Biography
Photographer, Writer & Director
During the 70s and early 80s Willie Christie worked extensively as a photographer with British Vogue, working closely with Grace Coddington (they also married) and the late Liz Tilberis. He went on to shoot 10 Vogue covers and many inside spreads. His portfolio includes award-winning advertising campaigns for L’Oréal and Yves Saint Laurent, fashion and portrait work for international icons including Cary Grant, Grace Jones, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, Sir John Mills and Catherine Deneuve, and rock ‘n’ roll album covers and portraits for the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry and Lou Reed.
His work has been showcased at Vision Gallery (Arizona), the Little Black Gallery in London and The Ivy, London, and was chosen for the RA’s Summer Exhibition 2011. His iconic Mick Jagger portrait of 1969 was selected for the international tour of the Les Rencontres d’Arles 2010 exhibition.
His photographs feature in a wide selection of books, including People in Vogue by Robin Derrick and Robin Muir, Wonderful Today by Pattie Boyd, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd by Nick Mason, Vogue Photographic Covers by Valerie Lloyd, Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington, An Affectionate Punch by Justin de Villeneuve, and The Rolling Stones, Taschen’s definitive pictorial history of the band. Both images from it were also exhibited in Taschen’s Stones exhibition in Los Angeles in 2014.
Justin de Villeneuve names Willie among his top three photographers. Richard Avedon and Bert Stern are the other two.
In 1968, whilst (vainly) trying to find a job in the film industry, Willie auditioned for Federico Fellini, only to be told by the great man that he was “very beautiful but not experienced enough”. That would be none at all.
He worked briefly on Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s yacht, Kalizma. Mostly cleaning up their Pekinese’s poo. He played (mimed) with Roxy Music on Top of the Pops, substituting for their bass player who had gone missing.
The late David Anthony gave him his first job in photography, which decided Willie to continue in that field. He then spent a year working for Clive Arrowsmith before turning professional in 1970.
Having photographed extensively in 1970–71 for the infamous Lady Clare Rendlesham, who had opened Yves Saint Laurent’s first boutique in London, Willie was asked by Clare in 1972 to curate and design the music for Yves’ couture show that year. In 1977 he filmed the opening sequence to ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ for Pink Floyd’s Animals tour.
In 1982 Willie got behind a movie camera and began writing and directing commercials and music videos, including Pink Floyd’s 20-minute film for The Final Cut and the first cinema commercial for Medway Shoes. He directed over 60 commercials in the years that followed, many winning awards including Creative Circle, Lion and Clio.
In 1998 he adapted and filmed The Whisper, from a short story by Anton Chekhov, starring Michael Gough, Jamie Glover and fourteen-year-old Emma Pierson. It was shown at festivals around the world and reached the final list for BAFTA’s Best Short Film award. In 1999 he directed a limited run of Siren by David Williamson at London’s Grace Theatre.
The launch of Willie Christie’s Limited Edition Collection in 2011 marked the first time the photographer had delved into his personal archives to showcase work not displayed for over three decades. Following a successful private view at Sophie Birdwood Gallery he immediately followed up at Eight in the City of London. In December 2011 he held a one-night show in aid of Facing the World, with further private views at Sophie Birdwood and a critically acclaimed show at The Ivy Club in 2012.
In 2013 he designed a BT ArtBox in aid of ChildLine. The box was displayed in a window of Harvey Nichols and stood outside Vogue House for four weeks before being sold to a private buyer.
In recent years his work, new and old, has been showcased in Schön, Classic Rock, Prog, Russian Vogue, Vivienne Westwood, French Elle and predominantly in Encens, the iconic French magazine focused on fashion as art form from the perspective of designers rather than trends. A major twenty-page spread appeared in The Unseasonal, a US magazine dedicated to unique collaborations with some of the most creative and sought-after personalities in fashion, contemporary art and celebrity culture.
In November 2019 Willie shot his first major return to fashion photography in 40 years: twenty pages for Encens. The same year, fashion and cultural historian Laura McLaws Helms interviewed him about his life and work for her Lady’s After Hours podcast, and Prog magazine interviewed him in depth about his work for Pink Floyd.
In 2023 ACC Art Books published his first anthology, Willie Christie: A Very Distinctive Style, Then & Now, with a foreword by Grace Coddington.
Film Projects
Willie began writing screenplays in 2001 and currently has four looking for production. All have been professionally critiqued and all have received Green Light evaluations (three at Consider). Ladies Won’t Wait has received two Recommends, one from the UK and one from the US, and in 2025 was awarded a Double Recommend by producer Matthew Chen for Stage 32.
Ladies Won’t Wait: noir mystery thriller. In post-World War II Europe, a former US agent is pulled back into the business when a mysterious woman appears with a clue to the fate of his long-since-disappeared wife.
In Search of Words: maturation drama. After a tragic car accident kills his parents and leaves him with severe PTSD, thirteen-year-old musical prodigy Cedric Bradford, an American from Hong Kong, is sent to a boarding school in England where he must find his way back to his God-given musical talent, and his voice.
Woman in a Black Hat: mystery thriller. The accidental death of an art dealer while being taken into safe custody opens the way for a Russian killer to come looking for the dealer’s innocent and uncomprehending wife.
A Woman’s Life: love and disillusionment, adapted from Guy de Maupassant. 1910. A young girl’s high expectations of romantic love are destroyed when she marries a philanderer with darkness in his soul. Despite finally seeking redemption, he pays with his life, and lost in despair, she recovers only years later with the return of their beloved son.
To see Willie Christie’s screenplays or director’s reel, contact willie.christie@me.com
Television
Willie is in partnership with the highly regarded television production company Storyvault TV to head up a TV show on photography. For further information contact willie.christie@me.com or Sam Richards at sam.richards@storyvault.tv
What They Say
“Sexy, polished and subtly sinister, his photo archive is to die for.”
The Times
“Although Christie’s work is incredibly slick and its prevailing focus is upon the glamour models and celebrities of his era, it contains a beguiling otherness that travels far beyond the fashion sphere and poses questions about reality, identity and artifice.”
AnOther Magazine
“Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Willie Christie is that his career as a fashion photographer spans little more than a decade. His portfolio is littered with iconic images.”
Huffington Post
“Willie’s work with Grace Coddington was one of the great personal and professional partnerships of its time.”
Resident Magazine
“In the fields of fashion photography there are few pioneers who stand out not merely as capturers of a transitory image, but as artists in their own right. Willie Christie is one of them.”
Resident Magazine
“Innovatively lit and offering a cinematic edge.”
Nowness
“It is a total mystery how you have made, thirty years ago, pictures that are totally relevant today. We still have to invent another word than just timeless for you, because of this magic. We want them all.”
Samuel Drira, Encens
© Willie Christie