A Pygmalion figure, Lopez brilliantly transformed the women in his world, both on paper and in person. Under his tutelage, his onetime fiancée Jerry Hall, a hillbilly Texan he met at Paris’s Club Sept, evolved into a golden goddess; a gawky and gap-toothed Donna Jordan morphed into a bleached-blonde and browless Marilyn (a look referenced by Madonna in her “Deeper and Deeper” video—and by W, in a September 2010 fashion story starring Lara Stone). He put Jessica Lange in gold lamé evening dresses after discovering her in Paris studying mime; gave aspiring model Tina Lutz her start (and an introduction to future husband Michael Chow); and, by spotlighting Pat Cleveland, a mixed-race model with a theatrical streak, he helped break down the color barrier in high fashion. “He was the Gauguin of our time,” says Cleveland. “An artist who painted with many colors.” As Paul Caranicas, who was Juan Ramos’s longtime lover and now oversees the Lopez estate, notes, “It was kind of groundbreaking.”
And yet, despite his fame and influence, Lopez, who died from AIDS in 1987 at 44, has faded from the public consciousness. Fashion’s fickle behavior is partially to blame, but more so the stigma associated with AIDS at the time of his death. “So many people who died pre-Internet, and especially those who died in the early days of AIDS, have really been thrust under the carpet,” says Roger Padilha. The aim of his book, he adds, is to introduce Lopez to a new generation. To that end, the Padilhas have invited the New York gallerist Suzanne Geiss to mount a companion show, opening September 7 at her SoHo space (see “Upstairs, Downstairs,”). The exhibition, which spans three decades, includes Lopez’s nightclub illustrations, a wall of his Instamatic photographs, unfinished sketches, personal drawings, and several of his candid 8-millimeter films, one of which stars a young and goofy Bill Cunningham, the New York Times style photographer. Most of the cache has never been seen before; all of it looks just as cool and commanding as it did in its day. “Antonio was so in touch with beauty that people keep coming back to him,” Caranicas says. “They keep coming back to the source.”
