They weren’t just any old boxes. Sometimes it was black speckles on white, other times black speckles on red. Another photographer might have stuffed their film (yes, I’m talking about the days before digital) into a boring gray Hollinger box or a padded yellow envelope, but not Roxanne Lowit.
With Roxanne (who sadly in 2022), the delivery of her latest haul was a carefully conceived, aesthetically exhilarating experience. If one of her (made in Paris) clam shell boxes arrived at the office, the staff knew that the sheets of meticulously sleeved and labeled 35mm color transparencies contained either the most important and exciting moments from the crucial minutes before or sent out their latest collection and rocked the fashion world, or we were about to see what really went on inside that Page Six-worthy party from the night before that everyone was still whispering about. It was 1996, and after two years in the art department at , I had been promoted to Photo Editor that spring.
Roxanne was already firmly entrenched in the magazine, shooting all of our backstage in Paris, Milan, London, and New York, as well as covering the hottest parties around town. Roxanne had been introduced to via staffer Gabé Doppelt, who had worked with her in the 1980s at and by the mid-’90s she was shooting for Billy Norwich’s pages, Kate Betts’s section, and an occasional feature story, as well. Roxanne seemed to be everywhere all the time.
Roxanne’s rise at paralleled the rise of t.