I just got a newsletter from Style.com announcing a curious raffle: the "chance of win a day in the life of a model". Then i found out it was just a way of advertising The Agency TV show. I haven't seen this show yet so I can't quite talk about it, but looking at the videos around in Internet I might say I wouldn't be a big fan of it. I would probably get addicted though, as one gets addicted to trash food! Let's say it feels like bad energy, the awful side of the fashion biz. But one thing is true, that's the awful truth of the fashion world. I have gone myself for some of the situations pictured on the show: the stress of working with a "fat" model, when the clothing don't fit her and every angle you try to choose for the picture can't hide a thick leg or a big arm. The pressure of time during a photo-shoot, the brush with someone on the team... Each time this happens you get home and try to calm down, pull yourself together and think about the good things that fashion has: the creativity, the [sometimes] fun, the clothing and the fantastically crazy people. You think also, c'mon girl, this is just fashion, you're not saving the world! But watching to this show makes me difficult to get rid of bad fash-energies!. I can't spend any more money in yoga classes to relax so i guess i won't netflix this show... ^_+
Cory Kennedy pulls off trends like no one else. She is the first one to wear a turbant in a way that makes me feel in love right away! I don't quite understand why people is so critic towards her. She is enjoining life and sharing it with whoever wants to enjoy it with her. If you don't like it, then why you should even bother to talk about it? She is 15 years old, what's wrong with partying, enjoining life, fashion, boys, shopping, whatever? Well, even if you're 80, that's no one else's bussiness but yours. I think is great that she is living the way she is. Taking it while it last.
For me a good fashion photographer is not that one that has good ideas or is a very creative one. It is that one who, besides all that, knows how to work with models, how to make them move. Unless they are Top-Models and just a mere lens in front of them will make them pose, a photographer is key to create an atmosphere on set, to make the model feel confortable and TOP, no matter she/he is or not. For this reason big photographers use to have big personalities; You need confidenze to carry a whole photo-shoot team plus the expresion and moves the model will do in front of the camera. A good photographer is like a good film director. When you are lucky to work with one of them is such a pleasure you can even forget to do your job!; you spend your work- time looking at them instead of doing your own stuff.
I would place Steven Meisel into that club of BIG photographers. You might like his style or not, but the way he works with models is just amazing. In 1983, American film director Robert Guralnick filmed a docu-drama called Portfolio where famed fashion models shared with the viewer all the ins and outs of their profession. One of the scenes of that movie has been uploaded to YouTube for us fashion-addicts to enjoy what we couln't otherwise, or could, just a little more difficult to; watching a big photographer playing with models, telling them how to move, in other words, working.
Two days ago D. was showing me some very funny videos that he found in YouTube... One of them wasn't funny at all to me, it was hilarious and super inspiring! [by the way, Goggle is going through some trobles since they aquired YouTube. I fiercely hope Google will win this sue, because I'm tired of big companies agains't the freedom of sharing information.] But that's another story... The video I was talking about reminded me the 80's I lived in Europe, because living in America, in this era of 80's love, I always forget that 80's in Europe were quite fun too and, with similarities, with its own personality: La movida Madrileña [The Madrid scene] in Madrid, with people like Alaska, Pedro Almodovar or Rosi de Palma, The New Romantics in London, Post-Punk and Electro in Berlin, and Amanda Lear everywhere... Model and muse of Salvador Dalí, singer, artist, actress and TV host... Enjoy!
* from Italian TV show Ma Chi é Amanda Lear?1983 [But Who Is Amanda Lear?]
A year ago I met Fiery Furnaces's lead singer Eleanor Friedberger in a DJ friend's party in Greenpoint, NY. At the time she was already a famous lady; she had 4 albums in the market, a miu miu ad campaign by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, and an über famous boyfriend, Franz Ferdinand's vocalist Alex Kapranos. Besides all this, i have two things to say;
1- i didn't know who she was so... i just met her as Eleanor 2- she is the most down to earth person i've ever known in my whole life, and i really mean it, so i never had the impresion i was dealing with a celebrity.
I had a crush on her for both her lovely personality and the way she was dressed up. We were hanging out with some cool Williamsburg kids but her look was far more interesting than the average around. I started to ask about her and then I found out who she was.
Since then I have seen her every once in a while, we live in the same neighborhood and we share some common friends. She always has the smartest outfits on; if Chloë Sevigny is cool, believe me, Eleanor is 10 times her.
I liked her Jane Birkin allure and her personality. She is cool and she is sweet and she sings like no one else. What a pity I don't see her that often as I used to, because every time i did, i felt so inspired that i had my head full of fash-ideas for a whole week!
There are some people whose name pops up constantly in magazines, tv shows, radio tunes and all kind of parafernalia that sorrounds celebrity. We know those people so well that we don't even need to say their last name to know who we are talking about. We know what they do, what they wear, who they hang up with and what they eat. And sometimes, where they work or are working at.
There are other people though, whose name only pops up every once in a while, and if you are not aware of, those people just pass by and voilá, you just missed a piece of the story without even notice it.
I had that feeling of am i missing something in here? when I started to read here and there the name of Liz Goldwyn... It was always written along with names of people i truly respect, like Chloë Sevigny, Peggy Moffitt, Dita Von Teese... so it must be something good what i was missing there...
Then I found out about her love for vintage clothing, her book Pretty Things about Burlesque, her work at the Sotheby’s newly created Fashion Department and about her friends, which are, mind you, some of the most interesting people in and about the film and fashion bussiness, and her great grand father, movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn ...
Dancing Queensby Charlotte Sanders When film maker and designer Liz Goldwyn went on a one woman quest to find the last stars of burlesque she had no idea the impact it would have in her life. She talks about dressing up, learning to dance, and finding a family. [...] [Lula issue 3]
This Old Thing? by Dana Goodyear [...] Liz Golwyn, a close friend [of vintage mogul Cameron Silver] and a wearer of vintage down to her undergarments, says, "He's gotten more dandysh -sometimes when just my husband and I are at his house for dinner he's get completely turned out [...] [...] He [Cameron Silver] has bought [vintage] in New Hope, Sydney, and at several places (a tailor, a charity shop) in La Jolla that Liz Goldwyn turned him on to. [...] [The New Yorker The style issue, March 2007]
Chloë Sevignyby Liz Goldwyn [...] Liz: Certaing people know what i'm looking for, but I'm very careful with not revealing and not buying what all the other girls are looking for. It's funny, they're all obsessed now with Hervé Léger. Chloë: And Alaïa Liz: It's fucking annoying. I've been buying vintage Versace and Thierry Mugler for years! And then they come in and rack up the prices and they don't even know like any of the history. [Self Service issue 26] PICTURE CREDITS * http://blog.honeyee.com ** http://www.style.com/ *** http://www.hbo.com/ **** http://www.vmagazine.com/
In 2003 Alin Huma spent his time in Sidney trying to build up a magazine. But building up a magazine is not an easy adventure and one year spent went to nothing... or so he thought.
Fortunately he collected material enough to creat a zine who was called TA KE HA RA I.
His intention was to create a magazine following the Japanese alphabet kana, starting with the A and getting until the N. The first issue got some distribution here and there, Alin thinks he got even famous for 15 people at least... and he wants to continuing with this project and start back again with the E issue. But before that, he hopes to get famous for at least 15 more people with this first issue, the one you're enjoying, hopefuly, right now...
I think this zine is a wonderful little piece of art and I thanks S. for letting me know about it. So hopefuly I will let 15 more people to know about it... supporting beauty and talent.
We in Spain have our own chavs, our own suburbia girls with their plastic earrings, and their piercings and tattoos and their love for kitch. We have our own macho men with their tuning cars, their arrogance and sexism. The majority of Spanish inhabitants find these guys and girls very annoying, but some people like me and film director Bigas Luna find them a very much interesting young culture, fascinating in their love for material things; cars, cellulars, tattoos, piercings, toys... Yes, we could make our own "Little Spain"...
Three very good friends of mine could be placed into that group. Every time I met them i knew it was going to be a great day. Not always in the best of the senses, but i always knew that there would be something to happen. It was a whole adventure being surrounded by them, and now that i have lost them along our different ways of life, i miss them so much. Inés, Lorena and Marta.
So when i found out that great Bigas has made a film paying homage to such creatures, i couldn't help myself from almost crying remembering adventures with them, clubbing, raving and shopping...
Today was the last day of Fashion in Film Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. For three weeks the Museum has featured a total of 13 fashion related features, documentaries and short-films, in some cases with the people who created those projects in the Theater to talk to us about them. I scheduled my agenda to go to every single projection, risking even to not eat at all some of the days... I attended only two movies, that was it. Can you imagine my frustration?? Ok, at least the second and last movie I saw [the first one was 80's cult movieLiquid Sky] was Unzipped. With this I mean it was such a great documentary that I finished the festival with good taste in my mouth.
Unzipped follows American designer Isaac Mizrahi through the process of his Fall 1994 collection, a moment in his career in which things weren't going that well.
Mizrahi was, and still is, such a character with such charisma that only watching him on screen makes you want to see more and more. Famous for being rude sometimes I didn't see such a thing on the screening, not that the doc portraits him all nice and warm, he can be pretty tough sometimes, but you see his reasons and i wouldn't call him rude, straight forward instead.
The movie takes place in a period in which super models were around: you'll see a very and surprisingly funny Cindy Crawford, a very very young and out of space Kate Moss, a quite fussy Linda Evangelista, a funny diva Naomi, a shy Jasmine Ghauri, a self-confident and beautiful Eve Salvail... all the big and best models of the time playing themselves, a little pleasure for a model's world lover like me. It is lovely to see Isaac's love for movies, his world, his fears, his jokes... Unfortunatelly it is very difficult to find this movie but if you happen to find a copy, take it as gold! ... and let it me know
New York is a cool city but it is so cool that sometimes it can be quite boring. No one risks in anything, we can talk about fashion or music or art; people is too concern about money and when money talks, creativity stays quite. Maybe for that reason I love to buy British magazines; there is some fun, some edgyness that the Big Apple misses. So today, checking out the latest issue of iD, with chicette Clemence Poesy in its cover, I enjoyed, again, knowing a little bit more about Carri Mundane, founder and designer of colorful and fun fashion label Cassette Playa. I went, again, to her amazing website and checking out her links I ended up in singer and not-less fun M.I.A. 's website. And let me tell you, if i ever happen to be cool, i want to be THAT cool, not the one that sits in NY.
Who did I see the other week waiting in line right behind me in the Starbucks located in Spring street???... My 2006 woman of the year!!! I was ordering my chocolate cookies to the cashier when i turned my head and saw her. At the beginning i didn't recognise her as she's shorter than i thought, but her style hooked me and then I realized who she was. I asked her to take her picture and she agreed in the most polite way although she is British, and I am still not very familiar with that accent, so I quite didn't understand she said yes... A. had to tell me.. YES!! /) Agyness Dean really has a style to die for. And she's the sweetest!.
Last week photographer Jonathan Beck Leder contacted A. Esteban and me to style a photo shoot he was preparing for Mexican-based magazine Baby Baby Baby. As you all know I am a big fan of the magazine so when A. sent me the news I got pretty excited. Unfortunately, as it often happens in this business, time was very tight and we had less than 4 days to prepare everything: we are shooting tomorrow Wednesday and we were aware of the shoot on Friday. So we started to work and send emails as crazy to every single showroom in town hoping that because Baby Baby Baby is sister of Celeste magazine we wouldn't have any problem borrowing samples... sometimes we both are very optimistic! In any case we got very good reviews with the showrooms after showing the magazine and people was very helpful... except for H&M!!!!
This is a story that is still making me and A. laugh...
When we sent the emails on Saturday there were people that, even though was Saturday and they should be enjoining a good weekend, answered our petitions and asked us for a pdf or a copy of the publication as they were not familiar with it. We scheduled some appointments to go by the showrooms as we had only one copy to show. Good PR's were interested in knowing new publications, I guess that's their job and they do it well. Like Marc Jacobs, where they were super nice with us and three people attended us but at the end it was impossible for them to lend us anything as now it's trunk shows time and there are not a lot of pieces available for shootings.
For some reason Jonathan wanted some cute pieces from H&M so we contacted their showroom. We sent them two emails and left them a couple of voice mails. Finally the person in charge answered me the phone and wasn't very helpful or nice, and asked me all kind of things that i tried to answer and send. As we didn't get an answer back, yes or not, we assumed they would be very busy and we didn't want to bother with more calls or emails. We decided to go there directly with our copy to show them as their only concern was that they didn't know the publication and couldn't lend pieces without have a very clear idea of who are they talking about. We understood that and thought it was very correct.
We arrived there and asked to see the person I spoke on the phone with. And to our soprprise this person didn't even show up or tell the receptionist to leave the copy or anything. They were super rude, and unhelpful and arrogant. A. and me left practically laughing as we couldn't believe we were being rejected by H&M... c'mon guys, H&M is a copy-cat and is being picky about where it publishes.. and they don't even dare to take a look to the magazine!... Prada answered our emails and calls, Marc Jacobs did as well, Diesel, Ohnetitel... and H&M did not. Good for them!
I never write about beauty because is not really my thing, and here we have two postings in a row.. I just couldn't stop myself from featuring this cool as ever Comme des Garçons bottle of Rei Kawakubo's new franganze Pearly Monster. Isn't it just amazing? With a bottle like that who needs anything else in the bathroom to look good??
When it comes to parfumes is quite difficult to make editorials because, how do you photograph a smell?
Parfume campaigns usually represent women sorrounded by exclusive enviroment and eventually a bottle of parfum near them. The ads sell a way of life rather than a parfume, because there is no way to represent or share with the public what you are really trying to sell. The same comes with editorials, and magazines got the conclussion of just showing the parfume's packages or their bottles via photograph, or illustration, as NYLON sometimes does.
So when I flipped through the pages of the third issue of METAL magazine and saw the beautiful parfume editorial named IvonetteI thought I would never think a most beautiful way of photographing smells... the name of the bottles are in the credits, and that is. The images tell you all the rest.
* Ivonette.- scanned by me from Metal magazine Photographer: Oscar Visitación - Stylist: Karina Hemmings - Models : Irene and Armand
The other day I received an email from Belgian fashion illustrator Jarno Kettunen. He was complimenting Milkshake Chocolate and offering some kind of collaboration with it. Then i thought it would be interesting to do an editorial with his illustrations... I contacted him back and ask him if he would be interested in create a photoshoot with the spring 07 men's wear trends, with me as a stylist. He agreed and now we are working together on that.
I am preparing looks right now out of fashion show pictures from men.style.com which is something great as i just need my mouse and a click to get the clothing! Something very new and exciting i may say. ^^ Jarno Kettunen illustration
Nick Knight shot an editorial called Beautiful Women for British Vogue in which he portrayed the most beautiful women in the buzz bussiness. Among them there were Audrey Marnay, Penelope Tree, Twiggy, Kate and Claudia; Jerry Hall, Anjelica Houston ... Kate Moss was the woman number 54. The video on top ^^ is the recording Nick did of Kate, and even if nothing really happens during this shooting, still, the model looks so gorgeous.
The video was up in showstudio.com together with an interview to Nick Knight byAlice Rawsthorn, director of the Design Museum in London.
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So, you're Nick Knight. You're in a New York photographic studio to which a couple of dozen of the most famous models of the last fifty years have been summoned to be shot by you for British Vogue. There's Gisele, Audrey Marnay and Maggie Rizer; Penelope Tree, Twiggy and Patti Boyd; Naomi, Kate and Claudia; Jerry Hall, Marie Helvin and Patti Hansen; Dorian Leigh Parker, Carmen and Victoire Doutreleau; Anjelica Houston, Charlotte Rampling and Marisa Berenson; and on and on. They've been prepped by the stylists and they've posed for their portraits but, before they leave, what else would you ask them to do?
Don't forget, you're Nick Knight, so you'll ask them all to do two things. One is to kiss a piece of glass. (Now, we're not even going to try to go into why right now, but it's something that Knight has been asking models to do at the end of his sessions for years. And, in case, you're wondering, the glass goes straight into his archive afterwards.) Then you'll ask them to stand in front of a video camera, say their name and stay there for two minutes as the stars of a sort of John'n'Yoko-meet-Warhol home video that anyone who wants to can now see on SHOWstudio.
AR: Why? NK: Because, once I realised that I could get access to these people - the great models of the 20th century - I thought, well, this is a unique opportunity and we should get as much out of them as we can. Some of the great models have already gone - Dovima, Lisa Fonssagrives Penn, the Beaton ones, the Steichen ones, a whole bunch of them - and a lot of the women in the Vogue shoot are in their sixties or older. So, I knew that I wouldn't be able to do a project like this again.
AR: How did you approach the Vogue shoot? NK: Originally, I wanted to photograph them all in the nude, but that idea went out of the window very quickly. It's hard enough to persuade people to come out of retirement in Santa Barbara, without telling them that they're going to be photographed naked in their sixties. I was interested in trying to find out whether there was some sort of body shape that could be discerned from the sort of woman people want to photograph: whether there was a distinctive physiology or a discernible, almost coherent range of body shapes? And then I thought: "Well, if they're not going to want to do it, let's look at their faces and see if there's anything there." But we ended up shooting them full-length.
When I got the lastest issue of Nylon Guys this morning I got very excited when I found out Nylon was launching its own TV channel broadcasted both in their website and YouTube. I couldn't wait to watch the videos and so I spent a couple of minutes watching a series of It-girl scenesters like Cory Kennedy, Theodora Richards or Nicky Hilton talking about stores, clothing companies and designer's fairs... funny that the clothing companies and stores they were talking about are the sponsors or often collaborators of the magazine (Diesel, WeSC, Barracuda), and the designers' fair the one where Nicky was launching her own clothing line Chick by Nicky Hilton. Well, the Heatherette show video wasn't that bad.
Now it's done and in phase of getting upload to the web.. while the uploading and design is in progress, here you have a little scoop. I hope you like it and enjoy!.
Skinny jeans are getting old and demodé; every single girl with a little "sense of style" is wearing them since trend-setter Queen Kate Moss started to do so a year ago. So even if they're still skinny, it's refreshing to see the British model wearing them cropped, or Capri, as my mom would say.
I'm just back from the theater to see Zodiac, the lastest movie of American director David Fincher, about a serial killer nicknamed Zodiac who commited his murders in California during the late 60's.
Two powerful reasons to watch this movie:
1.- The costume design by Casey Storm is SUPERB. The movie takes place in late 60's and early 70's but the designer does a great job avoiding cliches and stereotypes, don't espect bell bottom pants and psychedelic print dresses all over the place. The look is real and the clothing never looks ridiculous on the actors. That guys, is quite dificult when we are talking about the 60's and 70's.
2.- The actors: - Marc Ruffalo: Terrific acting, as always. His voice is one of the most beautiful voices in the movie industry together with John Malcovich. - Jake Gyllenhal: No comment.. I would need a whole day to explain how an amazing actor this man is. - Chloë Sevigny: Her appearance is very short but still, it catches you - Robert Downey Jr: What else I can say that no one hasn't before about this GREAT actor?
Since Raf Simons took control of Jil Sander's design department in May 2005, the German fashion house has been showing the most beautiful collections since great Jil Sander sold her own company to Prada Group. I am a big fan of this new stage of the label as my "A Look" ad can demonstrate. Both the collection and the campaign for Spring 2007 ready-to-wear, with Canadian Johanna Stickland modelling for it, have had a great impact on me. So pure. So Beautiful.
Chloë Sevigny is more than a great actress to me. She is the real girl next door with a BIG sense of style and joy for clothing. If I would ever go to take a walk again, please remind me not to wear anything but something else.
* Griffith Park, Hollywood Hills. Los Angeles ** pictures at chloesevigny.com/
Two days ago I assisted Angela Esteban in an editorial for FLY DVD magazine. Everything was a little in a hurry and I knew I was in the team in less than 24 hours . The photographer was Gray Scott at Veritas Management.
The principle figure of this posting is not the shooting itself, which in any case was a lot of fun, but the female model that was casted for it, Jeanette Thevenin at Click Model Management, a 20 years old with a waist-longered red hair to die for.
FLY DVD magazine is, as its name says, a DVD magazine. There are not pages to flip but images to watch, so instead of photos the editorials are made out of videos. For this reason sometimes is quite dificult to work the projects out as models are not actors and they can not always handle the acting involved. In any case, Jeanette really kicked.
It was very hard for her at the beginning and she took almost 3 hours to get into, but once she did, she was terrific. She was patiente with Gray the director and very very profesional with the whole team: she was naked or almost naked mostly all the time and she didn't say a word or any complaint about it. Instead she was polite and had a smile and a thank you ready for every one. She paired the shooting with male model Patrick, whose agency, unfortunately, i couldn't find out.
Jeanette is probably the most profesional model I've ever worked with.
Jeanette at Marc Jacobs' fall 2007 collection last September ^^
My name is Patricia Yagüe and I live in New York City where I work as a fashion stylist. I was born and raised in Madrid although I started to travel at age 17. I've lived in Dublin, Rome and now NY. I love the fact that fashion is such a powerful tool, something that people denies as such but religions, politics and wars all have their own uniforms, their own colors, and that's the first thing we learn to distinguish, even before knowing their beliefs.
I just got a newsletter from Style.com announcing a curious raffle: the "chance of win a day in the life of a model".
