Mongolia

Fred Maroon had never shot fashions before, but in 1966 in a meeting with a very convincing editor over a large bottle of Scotch, he agreed to fly to Outer Mongolia to do his first fashion shoot. Read more.

 

The Erdeni Dzuu lamasery in Kara Korum dramatizes the assets of one of the world's most luxurious fabrics: cashmere, made of fleece from the hardy goats raised on the Mongolian plains. The climate has grueling extremes...blistering in summer, subfreezing in winter. For insulation, the cashmere goat produces the silkiest, downiest undercoat of any domestically-raised animal. Here model Samantha Jones wears a classic full coat of black cashmere over a gold silk sheath.

A different angle of the Erdeni Dzuu Lamasary in Kara Korum.

The Imperial Palace of the last Bogdo-Gegen, named Djavdzandamba, the head of the Mongolian Buddhists and in the last years of his life the chief temporal authority of the Republic of Mongolia. The palace is built in the Chinese style.

At dusk on a goat farm on the steppe outside Hutschirt, between Ulan Bator and Kara Korum. It was in this area that Genghis Khan had his capital, and the scene has not changed much in the seven hundred years since his time.

Terelge, northeast of Ulan Bator. Genghis Khan was born 100 miles from here, and started his conquest of the west 37 miles from this point. It is a surprisingly lush valley of green rolling hills and streams.

In the only Buddhist temple in Mongolia still in use, Gandan Monastery in Ulan Bator, Samantha Jones poses as lamas chant in an incense-filled chapel. Her blue cashmere stole is draped in imitation of the monks' robes.

Classically styled cashmeres suit the timeless settings of the Mongols. For "Horsewoman" Sam at Karakorum, Genghis Khan's seat of empire – a black cashmere sweater, trews, and a quilted rust-suede jacket.

Handmade leather boots in brilliant colors and snap-brim hats, oddly fedora-like, contrast incongruously with the rest of the Mongolian wrestlers' costumes. Sam's outfit, shown here at Terelge, is a Western version of the local dress, little changed in the last 2,000 years.

This cashmere sweater-dress was the first micro-skirt to hit Ulan Bator's Gandan Monastery.

Samantha Jones stands beside an ancient stupa at the Erdeni Dzuu Lamasery in Kara Korum wearing a soft pink cashmere gown. By the time this dress reaches a woman like Sam, it has been combed from the goats in Mongolia, marketed in Russia, cleaned, spun into yarn, dyed and knitted by Ballantyne in Scotland.

 

Cashmere fashions in Mongolia - 1966

"In June 1966, I paid a call on John Anstey, editor of London's Weekend Telegraph Magazine - the supplement to the Daily Telegraph. It was the beginning of the most adventurous, risky part of my fifty year photographic career, both physically and creatively. Anstey and I chatted politely for a while and then he pulled out a bottle of Scotch. Our acquaintance began to warm rapidly, and before long he asked if I would be interested in doing an assignment for him. Only later, in the sober light of day, did I appreciate the masterful way he had played me, for before I felt his office I had committed myself to going to Outer Mongolia (a country I could not even place on a map) to photograph high fashions - a specialty I had often fancied, but never yet attempted.

The editorial point in going to Mongolia was that the fashions we were going to shoot were cashmere, and cashmere wool comes from the underbelly of the Mongolian goat. I set out from London with the fashion editor, Cherry Twiss, and we met up with the model, Samantha Jones, in Paris. From there we took Air France to Moscow, where we hooked up with an East German tourist guide, known to us as Knobloch, who had an agreement with the Mongolian government to bring East German tourists into the country. You had to admire Knobloch. He knew the system. The fact that I was an American, the fashion editor English, and the model Canadian posed no problem for him. Nor did the fact that all the flights in the direction of Mongolia were fully booked. One week later, visas in hand, we were on an Aeroflot flight to Omsk, Siberia, and four puzzled and disgruntled Czechs were left standing on the tarmac.

In Omsk, we stopped to refuel and spend the night, the entire complement of passengers bedding down together on cots in a hangar-like structure that passed for a hotel. The next morning we flew on to Irkutsk, where we changed to Air Mongol for the final leg of the journey. As we were boarding the last plane, Samantha noticed a mechanic standing atop a ladder and banging one of the engines with the back of a wrench. She was ready to abort the entire shoot there and then, and it took all the diplomacy I could muster to persuade her to entrust her life to Mongolian aeronautical know-how.

On arrival in Ulan Bator, the customs officials were bothered by my American passport, and demanded to know of Knobloch why he was bringing an American into Mongolia. Never at a loss, he explained that I just happened to have an American passport, but I was in fact Lebanese – an explanation that seemed to satisfy their bureaucratic minds.

The next two weeks were to test John Anstey's wisdom in sending a travel photographer to do a fashion assignment."