Peruvian fashion photographer Mario Testino was BOTD in 1954. Born in Lima to a middle-class family, he studied at the University of Lima and the University of California in San Diego before moving to London in 1976 to study photography. His rose to wider public attention in the 1990s, working with fashion designer Tom Ford to revive the Gucci brand with a series of sexually provocative ad campaigns. His bright, crisp photography for American Vogue, Vanity Fair and W, were widely credited with shifting the fashion industry away from “heroin chic” towards a glossier and more luxurious aesthetic. A frequent photographer of Kate Moss, he is credited with helping launch her to supermodel status. He was also highly praised for his 1997 portraits of Princess Diana, commissioned for Vanity Fair, and published a few months before her death. Their success led to further commissions from the British Royal family, following in the footsteps of his hero Cecil Beaton, and photographed Madonna for the cover of her 1998 hit album Ray of Light. He made an amusing appearance in the documentary The September Issue, chronicling the creation of the September 2007 issue of American Vogue, cheerfully ignoring his brief to photograph Sienna Miller for the cover page and apparently oblivious to the resulting editorial crisis. Testino was married to Carol Ann Turner in 1978, separating by the mid-1980s to embrace his homosexuality. In 2018, The New York Times published a series of articles alleging Testino had sexually harassed 18 male models and assistants, in claims dating back to the 1990s. He was subsequently dropped by Vogue and Vanity Fair publishers Condé Nast, with several fashion labels and the British Royal family following suit. To date, no charges have been brought against him. Now unofficially retired from fashion photography, he exhibited an ethnographic photography series, A Beautiful World, in 2024. He is in a relationship with his long-term partner and producer Jan Olesen.