Skip to content

Big deals, big parties, big dresses: Dafydd Jones’ 90s New York


Unlock Editor’s Digest for free

In 1981, returning from art school and looking for work in his hometown of Oxford, Welsh photographer Dafydd Jones decided to focus his camera on life at university. His photographs of the beautiful and privileged eating at his clubs caught the attention of editor Tina Brown, who hired Jones to photograph tatler in London, and later to vanity fair In New York. “In England I became too well known as tatler photographer,” says Jones about his move to the United States. “It was wonderful to be invisible again.”

His latest book, New York: high life/low lifebrings together for the first time his photographs of New York in the 90s. Working the city’s social scene with his Leica M4-2 and his Starblitz flash, Jones chronicled the mystique and haute couture of the time, its pomp , their big budgets and their great personalities.

Martha Reed with a champagne stick at the Spanish Institute Gold Medal Gala, The Pierre, 1989
Martha Reed with a champagne stick at the Spanish Institute Gold Medal Gala, The Pierre, 1989 © Dafydd Jones
New York City Ballet Annual Luncheon, The Waldorf, 1988
New York City Ballet Annual Luncheon, The Waldorf, 1988 © Dafydd Jones

A 1990 photograph shows archaeologist Iris Love’s dog (Just Desserts) and socialite Brooke Astor’s dog (Dolly Astor) competing for puppy-friendly hors d’oeuvres at a dachshund party hosted at the Barbetta trattoria in Midtown West. . Others reveal the restful expressions of their subjects: a grim-faced Rupert Murdoch in a New York Magazine celebration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1993, or Diane von Furstenberg with satisfaction trying out catering in the bustling kitchen of the Four Seasons hotel during a Sunday charity party in 1989.

Mica Ertegun and Irith Landeau leave the Literary Lions party at the New York Public Library, 1989
Mica Ertegun and Irith Landeau leave the Literary Lions party at the New York Public Library, 1989 © Dafydd Jones

It is also a portrait of a time during which New York’s creative community was “being decimated” by AIDS, Jones writes in the introduction. “One night they gave me a list of parties, one of which was at a private apartment on 23rd Street. When I arrived, I realized something was wrong and slowed down. Was Robert MapplethorpeThe last birthday party. A terribly sad occasion as he clearly did not have long to live. He was surrounded by his friends.”

Saul Steinberg at his 50th birthday party in Quogue, New York, 1989
Saul Steinberg at his 50th birthday party in Quogue, New York, 1989 © Dafydd Jones

But it’s the creative energy of the era, the money that flowed through magazines and institutions, that stands out most for Jones: Aretha Franklin at the 1994 pre-Grammy celebration at the Plaza Hotel, flanked by the acclaimed producer record label Clive Davis and Robbie. Brooks, or André Leon Talley spraying John Galliano’s white hair at the Industria Superstudio photography studio. “In retrospect, these images are already of a very different New York City,” he writes. “Only the dramatic weather remains the same.”

New York: High Life/Low Life by Dafydd Jones is published by CAC art books at £30