Anna Wintour, Vogue editor-in-chief since 1988, wrote the foreword, saying that “nothing is unphotographable for Annie; no request is too outlandish, too bizarre, too hard.” Whether she's photographing the famous and powerful - or simply the woman next door - Annie always captures something unexpected and deeply personal."– Oprah Winfrey Includes 350 extraordinary images (many of them previously unpublished) featuring a wide and diverse range of subjects: Nicole Kidman, Serena Williams, Pina Bausch, RuPaul, Cate Blanchett, Lady Gaga, Matthew Barney, Kate Moss, Natalia Vodianova, Rihanna, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Karl Lagerfeld, Nancy Pelosi. With a foreword by Anna Wintour. Specifications: Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer whose style is marked by a close collaboration between the photographer and the subject. The person who has been the engine for keeping the work going for almost 30 years is Anna Wintour,” Leibovitz said. “She has reassured me, guided me, and sent me off to meet subjects who I admired and really wanted to work with and subjects who I never heard of and who turned out to be amazing people. She is benevolent, tireless, sometimes inscrutable, and almost always, in the end, right—or close enough. She is the wizard of Wonderland.”

I’d love to shoot Angela Merkel,” she says. “I’ve been trying to shoot her for a few years now but her office keeps pushing it out, asking me to wait until she retires. And every time I see that she has had her photo taken by someone else, it drives me crazy.”This new title explores that side of her practice for the first time, by reproducing more than 350 photographs, featuring a wide array of subjects, including Cate Blanchett, Serena Williams and Nicole Kidman; as well as the Queen of England and a good few First Ladies (not to mention Nancy Pelosi). Edited and sequenced by Annie herself, the journey through the collected images shows just how the photographer has come to embrace the world of fashion, and bend it to her vision. In high school, she became interested in various artistic endeavours, and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute. She became interested in photography after taking pictures when she lived in the Philippines, where her Air Force father was stationed during the Vietnam War. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while she worked various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz Amir in Israel for several months in 1969. Leibovitz’s new book, Wonderland, would suggest otherwise. A smaller, slimmer volume than her other works (“I really did want something you could rest on your lap,” she says wryly), it is a celebration of her fashion photography

Even after more than 50 years, and photoshoots with presidents, first ladies, the Dalai Lama and the Queen, Leibovitz admits to being nervous every time she takes aim. “Oh sure! Of course,” she says. “I’m always nervous.” But, she adds, “Isn’t that the fun of it? You admire and respect people, and when you work with them, that is daunting.”Though you’d think it wasn’t so, this is the photographer’s first-ever collection of fashion images; she wanted to save them all for something special, as she states in the book. To say this week is an exciting one for the fashion industry would be an understatement. There is much to celebrate, and high on that list is the release of the book Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland (Phaidon) which was the reason that a notable group gathered at Hauser & Wirth’s pop-up show at Studio 525 in Chelsea yesterday afternoon.