Sarah Moon

Born: Vichy, France, 1941

Sarah Moon was born Marielle Hadengue to a family of Jewish origin in 1941. She left France during the Second World War and moved to England where she studied drawing in Art School before becoming a leading fashion model in 1960. She took up fashion photography in 1966 and worked on the “Modinsolite Exhibition of Avant-Garde Fashion Photography” where her work was noticed for the first time.

Moon soon became recognized for her impressionistic style and started working with Vogue Magazine, Nova, Elle, the British edition of Harper’s Bazaar, Marie-Claire, Votre Beaute, and many others.

In 1981 took place her first retrospective called “Improbable Memories” featuring work with distressed surfaced to make them look as aged as the settings she chose to work on.

Four years later, she gave a personal interpretation to girl heroines like The Little Red Riding Hood and The Little Match Girl.

Since 1980, Moon has done more than 150 clips and advertising films for such clients as Bally, Barney’s,Courreges, TWA, Dupont, Essel, Revlon and Danone but it is her regular work on fashion campaigns for Cacharel that really made her famous.

In 1971 she received the J. Arthur Rank Gold Award in London and in 1983 she was awarded the Andy Award of Merit and the International Center of Photography Award for Fashion Photography in New York. A year later she received the Clio Award. She was finally awarded a Silver Lion Award in Cannes in 1989.

In 1990 she was an honored guest at the Fashion Festival of Budapest, and had a solo exhibition at the Staley-Wise Gallery in New York two years later. The same year she also worked on her first film “Mississippi One”.

She exposed at the “Rencontres Photographiques” in Arles, France in 1994.

In 2002 an exhibition of her work allying grace and violence was held at the Contemporary Art museum in Kyoto.

Moon is today aged 82 and resides in Paris, France.

Sarah Moon Biography