Self-portrait by Julie Skarratt, taken this year. Black velvet tuxedo jacket by Ralph Lauren Black Label, all jewelry by Rebecca Raft for www.bouvier.com.au. For all portraits taken this year: Hair by Mia Santiago at Sharon Dorram at Sally Hershberger; makeup by Cindy Rodriguez, NARS Lead Makeup Stylist. 122 QUEST
J U L I E S K A R R AT T ( S E L F - P O RT R A I T T H I S PA G E ) ; CO U RTE S Y O F J U L I E S K A R R AT T
models were selling their own personas. “With Christy and Naomi and that covergirl from Canada [Linda Evangelista], they really changed it. They started promoting themselves and calling magazines, saying, ‘We’ll be at this restaurant, come photograph us.’ I was just before that. We had agents.” (And not just any agent: Skarratt was represented by Eileen Ford herself.) Skarratt downplays her success as a model for laughs—“Everybody else was jumping on the Concorde; I wasn’t”—and it’s with similar whimsy that she explains how she became a photographer. She had received a camera as a gift, but had never picked it up until, one day, a friend who drove racecars invited her to watch him compete. The race was the 1986 Grand Prix of Miami, and her friend was Paolo Barilla. Barilla won. “All of a sudden, I was right there in the middle of everything with my little camera,” Skarratt recalls. “It was so exciting! Afterwards, everybody wanted my pictures. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, that was really fun.’”