Mario Sorrenti: Through the Lens of a Provocateur
Mario Sorrenti defined an era. Known for his raw, sensual, and intimate portraits, his work blurred the line between fashion and fine art, shaping the look of the ’90s and beyond.
Beginnings
Mario Sorrenti was born in Naples in 1971, into a family already steeped in art and creativity. His father, artist Francesco Sorrenti, and his mother, artist and designer Donna Aceto, instilled in him an early appreciation for beauty in all its forms. At the age of ten, the family relocated to New York, a move that would expose Sorrenti to a radically different visual world: the grit and rawness of downtown Manhattan in the 1980s.
Before becoming known as a photographer, Sorrenti was in front of the camera himself. As a teenage model, he experienced the pressures, limitations, and performative demands of fashion firsthand. That experience would later inform his work behind the lens - giving him a unique understanding of vulnerability and the delicate balance between subject and photographer.
Kate Moss & obsession
In the early 1990s, Sorrenti’s personal and professional life became intertwined with Kate Moss, then a rising model. Their romance was deeply documented through his photographs, creating a body of work that blurred the lines between intimacy and artistry.
In 1993, Calvin Klein tapped Sorrenti to shoot the now-legendary Obsession campaign starring Moss. The images - sensual, stripped-back, and diary-like - broke away from the polished excess of ‘80s supermodel culture. Instead, they captured something more vulnerable and immediate: a young woman on the brink of stardom, filtered through the eye of her lover.
The campaign was a cultural reset. It didn’t just launch Kate Moss into superstardom; it made Sorrenti a name synonymous with a new kind of raw, emotional fashion photography.
Heroin Chic
With success came controversy. The pared-down, intimate aesthetic Sorrenti championed was quickly folded into what critics dubbed “heroin chic” - a look marked by stark realism, frailty, and androgyny, often in stark contrast to the vibrant health of earlier fashion imagery.
Sorrenti’s photographs, often captured in natural light and stripped of artifice, were accused of glorifying a darker side of youth culture. Politicians and cultural commentators attacked the fashion industry, and by extension Sorrenti, for allegedly romanticising addiction and fragility.
But to dismiss his work as simply “heroin chic” is to ignore the nuance. Sorrenti was not staging decadence - he was capturing real, unguarded moments. His insistence on vulnerability, imperfection, and intimacy forced fashion photography into new territory. Beauty was no longer something idealised; it could be flawed, tender, and startlingly human.
Fashion History in the Making
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Sorrenti continued to collaborate with the world’s most influential fashion houses. Campaigns for Dior, Versace, and Calvin Klein bore his distinct signature — a blend of raw sensuality and quiet intimacy. Editorials for Vogue, i-D, and The Face became touchstones for a generation of photographers who sought to move fashion imagery closer to real life.
What made his work revolutionary was not just its aesthetic, but its honesty. Where other photographers built worlds, Sorrenti dismantled them, bringing the camera as close as possible to his subjects’ skin and soul.
Legacy & Influence
Mario Sorrenti’s influence extends far beyond a single campaign or aesthetic. He redefined what fashion photography could be — personal, diaristic, unapologetically human. His collaborations with Kate Moss remain some of the most iconic images in modern fashion history, and his later work has continued to challenge the boundaries between art and commerce.
Today, his legacy lives on in a generation of photographers who embrace imperfection, intimacy, and the deeply personal. From Naples to New York, from model to provocateur, Sorrenti has left an indelible mark on fashion — not just through the images he created, but through the lens he offered the world to see beauty anew.
