"In 1999 I did a book called Go-Sees where girls came knocking on my door over a one-year period to show their portfolio and themselves. Recently, walking through Paris, I found myself thinking what work I would exhibit in my upcoming museum show in Naples. Handbags, I'm just gonna do a handbag book and a show. It felt like another Go-Sees book to me. Friends of my girlfriend were asking me what kind of a photographer I am, what I photograph. I replied: 'Actually, come to think of it, mostly handbags.' I always like their astonished and disappointed faces! I realized through the 30 years of my career, I photographed a hell of a lot of handbags within my fashion work. And as the Americans once said to me, 'Where's the money shot?' I looked at them puzzled. 'Show me the money shot!' they repeated. Here they are: the money shots in this collection of images for my new book." Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller, born in Erlangen, Germany, in 1964, studied at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie in Munich. His work has been published in influential magazines such as Vogue, System, i-D, POP and Arena Homme+, and has been the subject of solo exhibitions including those at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris and Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. Teller won the prestigious Citibank Photography Prize in 2003, and from 2014 to 2019 held a professorship at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg. His books with Steidl include Louis XV (2005), Marc Jacobs Advertising, 1998-2009 (2009), Siegerflieger (2015) and The Master IV (2019).