Andrej Pejic wraps 2011 in a lingerie campaign for Hema

parool

It's Victoria's Secret all right. He closed Jean Paul Gaultier’s haute couture show in Paris as the traditional bride. He channelled Marilyn Monroe. He was presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace. What other accomplishments could the androgynous, Bosnian-born, Melbourne-raised modelling superstar Andrej Pejic squeeze into the closing days of 2011? Try scoring an advertising campaign for womens’ lingerie. Behold two images from a new intimate apparel campaign from Dutch chain store Hema, advertising its “Mega Push-Up Bra”, as modelled by Pejic underneath two womens' dresses. Even in the super liberal Netherlands, Hema’s choice of model has made big news, with at least a half dozen Dutch news outlets picking up the story in the last few hours. The campaign was shot in Amsterdam in late September and is described as a "money job" by Pejic's Sydney agent, Chadwick's Joseph Tenni. "It's revolutionary" Tenni told frockwriter. "I've never known a man to do a womens' lingerie campaign before".

both images: via parool 

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2010

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2010 screened in the US on Tuesday night. Predictably, it did not take long to wind up on YouTube. Here is the entire show, below, which frockwriter noted last month did not include a single Australian model for the first time in four years. Several Australians were, however, involved in the show. For the sixth consecutive year, Sydney jeweller Jenny Mercian created some spectacular showpieces, including this fringed corset, above. And New York-based Sydney expat casting director and show producer Kannon Rajah can be seen in numerous shots sending the models out onto the runway. 

Jennifer Hawkins puts the Love into Lovable with an Uncle Terry-style "porn star" campaign

Lots of buzz yesterday over the launch of Lovable’s new Love Colour collection down on Bondi Beach. The new lingerie collection is based around sorbet colours and so Lovable ambassador Jennifer Hawkins and a gaggle of lingerie-clad models doled out ice creams - and lingerie - from a Mr Whippy van. Most interesting of all: the set of campaign images that was released online overnight and which according to Lovable, will appear in next week’s editions of Grazia, Cosmopolitan and Shop Til You Drop magazines. Conceived by Sydney-based Studio Woo and lensed by Australian fashion photographer Simon Lekias, the shots depict the former Miss Universe horsing around with a blueberry milkshake, a watermelon wedge and an ice cream cone filled with lemon sorbet. It’s the way Hawkins is holding the cone that grabs your attention. The cone is not far from her mouth, her mouth is wide open and sorbet is dripping down her arm. The Lovable press release describes the images as “cheekily suggestive”. Everyone to whom frockwriter showed the shots this afternoon concurred they are highly suggestive: of notorious American photographer Terry Richardson. And we all know what Richardson would be suggesting the cone and the white sorbet would be in this scenario. Warning NSFW photos.

In spite of the fact that the press release describes the shots as “cheekily suggestive images destined to set temperatures soaring across the country”, a spokeswoman for Lovable's parent company Gazal denied that the ice cream cone image was supposed to suggest Hawkins administering a blowjob - or indeed that Terry Richardson was the inspiration. 

“I’m sure there will be some complaints” said Gazal's Dianne Taylor. “We normally do get them when we put a female in lingerie in any sort of advertising. But we don’t see that [blowjob/semen scenario] at all. That representation was not intended at all”.

“The creative is suggestive, but a lot of Lovable’s creative has been suggestive in the past” said Taylor, adding that a billboard ad featuring Hawkins with a stuffed rhinoceros and the tagline “Feeling horny?” was banned in New Zealand in 2007.

“The brief was to launch the colour range, to play on Lovable’s cheeky tone of voice, which in the past has pushed boundaries. She [Hawkins] was comfortable to push the boundaries a little further. Justin Woo [Studio Woo] came up with the idea of the props”.

Woo was in transit from Melbourne when frockwriter called his studio this afternoon. But even a studio colleague conceded the campaign has "a Terry Richardson feel" to it.

Richardson has shot one campaign in Australia – a controversial Lee Jeans campaign in 2006, for which he was paid an estimated $200,000. At the time, industry sources told me that this figure was ten times what a local photographer would have been paid for the same campaign. 

Richardson’s fashion work (below) has always blurred the boundaries between art and pornography.

When it comes to his personal work, however, there are no boundaries whatsoever – it is hardcore porn and Richardson himself is centre stage in pretty much every shot, giving a whole new meaning to the term photographic shoot. 


But not everyone, it seems, has been having fun on jobs with "Uncle Terry". 

Earlier this year a number of fashion models spoke out about Richardson, claiming he is a sexual predator who abuses the trust of inexperienced young women by encouraging them into compromising situations in order to take degrading images. The story made headlines around the world. Richardson is however still working, as busy as ever it seems.

It's interesting that a mainstream Australian brand such as Lovable would go anywhere near the style of his more risque work at this particular time. Especially a company that advocates corporate social responsibility via collaborations with femme-friendly organisations such as The Butterfly Foundation. 

To quote the Lovable website:

“We are dedicated to changing the culture surrounding eating disorders and body image through our support of Butterfly, by using happy, healthy models in our campaigns and promotional activities and by continuing to design intimates that are not created to objectify women’s bodies but to make women look, and most importantly feel, great when they wear them”.

images

1, 2/ supplied by lovable
3/ sisley via terryrichardson.com
4/ pirelli 2009 calendar, menstyle.it via fashionologie
5/ rolling stone via high snobiety
6/ lee jeans via the age

Tiah Eckhardt, the new face of Eres lingerie

Back in January, frockwriter first mentioned that our well-placed sources had Australian model Tiah Eckhardt replacing Lara Stone as the new face of French luxury lingerie brand Eres. Last week we confirmed it. It's big news for Eckhardt because Eres is a high profile brand and, well, the incumbent is currently ranked the world number one on models.com. Below is the complete Fall/Winter 2010 2011 Eres lingerie campaign, shot by David Bellemere, which has just gone up on the Eres website (hat tip to Isaac for the headsup). Eckhardt shot the campaign in January, three months after giving birth to Finley Victoria, her daughter with model Patrick Delaney. Just three weeks after giving birth, she shot this Alex Goddard music clip.

Post baby body or not, the Eres campaign is a personal triumph - pardon the pun - for Eckhardt, who reports in a story written for Oyster magazine that when she first entered the modelling business, she was told her curves were not welcome.

Eckhardt recently republished the story on her blog, The Light of God and Girls:

"2010 made Australian Fashion Week the sixth I’ve participated in since my first in 2004. I’m not counting my unofficial first- 2002- where mid-high school year I ventured out of the comfort of my parents’ Perth home and across our great land just to be told I was too fat and, confusingly, too plain and too weird.


Thanks for the self-esteem boost guys, I also nearly failed school that year. My heart goes out to the little dolls I’ve seen at show castings ever since. The blisters from your baby-hooker shoes will heal but the ego-wounds won’t. I’ll give you the name of my therapist, say Tiah sent you. Oh… and I mean foot therapist, she does a great pedi. Don’t even bother with the other kind.


Just like that social-climbing bitch at school – yeah, you know the one: insecure and nerdy but desperate to hang out with ‘the cool kids’ – Australia’s fashion industry equivalents aren’t above cutting to the bone with the cheapest possible blow in order to assert themselves. As what one would wonder? A part of the international scene? Good luck. Just because you can bitch out on a chick for having tits and an arse as good as Karl Lagerfeld can doesn’t mean you can make clothes like him. And even it would seem The Kaiser’s coming around to a bit of woman’s-woman nowadays, booking the likes of Lara Stone and Claudia Schiffer for Chanel. Miuccia too, sending out Victoria’s Secret models for Prada and Marc Jacobs pulling a similar act with Elle MacPherson at Louis Vuitton.


Surprise! And not just at the international collections’ casting choices, but at the fact our country is still maintaining its tradition of not ‘getting it’ until two seasons too late. You’d think in 15 years we would’ve caught up. Or at least rebelled and begun a rebel faction in the cafeteria. But no no, as a collective we’re still chasing along after the popular kids, repeating what they do and what they say (but with delay) in a desperate bid to fit in most of the time. I look forward to 2012 when this year finally sets in and we see at least a C-cup on the runway, or anyone over 21".

Eres is Eckhardt's second inernational lingerie campaign, after Agent Provocateur in 2007. Her other international work includes campaigns for Iceberg, John Richmond, Westfield London and a profile in the December 2008 edition of French Playboy.

all images: patrick bellemere via eres

Jean Paul Gaultier's Perla

Turbans were piled high, shoulder pads took on lives of their own – right down to the elbow - and Dita von Teese stripped down to a black beaded corset, thong and suspenders on the runway – all to promote, presumably, a new collaboration between Jean Paul Gaultier and Italian luxury lingerie brand La Perla. Call it Marlene Dietrich with multiple personality disorder, Gaultier’s haute couture offerings, just off the runway in Paris, were a mixed bag of Forties Hollywood glamour, Lido showgirl and Mortitia Addams. As with Dior’s floral extravaganza on Monday, colours were intense, from poison green to chartreuse, cobalt blue and orchid. It now remains to be seen which contemporary Hollywood icons have the chutzpah to pull these looks off on the red carpet. Head to Now Fashion to see the complete collection.

Tiah Eckhardt ties the knot, confirms Eres, auditions for X Men

tim bret-day for agent provocateur

Frockwriter must admit that we did a double take when we saw the shots rolling in of last night's Christian Dior Fall/Winter 2009/2010 haute couture show in Paris, which was staged in the grounds of the Rodin Museum. One model appeared to be a dead ringer for Australia's Tiah Eckhardt. The model in question was, in fact, Sweden's Frida Gustavsson (number 24 in this Style.com pic gallery of the show). As it turns out, Eckhardt was otherwise occupied yesterday, and coincidentally in her own garden of earthly delights: marrying her babydaddy Patrick Delaney in front of a small group of friends in the Rose Garden at Centennial Park. The bride wore? Not Dior haute couture, but a vintage strapless white leather minidress. The happy couple may soon be about to celebrate some other very exciting news. No, not another baby - Eckhardt revealed to frockwriter that she has just auditioned for one of (numerous) upcoming instalments of the X Men film franchise.

These include X Men: First Class, in which James McEvoy and Michael Fassbender have already been cast, with Twentieth Century Fox reportedly also interested in Twilight star Taylor Lautner.

This could be a very interesting career move for redhead bombshell who already has quite the cult following, following her appearances in French Playboy and a raft of other art titles, in addition to an advertising campaign for high profile British lingerie brand Agent Provocateur.

Eckhardt also confirmed that she did indeed shoot a campaign for iconic French lingerie and swimwear brand Eres earlier this year in Paris - as first reported by frockwriter. The shoot was with David Bellemere, with whom Eckhardt had previously worked for French Marie Claire. Currently fronted by Lara Stone, Eckhardt's campaign was shot a year in advance she reports.

Eckhardt was unable to provide any other details regarding X Men, beyond the fact that she auditioned in Sydney for the Christine King casting agency, which contacted her through her mother agency, Viviens (two other Viviens models also did the X Men audition). Coincidentally, Viviens also represents Gemma Ward.

With Ward already cast in Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and recently auditioning for Mad Max 4, might we soon be witnessing the summer of the Australian model-turned-action heroine?

Tiah Eckhardt to replace Lara Stone for Eres?

warwick saint/S magazine via TFS

As in Eres, the high profile French luxury lingerie brand. Well these are the whispers coming out of Paris where, as already mentioned by Eckhardt on her blog, she is currently on assignment for five days - having left three month old daughter Finley Victoria in the care of her mother back home. It’s not so inconceivable – and not just because Eckhardt's rates would be lower than those now commanded by Stone, who has emerged as one of the world's most in demand models over the past twelve months (and is presumably now a little too expensive for some). A fashion model who, her friends say, once dabbled in burlesque in Sydney, Eckhardt has clocked up quite a body, pardon the pun, of nude work since leaving Australia. The publications include no less than French Playboy. And Eckhardt's best-known ad campaign to date just happens to have been for cult British lingerie brand Agent Provocateur. You may recall her role as a French maid in this video for Agent Provocateur's Fall/Winter 07/08 'Lady of The Manor' campaign shot by David Bailey, co-starring Catherine Bailey and Daisy Lowe.