It took a lot for a supermodel of the nineties to cut her hair into a boyish crop. But that's exactly what Linda Evangelista did at the encouragement of Peter Lindbergh: an imagemaker proper, and, with Evangelista enjoying a career revival post-cut, a queenmaker too.
Of course, the German-born photographer told The Independent in 1997 how "totally ridiculous" he found the response. "It was not like redefining the world or something." And yet, with the announcement of his death, the fashion industry is mourning a leading creative who, many will argue, did that very thing.
Lindbergh was born in Lissa of German-occupied Poland, 1944, and began his career in the early 1960s with an admission to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. Though instead of "painting the mandatory portraits and landscapes taught in art schools", the student chose to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Vincent Van Gogh, and hitchhiked all the way to Arles, only to then temporarily relocate to Spain and Morocco.
It wasn't until 1971 in which Lindbergh found his calling. Photography forged a path to work at Stern, a weekly magazine still published in Hamburg, and one that saw the ascendant artist in good company alongside Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton.
But, unlike the fashion photography of the time (hyper-stylised, and retouched), Lindbergh's work focused on realism: subjects were depicted as human, in realistic situations, almost normal people no matter how large their fame or prestige. It was a breath of fresh air, and compelled the leading models of the era - Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford, and Christy Turlington - to pose together for the first time on the January 1990 cover of British Vogue.
Lindbergh's résumé swelled over the years in menswear too: Eddie Redmayne for Interview magazine in 2011, Pharrell Williams in 2014, Jake Gyllenhaal in 2015, and Robert Pattinson for Dior in 2016 - all, again, in the same photojournalist-inspired style, often in movement, and almost always in the upper echelons of Hollywood's elite.
This cinematic approach saw Lindbergh charged with the 'Portofino' campaign of Swiss luxury watch marque IWC. Emily Blunt, Christophe Waltz, Ewan McGregor, Zhou Xun and Cate Blanchett, all pictured in unison.
For all its tuxedo-armoured lustre, the short film seemed organic. Such a feat wasn't the sole result of the A-list cast's combined craft (as talented as they are): it takes certain direction, too, of which Lindbergh was all too capable of providing.
In an age of constant image creation, of complicated art direction, of models booked for dozens upon dozens of campaigns a year, Lindbergh's approach felt refreshingly stripped back, and added much more in the process. It will continue to do so.
