Linda Evangelista by Arthur Elgort - Vogue (US), December 1993

“In the fall of 1993, the fashion photographer Arthur Elgort and I set off for a week-long trip to China to shoot a story called Eastern Light for American Vogue. When we arrived in Hong Kong for a night stopover, I decided I wanted to buy my first proper camera. Arthur came along with me to the electronic shops in downtown Kowloon and convinced me to buy a Leica, which I thought was way too complicated. But he said he would teach me; from then on, the whole trip became about my camera. Over the week, I was taking pictures non-stop, and in this shot I am taking a light-reading off my hand – a skill I learnt from Elgort.

Part of the magic of China, for me, is the mythological landscape of rural Guangxi, in the south of the country, where the backdrop of the otherworldly karst peaks seem straight out of a Chinese landscape painting. Here, we sailed down the Li River, dotted with rickety houseboats and the narrow bamboo rafts of fishermen who still use cormorants rather than nets to catch fish.

In Shanghai, we relished the city’s old-world delights. Here, Elgort took photographs of me ballroom dancing down the Bund, along the Huangpu River, which is an early-morning exercise regime the Shanghainese love to take part in. We also visited the institution that is the Shanghai Dumpling Shop, the opera house and the city’s famous Pudong district, where there is the well-known photo of me in a sea of cyclists.”

— Linda Evangelista

publication: Vogue - US
issue: December 1993
editorial: Eastern Light
model: Linda Evangelista
photographer: Arthur Elgort
hair: Didier Maligne
make-up: Mary Greenwell
fashion editor: Grace Coddington

source: Net a Porter, Scanned Fashion World, Arthur Elgort, Artsy