at the RCA, London, 2006.

This image was photographed for an Ossie Clark poster of a Celia Birtwell print. It was named the Aeroplane print after the photograph. The girl was standing up and leaning over and the aeroplane was hanging on fishing wire in the background. The idea behind the use of the aeroplane was in response to the hem line of the dress, Jim Lee thought the hem line was random and therefore appeared floaty similar to how a bird may fly, and so he added the plane to symbolize the flying aspect of the image. When the image was printed it was printed twice, the negative was flipped to create the mirror image. There was no other post production effects used it was all done through the camera and printing. The camera used was a Nikon F camera with an 85mm lens.

Given by Jim Lee

Jim Lee established himself as a leading international photographer based in London, Paris, Milan and New York, shooting for such clients as Valentino, Alexander McQueen, Versace and Yves Saint Laurent in the late 1960/1970s. His great breakthrough was meeting the doyenne of fashion editors, Anna Wintour, at that time the assistant fashion editor at Harpers and Queen, who he regularly collaborated with to produce some of his best work. He continued to collaborate with Wintour after he mvoed to New York in 1975. Central to Lee's work is the concept of telling stories which he creates using casts of three or three hundred and extraordinary locations and props. He has recently re-emerged as an active photographer working on numerous magazine editorials with top fashion stylists.

This well known image from 1969 first re-appeared in the V&A Friends magazine in 2003 as a promotion for the forthcoming Ossie Clark exhibition in 2003/4 where Jim Lee had six photographs showing in the Ossie Clark retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum. However this image did not actually appear in the show. In recent years Jim Lee has moved seamlessly into directing TV commercials, his first film was for Levi's followed by several fashion and beauty commercials

The print on the Ossie Clark dress worn by the model in this image was designed by Celia Birtwell and has recently been updated by designers at Top Shop, London and forms part of a new collection of dresses which go on sale in their flagship London shop in April 2006.

Printed from the original negatives by a student of the Royal College of Art, London.

This image was photographed for an Ossie Clark poster of a Celia Birtwell print. It was named the Aeroplane print after the photograph. The girl was standing up and leaning over and the aeroplane was hanging on fishing wire in the background. The idea behind the use of the aeroplane was in response to the hem line of the dress. Jim Lee thought the hem line was random and therefore appeared to float like how a bird might fly, and so he added the plane to symbolize the flying aspect of the image.

E.10-2006