A Tour of Persia: Rare 1969 GQ Photos Show American Models Exploring, Fashion and Life
In 1969, GQ magazine turned its attention to a country that was undergoing one of the most dramatic periods of transformation in its modern history: Iran.
Long before Instagram travel photography, fashion influencers and digital fashion campaigns, international magazines relied on professional photographers, models and carefully produced photo essays to introduce readers to distant countries. One such feature, titled “A Tour of Iran,” presented Iran through a combination of travel photography, fashion and lifestyle imagery.
The photographs, captured by Leonardo Nuñez, show two American models traveling through different parts of Iran while wearing a selection of clothing associated with American and international fashion brands. The images provide a striking visual record of Iran in the 1960s, particularly the way Western fashion photography sought to present Iranian cities, landscapes, architecture and everyday life to an American audience.
The feature is especially interesting today because it captures Iran at a very particular moment. The country was still under the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and the government was promoting rapid modernization, industrialization and international engagement. At the same time, Iran retained an enormous variety of historical architecture, regional traditions, local clothing and cultural practices.
The result was a fascinating contrast: modern Western fashion photographed against Persian gardens, historic cities, bazaars, rural landscapes and traditional Iranian settings.
Among the most memorable images is a photograph taken in Shiraz’s Eram Garden, where the two models appear in fashionable garments while posing within one of Iran’s most celebrated historic gardens. Clothing labels and prices are presented alongside the photographs, transforming the travel story into something more than a conventional tourism feature. It becomes a snapshot of 1960s fashion, international consumer culture and Iran’s place in the Western imagination.
GQ’s 1969 “A Tour of Iran”
The title “A Tour of Iran” immediately suggests that the feature was intended to do more than showcase clothing. It presented Iran as a destination to be explored visually.
For readers of an American men’s fashion magazine in 1969, Iran represented an unusual combination of ancient history and modern development. The country was geographically distant from the United States, yet it was becoming increasingly connected to the Western economic and political system.
The photographs therefore operate on several levels.
They are fashion photographs.
They are travel photographs.
They are portraits of a particular historical moment.
And they are also examples of the way American magazines represented foreign countries during the late 1960s.
The two American models become travelers moving through Iran’s different environments. Rather than being photographed exclusively inside studios or conventional fashion locations, they are placed within recognizable Iranian settings.
That decision is important.
The clothes are not presented in isolation. They are presented in relation to Iranian architecture, landscapes, gardens and local life.
This creates the visual language of the feature: Western clothing meets Persian surroundings.
Today, those photographs are valuable precisely because the surrounding context has changed so dramatically. The images preserve a vision of Iran that belongs to the late 1960s, before the Iranian Revolution of 1979, before the establishment of the Islamic Republic and before the enormous political transformation that would reshape Iran’s relationship with the United States.
The photographs consequently offer a rare window into pre-revolutionary Iran.
September 20, 2026 | 6:27 pm
