Gemma's probably back

After the loooong break we may expect Gemma to come back to the fashion world as she wrote in an e-mail to The West Australian newspaper: "I have not 'quit modelling' and my fans back home can expect to see me back at work modelling and acting in the new year". I keep my fingers crossed, we all miss her.

Yves Saint Laurent - Top-Earning Dead Celebrity

Yves Saint Laurent has recently obtained World's Top-Earning Dead Celebrity title winning by far with such people as Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley or John Lennon. Although the fashion designer died in June last year, it didn't prevent him to gain $350 000 000. Actually, it helped him doing so, as most of his art collection was sold out postmortem this February and the profit was given out to charities. For comparison - no2 in the countdown belongs to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, who earned over $100 million less then Saint Laurent.

Pin me up. Pin me down.

Miranda Kerr changing her image - vol. 2. Australian model teamed up with Ana Beatriz Barros as pinup girls in the upcoming issue of V Magazine.


Magazine: V #62 2009
Title: Pin me up, pin me down
Photographer: Willy Vanderperre
Model: Ana Beatriz Barros, Miranda Kerr
source: V

My personal fav of the month

I'm a huge fan of Vogue Paris, especially of Carine R.'s styling. I'm such a huge fan, that I'm writing my bachelor thesis on that. I mean... Just look at the picture above.
The picture comes from Vogue Paris November (not out yet - checked it today) and was taken by Richardson. Love it, as always. source: tfs

Caroline Trentini for Numero Korea #16

We don't get to see a lot of Caroline outside Vogue US, do we? Which means that we don't get to see her in original stylings either.
Well... this one reminds me of Billy Elliot. Why? No idea, but still like it.

Jalou telephone by Sony Ericsson and Dolce&Gabbana

While working on the new Jalou telephone, Sony Ericsson has invited Dolce&Gabbana fashion house to design a limited line of the new phone. Although their luxury version comes with basically the same features as a regular phone, special Jalou line will also contain display-turn-mirror, pedometer, gold accents plated in 24 carats and preloaded Dolce&Gabbana brand info. The phone comes in a dusty rose color matching Rose the One fragrance.

Although the price of the new technology miracle is not decided yet, the advertising campaign has already started. And I must admit, it's a good campaign - both for a telephone producer and a fashion house.



“The film is about bad girls desiring an object more than anything, and we felt this was the best way to reflect the key qualities of Jalou by Dolce&Gabbana. The mood has a gangster theme, combined with a style, sexiness and humour of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. The style is luxurious and the colours and lighting used throughout are reminiscent of the phone, which is all about glamour, fashion, strong women and fun,” said Cyril Guyot, director of the commercial, who's been working rather with fashion designers, then cellphone companies.

Oh, and by the way, if you haven't noticed, the models (who are still unidentified) wear Dolce & Gabbana Winter 2010 collection. "The link with the Dolce & Gabbana brand is the strong femininity, the exclusivity and luxury of the women that wear the Dolce & Gabbana clothing, use the Jalou by Dolce & Gabbana phone and embrace our world in general," say Domenico and Stefano. source: Sassy

Ralph Lauren - Filippa Hamilton case

So you've probably heard about the ridiculously photoshopped pictures for Ralph Lauren brand. If you have hard time following-up, here is a short review and at the same a little guidebook on how not to do PR:

• Everything started with a note at the Photoshop Disasters blog. The authors of the blog very accuretly stated, that the head of the model in the picture below is bigger than her pelvis. This post was later on linked and quoted on boingboing.net.
  
  
• The second website received a letter from Ralph Lauren, who probably have never heard of the Streisand effect.
  
  "This is classic fair use: a reproduction "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting," etc. However, Ralph Lauren's marketing arm and its law firm don't see it that way. According to them, this is an "infringing image," and they thoughtfully took the time to send a DMCA takedown notice to our awesome ISP, Canada's Priority Colo. One of the things that makes Priority Colo so awesome is that they don't automatically act on DMCA takedowns. Instead, they pass them on to us and we talk about whether they pass the giggle-test."
  
  
• Probably Photoshop Disasters received a similar threat as they put down the note.
• When the message had already spread around the internet, the company finally published the following statement (please note, that there's nothing on threatening the websites):
  
  
  "For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity… we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman's body."
  
  
• The model from the picture, Swedish-French 23-year-old Filippa Hamilton was fired even before the story due to "her inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us", which meant, that she couldn't fit in their clothes anymore. At least that's what she says now and that's what is considered to be the truth to the public. The story came out after the photoshop controversies.
  
  Filippa and her normal size.
  
  
• Photoshop Disasters have posted another picture of a starving looking model - also made for Ralph Lauren brand. This time the girls's name is Valentina Zelyaeva.
  
  Valentina for Ralph Lauren...
  
  
...and in reality


• The internet is on fire and I really don't envy the Ralph Lauren PR guys. Anyway, if you'd like to take part in the discussion, I recommend those two texts: Yes, Thin's In -- But Why Is That A Surprise? by Robin Givhan from the Washington Post, stating basically that the models are so skinny, because the society gets so fat and that modern fashion redefines beauty, and Would You Buy an Overweight Barbie? by Irene Rubaum-Keller from the Huffington Post, who points out, that supper skinny models are attractive only for gay men (who are the majority of the designers).*
  

*I've even found a forum post saying, that skinny models look more like young men (no breasts, no butt, no curves) and that's why gay designers/stylists prefer to work with them. I know that's a very radical statement, but - honestly - I'd like to see some psychological research on that. That could be really interesting.

Top 10 catwalkers of the recent fashion weeks

The Fashion Spot people have counted the number of appearances of the most active catwalkers of the recent fashion weeks. Below are the results:

1. Constance Jablonski with 72 shows (opened 8, closed 3). Wow - that is an impressive number! Especially that we haven't seen a French model getting that popular in quite some time.

2. Liu Wen with 70 Shows (opened 2). I'm a huge fan of Du Juan, but time has come for other Asian models. I'm so glad to see her here. (She's got such a cute smile!)

3. Kasia Struss with 61 shows (opened 3, closed 1). Definitely this Polish beauty is still in the competition. Although Kasia didn't appear in the London Fashion Week, she improved her position in the ranking anyway (last season - 8. place).

4. Frida Gustavsson with 60 shows
5. Eniko Mihalik, Imogen Morris-Clarke, Jacquelyn Jablonski, Tao Okamoto all with 58 shows each
6. Charlotte Di Calypso with 57 shows
7. Hanne Gaby Odiele, Iris Strubegger, Karlie Kloss all with 56 shows each
8. Alla Kostromichova with 55 shows
9. Angelika Kocheba with 52 shows
10.Dorothea Barth Jorgensen, Elsa Sylvan, Katie Fogarty all with 51 shows each

One more thing - Altamira blog has put the top 10 girls together with their street fashion pictures. Nice to see.
pictures: style.com

Vogue US November 2009

This is not funny anymore. This is sad.

Did Leibovitz's financial problems effect her photography? Because this cover is her worst cover in the history. Why?

• "cut-out" feeling - especially around women's heads
• you can tell that it was a beautiful day on the beach, but the natural light was ignored
• the two factors above make the actresses look like they were shot separately and then "copied-pasted" into one image (in a very cheap way)
  
• Kidman's face
  
• even the beautiful background looks fake

How could they waste this way such a wonderful casting? It's just wrong.

Lily Cole's new profession

Lily is indeed a renaissance lady - does so much, it's hard to follow up:

• She's a model - obvieusly
  
• She's an actress - you'll be able to see her in the up-coming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus starring next to such actors as Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer or Johnny Depp
• She's a charity worker/environmental activist - being involved in Global Angels Children's Charity, WaterAid and Environmental Justice Foundation
• She's a student

And how she's become a designer. She will join Katherine Poulton, Alice Ashby and Isobel Davis to design a collection of knitwear for a brand The North Circular (with a cute slogan "Knitted by grannies, supported by supermodels").

source: Sassybella, more here

Gaultier made a present for Jourdan Dunn

Isn't that cute? 19-year-old Jourdan Dunn pregnant with her first child (due December) took part in the Jean Paul Gaultier show. Especially for her (and all the pregnant celebrities, of course) the designer created this sweet baby-bump thing. I guess we can expect some Hollywood stars getting those really soon.
source: style.com

Anja in Self Service #31

Anja is definitely not afraid to show her body off. Love it!


Magazine: Self Service #31
Photographer: Katja Rahlwes
Model: Anja Rubik
source: Fashion Copious

Victoria's Secret Angel for Balenciaga

Can you recognize this lady?


This is Miranda Kerr - 26-year-old Victoria's Secret Angel and Orlando Bloom's girlfriend. Miranda is rather known for her "girl-next-door" look and - of course - lingerie ads. So she surprised us all taking part in Balenciaga show last week in Paris, looking so edgy. I'm really happy for her - combining commercial modeling (if you can use that expression) with modeling for chic fashion houses makes a perfect model.

Sonia Rykiel for H&M

Sonia Rykiel is the next designer in the line to create H&M collection. Parisian "Queen of Knits" will design for the Swedish brand lingerie and accessories line for women as well as knitwear line for young women, teenagers and girls aged 18 months to 8 years old. Lingerie collection will be launched December 5th in 1500 stores (not bad), the knitwear - February 20th in 250 stores (so again we will have to buy clothes rather through ebay). source: H&M

Sonia Rykiel Resort 2010

VoGues

What's wrong with those 'g's this month?

Raquel Zimmermann by Mario Sorrenti in Vogue Nippon October 2009 and Kate Moss by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin in Vogue Paris October 2009
source: tfs 1 2

Comic S/S 10 show packages

For the upcoming Paris Fashion Week, two agencies caught a little more attention with their new show cards. Women and WM decided to go with very Sin City-like style - black&white comic pictures with some touch of red. You can find entire portfolios here and here. Below some samples - Kasia Struss from Women and less known Alla Voronenko from WM.

source: FashionCopious