Photography by Katja Rahlwes
Katja Rahlwes is a German fashion photographer, based in New York City. Katja Rahlwes left Germany at the early age of 16 for London and then moved to Paris in 1988 to study Fashion Design at Studio Bercot, Paris.
In 1995-2004, Rahlwes set out for a career as a freelance fashion stylist.
She met Olivier Zahm and Elein Fleiss, co-founders and publishers of Purple Prose, later called “Purple fashion”, in 1996. Rahlwes has been collaborating with Purple ever since and became part of a new movement of visual language in the publication world. Katja Rahlwes’s first photos were published in Purple Sexe #1 commissioned by Elein Fleiss. The artist Richard Kern has been an encouraging friend to Rahlwes and offered her the possibility to shoot one of his fetish Model Sabine. The photos were published in Purple Sexe #3
In 1998, she became chief-fashion editor and photo-editor at BIBA, a major market fashion magazine in Paris.
At the same time, she continued to expand her vision as an independent stylist with magazines like Dutch, i-D, Dazed & Confused, Made in USA, Vogue Japan, Index and others.
Throughout those years she would live a parallel life as a professional stylist and part-time photographer. She said it was, “like having a husband and a lover.” Photography had a very important impact on Rahlwes, and made her feel free and independent in her work.
Katja Rahlwes first steps into the spot light as photographer were in 2003 for Dutch Magazine featuring actress Emmanuelle Seigner. Rahlwes shot Seigner in her costume from the film Frantic by Roman Polanski.
After a series of photographs of model icon Nadja Auermann, shot at Rahlwes’s house, were published in Purple fashion, her position as a stylist and part time photographer became difficult to maintain. She eventually chose photography over her styling career.
Until 2004 all of Rahlwes’s photography work had been shot in her Paris “Chambre de Bonne” studio apartment.
Katja Rahlwes is living and working in New York since 2008 together with her husband Charles-Edmond Henry.
