Now in his 80th year, Bruce Weber is showing no signs of slowing down. With a new photo book, My Education, a fresh Fall-Winter 2025-26 campaign for fashion brand Blauer, and a slew of other projects in the works, this soon-to-be octogenarian is brimming with life and optimism.
When we chat, he’s sporting a full white beard and his trademark bandana – appearing more like an ageing rock star than one of the world’s foremost fashion photographers. He speaks with a soft, engaging and playful tone, and has a sackful of fascinating stories of the great and good from a career that spans six decades, since his first big break with images in GQ in the late 1970s.
Weber’s CV and life reads like a motion picture – fashion campaigns for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Armani, Versace and many more; plus work with Andy Warhol, musicians such as jazz legend Chet Baker, celebs, sports stars and supermodels, as well as two Pirelli calendars to his name. His friends have included the likes of photographers Richard Avedon, Sir Don McCullin, Irving Penn and Diane Arbus, as well as influential fashion editors, Donatella Versace and the late screen legend Elizabeth Taylor.
He’s a cuddly bear of a man – pretty appropriate given his publishing company is named Little Bear Press, which has published some of Weber’s books and the independent arts journal All-American for 25 years. His two latest projects are Blauer’s AW25 campaign and a huge 564-page tome My Education. We dive in to find out the inside stories behind both from the man himself…
Bruce Weber
Behna Gardner
Square Mile //: How did the commission to shoot the Blauer campaign come about?
Bruce Weber //: Blauer knew me through a girl who works with me and also Andrea [Tenerani], who works at ICON magazine. They suggested that I photograph for them.
We had this big video conference call and they were all staring at me. Sometimes people think that I’m going to be like some of the guys I photograph – that I’ll have my shirt off and have this amazing body; then they get this stumpy guy.
I wasn’t sure I was really right for it, but I liked that it was a family business because I always worked in that milieu. They seemed nice and kind of looked at me in a quizzical way, but I thought, “Let’s try this – this will be a new experience”. I’m glad I did.
SM: Did you want the theme of family to be central to this campaign?
BW: Yes, because I liked the idea of the extended family – those who are maybe not your blood relatives, but your friends, people you meet on the streets or through sports, and they become your family. If you talk to guys in America about the most meaningful relationships in their life, many will talk about their coach and what he meant to them – and this could be 30 years later. I liked that idea, so I thought about people who would get along with each other, would hang out, and would all be together.
From the Blauer Fall/Winter 2025-26 collection
Bruce Weber
SM: Like much of your work, the Blauer campaign is in black and white. Do you prefer to work in black and white?
BW: Blauer were actually the ones who wanted it black and white. But I like it a lot.
I like Don McCullin’s pictures a lot. Once, I was driving out of London to do a sitting – it was pouring down with rain and foggy; there was no light. The camera would be open at a 15th [of a second] or something, and I called Don and said, “Don, I just passed your house. I can’t believe it. It’s so terrible, grey and dark out now and I’ve got to do these normal fashion pictures for British Vogue – how am I going to do it?”
He was laughing and he said, “Bruce, this is the greatest light and the greatest weather with the gloominess.” And I thought, ‘Yeah. He’s right – it could be gloomy, but wonderful.’
From the Blauer Fall/Winter 2025-26 collection
Bruce Weber
SM: What were the main challenges when shooting the campaign?
BW: There were a lot of big hurdles. Like, [people asking] “Why are their coats off?” I kept thinking about “What exactly is a coat?” At first, you wear a coat when you go to school and take it off for class. Then, when you play sports, you take the coat off. When you go out on a date with somebody you dig and you go to their place, they say, “Take your coat off”. It’s a way of saying welcome. I kinda wanted to show these coats off a lot. It was a funny way to get into the clothes; into the people.
It’s always good to get into a little trouble because when you’re photographing for somebody, and they have an image [in their heads], you want to push it even further.
I’m really respectful of the people that I work for, and I always try to do something they want to do. If I have a feeling that it’s not right, I’ll try to do my best and show them something I want to do with it, but they’re the judge of it. I have to leave it up to them to be the judge because that’s what goes out into the world.
From the Blauer Fall/Winter 2025-26 collection
Bruce Weber
From the Blauer Fall/Winter 2025-26 collection
Bruce Weber
SM: Where was the Blauer campaign shot?
BW: It was done last winter in Florida. They said the idea to go to Florida wasn’t right because it was palm trees etcetera, but I said, “no”. We took some pictures of some of the buildings and places, but I knew it wasn’t about the place; it was about the people.
We worked at a studio called Little River Studio, which I love because it’s so old school. People who work there have been making films for years, so I like photographing there because of that feeling.
My dog, that I just lost, is in some of the photographs and that’s nice. You see my dog there with the jackets and it reminds me of him so much as he loved me so much. I liked it that he’s right there with them.
SM: Are you happy with the results?
BW: Definitely. I’d say because I got to photograph children for them, which they don’t normally do and we made a video that I like a lot for them. I feel really good about it – it’s a really nice company and they really do good quality things.
What’s so great about their clothes is when there’s a zipper, it works. Nothing’s worse than having a coat and its zipper jams after the second week.
This shoot was all happening in the middle of my book, My Education, coming out. And I was also working on an album that Chet Baker did that’s never been released, that we recorded and salvaged. It’ll be in vinyl on a record when it comes out at the beginning of October.
The cover uses my pictures. I throw photography in there every way I can.
From the Blauer Fall/Winter 2025-26 collection
Bruce Weber
SM: What drove your initial interest in photography? I read that you got a camera for your 12th birthday…
BW: Yeah, my mom gave me a camera – a little Olympus. As it happens, that’s where I had my first show in London, at the Olympus Gallery.
It started early on. My great uncle travelled around the world and took pictures. He was a lawyer and had broken up with some woman that his parents wouldn’t let him marry because she wasn’t Jewish – and the next thing you know, he just travelled. He was broken-hearted and took beautiful pictures all over the world, so I started that way.
SM: Did you always want to be involved in fashion photography?
BW: I didn’t really think about fashion so much. I started just taking portraits of my family. I was lucky – my mom was really beautiful and my grandfather was a really handsome guy; he got dressed up in suits every day. I really got into photographing my dogs and was able to make a whole history of pretty much all of the dogs me and my wife have.
I never go into a fashion sitting thinking, “I’m doing fashion”. It’s the idea of making stories that I like. Sometimes you’re just photographing the dress, not even the person who’s wearing it or the detail in the suit. I like taking clothes – like from Anderson & Sheppard – and putting them on surfers and mountain climbers; people like that.
I like going to The Explorer’s Club in New York City and looking at the way that all the guys dress – that helps me a lot. It’s a very different world than my world, but I like that. I don’t really think, “This is going to be a fashion photograph”. I just want people to remember it.
Naomi Campbell, “I’m Just Mad, Mad, Mad about Little Pierre’s Big Sister Naomi Campbell,” Vogue Italia, New York City, 1994
Bruce Weber
SM: Tell us about your new book, My Education.
BW: I was working with Nathan Kilcer, who did the design for the book and works in my archives at my studio. He was working on an exhibition that I was having in Prague – at a wonderful old museum there – and I decided that My Education would be the name. I was talking to [book publisher] Benedikt Taschen and I was telling him about it. I wanted to make something that I could give to people starting out, so that they would know that it just isn’t them – that people teach you so much along the way. That’s why I called it that.
SM: Was it difficult to choose the images to feature in the new book?
BW: Yeah, it was difficult. But I said to Nathan: “I want to open this book tomorrow, or ten years from now, and I want to see it as if everybody in this book was not chosen because they’re well known, but they’re chosen because I had a good experience with them; I learnt something from them and that I liked them.” It’s so simple. It was really like having a party and you were able to invite a lot of people you haven’t seen in a while – a party that you hoped that they’d come to.
SM: Did anything surprise you when working on this book?
BW: I didn’t realise the scale of it. I knew a lot of people, that’s for sure. I’m still meeting a lot of people, but I don’t think I would have met hardly anybody if I hadn’t had a camera in my hand.
It was such a passport and such a great way to meet people; you could talk to anybody in the world and say, “Hey, what’s going on?” I guess that’s a good title for a book… or a Marvin Gaye song.
Serena and Venus Williams, New York City, 2000
Bruce Weber
SM: How does your creative mind work?
BW: I don’t know. It’s different every time I go out and take pictures.
When my parents were sick and I was really sad, I happened to be photographing a lot of young actors at the time; I attached myself to the worries they had – to be able to make good films and to be the actor they wanted to be.
Then, sometimes, I’ll be taking pictures of somebody – a man and a woman or two men or two women – and I’m thinking that they’d maybe just fall in love and it makes me feel so good. There are all kinds of expressions.
Helmut Newton always said to me, “Most photographers are kind of taking the same picture all of their life”, and, in a way, that’s true. It doesn’t look that way, but it’s really about what’s happening with you and meeting these people.
I’ve had a great time, though. I’ve been really lucky. I hope my pictures show that a little bit, and I hope they don’t think that it’s all about being the coolest guy in town. But it is pretty cool if you’ve got a camera…
Nathalie Gabrielli and Ric Arango, Santa Barbara, California, 1987
Bruce Weber
SM: What are you doing next?
BW: I’m just sitting with my feet up, smoking a cigar, watching the game. [Laughs]
No. I’m still working every day and I’ve just finished doing a lot of pictures for a magazine in Italy. I’m working on all these music videos of Chet Baker music that I’m doing for my album.
We’re working on an exhibition that’s happening in Milan or Barcelona in spring [2026] and also on a small exhibition that I’m having in Paris at the same time, at the Alaïa Foundation.
That sounds like a lot, but I had my knees done and I feel healthy now. So, I’m “up and ready” as they say in the sports world.
My Education – Bruce Weber
To find out more about the Blauer campaign visit blauerusa.com. For more on the My Education book visit taschen.com. To see more of Bruce Weber’s work go to bruceweber.com
