Anto­nio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fash­ion & Disco

If the name Anto­nio Lopez doesn’t ring a bell, sure­ly the clean lines and vibrant ges­tures of his work will. A sem­i­nal fash­ion illus­tra­tor who helped launch the careers of pro­to-super­mod­els Grace Jones and Jer­ry Hall, Lopez made his name dur­ing that brief, heady twi­light between the sex­u­al rev­o­lu­tion of the 1960s and the AIDS cri­sis of the 1980s.

His ascen­sion from New York’s bur­geon­ing hip­pie cul­ture to the run­ways of Paris and Milan is the focus a new por­trait-doc­u­men­tary by direc­tor James Crump (Black White + Gray: A Por­trait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Map­plethor­pe). Lopez’s brief, glit­ter­ing life is the per­fect synec­doche of gay lib­er­a­tion through fash­ion exper­i­men­ta­tion, and Crump treats his sub­ject like an ad hoc Vir­gil, lead­ing us through the city’s deca­dent heyday.

Born in Puer­to Rico, Lopez emi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States as a young boy, join­ing the scores of Bor­in­quenos who com­prised a size­able chunk of New York City’s Span­ish-speak­ing com­mu­ni­ty. After grad­u­at­ing from the pres­ti­gious High School of Art and Design, Lopez began his illus­tra­tion career in earnest at the Fash­ion Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy in the 1960s. Using resources like archive footage, pho­tographs and ani­mat­ed iter­a­tions of Lopez’ icon­ic draw­ings, the film paints a lov­ing por­trait of a soul sore­ly missed, and an excit­ing time long gone by. Although the for­mat of the film itself is a lit­tle con­ven­tion­al (“Ken Burns effect,” bump­tious music cues, etc), the fas­ci­nat­ing life of its sub­ject (and his art­sy milieu) com­pen­sates for any tech­ni­cal shortcomings.

Now syn­ony­mous with gen­der flu­id­i­ty and risk-tak­ing, the fash­ion indus­try was still rel­a­tive­ly tame when Lopez and co. hit the scene. Com­ing off a half cen­tu­ry of dress­ing debu­tantes and soci­ety matrons, by the late 1960s design­ers like Yves Saint-Lau­rent, Pierre Cardin, and Bill Blass had begun the long, slow, process of democ­ra­tis­ing cou­ture. The ​“ready to wear” rev­o­lu­tion gave any­one – male, female, or oth­er­wise – access to dar­ing new looks from across the pond. State­side, inroads made by Black lib­er­a­tion move­ments after World War Two set a foun­da­tion for sub­se­quent strug­gles, inspir­ing women’s groups and queer activists to bring sex­u­al­i­ty to the fore­front of the nation­al con­ver­sa­tion. While the rest of Amer­i­ca was still wrap­ping its head around indi­vid­ual sex­u­al free­dom, bohemi­an New York­ers were read­i­ly savour­ing the fruits of liberation.

New York City today would be unrecog­nis­able to the Anto­nio Lopezes of the word, but by look­ing back­ward, Crump brings the best of this won­drous era scream­ing into the present. We’ve come a long way from the days of quaaludes and abun­dant loft space, but sex­u­al lib­er­a­tion still con­tin­ues apace. As Lopez’ sto­ry proves, where and when you’re born is only half the bat­tle. From the cra­dle to the tomb, Lopez was always in the right place at the right time. But good tim­ing will only get you so far – it’s tal­ent and brav­ery, which he pos­sessed in abun­dance, that keeps you there.