Marino Parisotto

Marino Parisotto Vay (8 December 1962 - 17 November 2022 ), commonly known as Marino Parisotto, was an Italian photographer.

Marino Parisotto was born to Italian parents in Sudbury, Canada.

After his family returned to Italy, he attended schools in Lombardy, although he remained very attached to Veneto, his family's region of origin.

He studied Business Economics at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.

Already fascinated by the world of fashion, he joined the ranks of the renowned fashion agency Fashion Models, walking the runway for esteemed brands such as Gianfranco Ferré and becoming the face of fashion designer Gian Marco Venturi.

Soon internationally recognized, his early career took him as far as Japan.

With a degree in economics, he took advantage of his fame as a model to found, together with a fellow student, an advertising agency dealing exclusively with fashion and beauty brands, called Le Officine Creative, where he served as artistic director.

Soon, his creative impulses led him to take up the camera for some trusting clients.

After an initial series in Morocco, he gained almost immediate fame with a major campaign in the United States for the jeans brand POP84, featuring the then-unknown future supermodel Shana Zadrick.

The photo chosen for the poster campaign was so sensual that the posters were frequently stolen, leading to reports in Italian newspapers.

Originally an advertising brochure, the book was soon published as an art book titled "Bella da Strappare," marking his first public success.

"Photo", the world's best-selling French photography magazine, discovered the press articles and was enthusiastic about this young, previously unknown photographer.

His French career was launched, and he soon signed with the great couturier Hubert de Givenchy, who entrusted him with the artistic direction of his last two campaigns before retiring in 1995 in favor of John Galliano.

In Italy, the German cosmetics brand Wella commissioned him to create a black-and-white art book featuring "black angels" and "white angels" on a deserted Miami beach, expressing his visions of the world, life, love, spirituality, and the complex relationship between man and the image and soul of women.

This series was the subject of his first major exhibition in Paris, sponsored by the Publimod workshop.

Projects quickly followed between France and Italy.

"Black & White Angels" became a landmark, influencing other major fashion photographers like Peter Lindbergh.

A year later, Parisotto responded with the book "Sky over New York," under the auspices of Wella, in which his divine essences fly over New York to express love and compassion for humankind.

This book, sold in major bookstores worldwide, soon sold out.

Giorgio Armani asked him to contribute around 30 pages, including the cover, for his prestigious Emporio Armani Magazine.

For this series, Parisotto reinvented the myth of Icarus' flight.

The cover photo was so remarkable that Armani displayed it on the famous "Armani wall" on Milan's Via Broletto, spanning the full height of the eight-story building housing the fashion house.

The lingerie brand La Perla gave him carte blanche to reinvent the brand's message at a time when porn-chic was making a dazzling comeback in fashion.

For La Perla, Parisotto produced international advertising campaigns and prestigious books, showcasing his keen sense of the female form with increasingly sensual shots that never become overtly sexual.

He honed his signature style, featuring evanescent sylphs with long, elegant legs, which a new generation of photographers sought to emulate.

His style is defined by often black-and-white shots in grand natural settings, supported by cinematic lighting.

His photographs emphasize action and the power of seduction.

Most of his photos for the brand were published in limited-edition art books that sold out quickly in bookstores.

His book "Senso" (1997), with a print run of ten thousand copies, was distributed by Fnac and sold out in less than six months.

La Perla's American advertising campaign, based on one of the book's most sensual images, caused a stir, with some magazines refusing to publish it due to being "politically incorrect."

Increasingly uninhibited in his storytelling, Parisotto's last collaboration with the brand featured a series called "Backseat," set in the backseats of limousines.

This series, combining women and luxury cars, landed him on the cover of Playboy magazine with supermodel Adriana Karembeu.

The crystal company Baccarat entrusted him with their ambitious 1998 campaign, which, despite the absence of digital effects, won first prize from the Club des Directeurs Artistiques.

Major brands like Swatch, Mikimoto, Rémy Martin, Roberto Cavalli, Enrico Coveri, Sergio Rossi, Bergdorf Goodman, Swarovski, Corneliani, Rocco Barocco, Carte Noire, Oenobiol, Mitsubishi, and FIAT also relied on his talent.

The Austrian brand Wolford, after the death of its historic photographer Helmut Newton in 2004, saw Marino Parisotto as a worthy successor.

They invited him to be even more transgressive than he had been for La Perla.

Initially more romantic, Parisotto explored a new facet of sensuality in a timely study of the human soul.

At the same time, Parisotto signed numerous worldwide advertising campaigns, establishing himself as a leading figure in the profession.

Iceberg offered him his first perfume campaign, where he also directed the advertising film.

Rochas relied on his talent for the global launch of its new fragrance Alchimie, and later to relaunch an old fragrance, Toquade.