MARIO Testino and Bruce Weber have been suspended from working with fashion magazines including Vogue after models accused the photographers of sexually exploiting them.
Lawyers for Testino, known for photographing the Royal Family, tried to discredit their accounts while Weber denied the claims to The New York Times, whose investigative report detailed a string of allegations.
Anna Wintour, artistic director of Conde Nast, which publishes magazines including Vogue and GQ, said the publisher would not work with the pair for the “foreseeable future” following Saturday’s report.
Testino, who took the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s official engagement photos and was given an honorary OBE in 2014, was accused by 13 male assistants and models of subjecting them to sexual advances.
Some said the Peruvian photographer’s behaviour, going back to the mid-1990s, included groping and masturbation.
Ryan Locke, a model who worked with Testino on Gucci campaigns, accused him of being aggressive and flirtatious throughout shoots, adding: “He was a sexual predator.”
Photographic assistant Hugo Tillman said Testino once grabbed him on the street and tried to kiss him and, a few weeks later, pinned him down on a bed until he was removed by another person.
Another assistant, Roman Barrett, said Testino masturbated in front of him, saying: “Sexual harassment was a constant reality.”
One anonymous assistant said Testino masturbated on him during a business trip, while another said the photographer groped his backside, the New York Times reported.
The paper reported lawyers for Testino, 63, said the sources could not be considered reliable.
US photographer Weber, 71, was accused by 15 current and former models of subjecting them to unnecessary nudity and coercive sexual behaviour. Model Josh Ardolf said that during a nude shoot his genitals were grabbed by Weber.
Model Bobby Roache said Weber tried to put his hands down Roache’s trousers during a casting in 2007.
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