Three is a magic number (maybe)

leoni milano

Happy Independence Day to my American readers. July 4 is also frockwriter’s birthday and today we turn three. How time flies. It seems like only yesterday that I was saying sayonara to mainstream media blogging (for smh.com.au and news.com.au) and venturing into the wild blue yonder of the indie blogosphere. What a ride it has been. And what can I say but, once again, thank you for your interest, your comments, your Tweets, your links, your trackbacks, your feedback and your shit-canning. Over exuberance of the latter at one point over the past year prompted me to finally upgrade my comments system. Couple of milestones. It took two years to reach one million page views. But just one to reach two million. What might it take to hit one million PIs per month? Certainly much more of an effort than currently goes into this blog, due to paid work commitments and other distractions (such as a family drama, which has occupied a huge amount of time over the past few months). But I’m working on it. Thanks to new advertising partner Pages Digital, the first ad campaigns have gone up. Early days of course. But baby steps. 

Thanks to Kent for his unwavering support. Thanks also to my mates. You know who you are.
 

Special thanks to the inimitable Andrej Pejic, the subject of frockwriter’s two most popular posts of the last twelve months (not to mention an in-depth current affairs profile on Seven Network’s Sunday Night program). The year’s other top posts included Pretty Babies, about the eight year-old stars of an editorial in the December edition of Vogue Paris - a post that attracted the attention of the US Christian Right and broke frockwriter’s comments record. Coincidentally, it also precipitated, by several days, the announcement of the departure of Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld. Bulgari’s Lolcats and Givenchy’s Gender Bender (about transsexual model Lea T) were other popular posts.
 

Thanks to all the photographers, designers, editors, PRs and model agents for their generosity with tips, info, access and notably first looks at images, covers and campaigns - and of course the models themselves, who occupy such a huge part of this blog.
 

Thank-you also to the other bloggers, journalists and media outlets which regularly pick up frockwriter's stories. So very much appreciated.

Gemma Ward delivers a video address, calls in a favour from Mario Testino

mario testino for vogue paris via TFS

 
The furore of global coverage sparked by the news that Gemma Ward had broken her silence (well, kind of) on her relationship with Heath Ledger in Perth’s Sunday Times newspaper over the weekend sounds like nothing compared to the media circus the Perth Theatre Company can expect once Ward rocks up for rehearsals later this month. Ward mentioned Ledger during an interview to promote her involvement with the company’s new production of The Ugly One, which will run from March 22-April 9, with three previews starting on March 18. Last night, Ward lent yet another helping hand to the official launch of the company’s January-June season at the new WA State Theatre Studio Underground, addressing the invited guests in a prerecorded video which was reportedly filmed on her laptop from her New York bedroom. The YouTube version, needless to say, is likely to go ballistic once the company eventually puts it online. 

Ward told the guests, who included her mum Claire, sister Sophie and brothers Oscar and Henry:  

"I'm sorry that I couldn't be there tonight, I'm sure you're all having an amazing time soaking in the new State Theatre of Perth. I'm really excited to be on board as an Ambassador for the Perth Theatre Company and I'm thrilled to be in the opening play of the new Studio Underground.... I hope that you can all come and help us enjoy this play and continue to support the theatre. So, thank you and I hope I see some of you soon. Have a good night. Bye!".

Also lending a helping hand to the until now relatively low profile theatre company: legendary fashion lensman Mario Testino, who has given permission for one of his many archival photos of Ward (above) to be the official image of the program, a Perth Theatre Company rep tells frockwriter.

The photo, part of a beauty spread from the February 2005 edition of Vogue Paris – which Ward covered - depicts Ward clipping her eyelashes. Brilliant choice of image, in other words, to illustrate Marius von Mayenburg’s black satire about the contemporary pursuit of physical perfection.

Given Ward's battles with the fashion establishment - which has been accused of turning its back on the erstwhile world number one model once her previously coltish adolescent figure filled out - she has made a fascinating choice of vehicle via which to make her stage debut. 
 
 

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld interviews Tom Ford for V Magazine

These shots were just slipped to frockwriter (and no doubt many other blogs, but at this stage we think it may be a first look). It's a preview of V Magazine's issue #69, a spread starring Julia Restoin-Roitfeld modelling Tom Ford's debut womenswear collection - described as "self portraits" so we have to assume she took the shots. And an excerpt from an interview conducted with Ford, by Restoin-Roitfeld, the face of Ford's Black Orchid fragrance campaign. This would have been in the pipeline for some time, but interesting that it falls hot on the heels of last Friday's abrupt resignation by Restoin-Roitfeld's mother, Carine Roitfeld, from Vogue Paris after a 10 year tenure. The official version is that Roitfeld wants to pursue "personal projects". In reality, however, noone leaves a position like that with several weeks notice. Few, if any, have voluntarily resigned from Vogue. There has been much speculation that Roitfeld was pushed by Condé Nast after problems vis-à-vis her ongoing consulting to fashion brands. Yes fashion editors (even in Australia) do paid work on outside ad campaigns and that's bad enough. It is verging on the ludicrous for an editor-in-chief to do so. There has also been speculation that the December issue of Vogue Paris, as edited by Ford, was poorly received by some Vogue advertisers and may have proven the final straw.

JULIA RESTOIN ROITFELD What made you decide that this was the season to return to fashion?  
TOM FORD I told myself that I would not come back to 
women’s fashion until I felt I had something new to say. I feel that fashion has become too serious and that the actual customer’s needs have not really been addressed. Fashion needs to make one happy. It is a luxury and should enhance one’s quality of life.
 

JRR What inspired your collection?   
TF Real clothes for real women. I want to concentrate on my real customer. That’s why I showed idealized versions of her—different women of different ages. It was about individuality, different body types, women who have their own style.
 

JRR What do you think fashion needs more of right now? 

TF Spontaneity. Fashion needs to be more fun.
 

JRR What personality traits does the Tom Ford woman possess? 

TF My customer has her own sense of style and knows herself well. My goal is to help women become the best version of themselves.
 

JRR What is your favorite piece from the collection? 

TF I love every piece. That is like asking someone which one of their children is their favorite.
 

JRR Outside fashion, what are you looking forward to this spring? 

TF I have to say more fashion. I love what I am doing right now and can’t wait to start the next collection.
 

JRR What was the last thing that made you laugh? 

TF I laugh a good bit so that is a hard question. I suppose a phone call I just had with Richard [Buckley] five minutes ago made me laugh pretty hard. He has a wicked sense of humor
 

JRR What’s your New Year’s resolution?   
TF I don’t have one. I believe in living life the way that you want to live it every day, and if you do that you don’t really need to have New Year’s resolutions.

all materials: supplied to frockwriter by V magazine

Pretty babies

sharif hamza for vogue paris via sharif hamza

So after editorial spreads showcasing cosmetic surgery, loved up old folks and Ali McGraw et al, what other subjects did Tom Ford explore during his editorial stewardship of the Christmas edition of Vogue Paris? Tarted-up six year-olds. Photographed by Sharif Hamza and styled by Melanie Huynh, the 15-page 'Cadeaux' gift spread features a gaggle of little girls kitted out in designer gear. Yes, most kids love playing dressups and some images are no different to spreads you might find in childrens' fashion magazines such as Vogue Bambini, Vogue Enfants or our Studio Bambini. Save for the fact, of course, that the latter are all childrens' fashion magazines, marketing childrens' clothing to parents. As distinct from an adult's fashion magazine that is using children to advertise grownup merchandise to adults - and which happens to include several simulated sex scenes elsewhere in the edition. However the inclusion of several shots of heavily made-up children draped seductively over chairs, daybeds and an animal skin rug, with their legs and décolletages bared, like child prostitutes in a brothel, illustrates just how untouchable Ford and Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld believe themselves to be. Ditto the alarmingly ambiguous image of the child brushing her teeth. ***UPDATE 18/12/10: Today's surprise announcement that Roitfeld will be leaving Vogue Paris in January after 10 years at the magazine's helm, to pursue "personal projects", will no doubt prompt some speculation that she might not have been quite as untouchable as she thought.***

No, thankfully their great mate Terry Richardson was apparently nowhere near this shoot, even though he does feature elsewhere in the issue. 

But we all know exactly what that toothbrush image would mean in the hands of Richardson and with an adult model. The trouble with putting the nudge-nudge-wink-wink into fashion is that everything has the potential to be a dirty joke.  

all images: sharif hamza for vogue paris via sharif hamza

Vogue means never having to say you're seventy

tom ford for vogue paris via fashion_screen

Ah the Tom Ford issue of Vogue Paris. It just keeps on giving. Following the 'Forever Young' editorial in which a blinged-up grey-haired couple is caught by Ford's camera in flagrante delicto - and Ford's proclamation that he has had it with the cult of youth, the stigmatization of wrinkles and all those who "cheat" time - comes an editorial spread starring some of the women who modelled the new Tom Ford womenswear collection at his exclusive media launch at New York Fashion Week in September. And a couple of ringins, including Ali McGraw. (In order below) Betty Catroux, Marisa Berenson and Lauren Hutton look like ultra glamorous 60+ women - although any thinner and Berenson would have been at grave risk of being mistaken for a light stand in Vogue's studio. The Love Story star, however, doesn't look a day over 45. Which is fascinating, since McGraw is in fact 72. Granted, she has been practicing yoga for the past 20 years, but considering that this is what McGraw looked like in 2006 and here she is in an interview with Oprah Winfrey several months ago - looking absolutely fantastic, we must say - is it just a question of good lighting or has she in fact been Photoshopped by Vogue to within an inch of her life? Given Ford's vigorous stance on ageing in the 'Forever Young' editorial, the latter scenario would seem more than a little inconsistent.

As it happens, McGraw has quite strong views on images of women in the media.
 

Here she is in another video interview, below. Uploaded by the reporter in 2009, it's unclear whether it was recorded that year, or perhaps several years earlier. 

On the issue of the celebrity-driven pressure to be thin, McGraw notes: 

“I have a raging fury against the media. Whether it’s a fashion magazine showing that this skinny 14 year-old is the way a grown-up woman is meant to look or this scared, tiny, starving herself pop star is the model against which our teenage and 20 year old and 30 year old women are meant to look. And I think it has to start with the media. And I'm just in a rage about it because I have watched a whole generation of kids behind.... You know, it’s always about fear... 'Am I enough?', 'Am I attractive enough?', 'Am I cool?' Because that’s the special word. And until we have images out there at the checkout counter that show what cool really looks like and it doesn’t look like an anorexic, cutting yourself girl, we’re going to have a population of kids looking like this. Because they’re so uncomfortable anyway with themselves, that they think a certain dress or certain bones showing, makes them OK and it doesn’t”.

Just out of interest, which model did Ford pick for the Vogue Paris December cover? New Dutch face Daphne Groeneveld. Who is 14.



 

all images: tom ford for vogue paris december 2010 via fashion_screen

Old spice: Not even age shall weary Tom Ford's fashion porn stars

 

Following the Crystal Renn editorial in which the world's most famous plus size model receives a gamut of cosmetic surgery procedures - and some oral pleasure - yet more images of the Tom Ford-edited December 2010 edition of Vogue Paris have surfaced. In an editorial spread entitled 'Forever Love', this time Ford tackles the subject of old age, shooting two apparently septuaganarian models groping each other while showcasing the latest in fine jewellery. In a post-script, Ford, who also photographed the editorial, notes: “I am tired of the cult of youth. The cultural rejection of old age, the stigmatization of wrinkles, grey hair, of bodies furrowed by the years. I am fascinated by Diana Vreeland, Georgia O’Keeffe and Louise Bourgeois, women who have let time embrace them without ever cheating. Society today condems this, me, I celebrate it. For this session of fine jewellery, I imagined a man and a woman who had been together for a long time, faithful to each other and always incandescent with desire”.

And that's all fine and dandy and at the end of the day an opportunity for some older models to make it into the "hot" issue of one of the world's most prestigious fashion titles. 

Ford did in fact use several 40+ and 50+ women in his debut womenswear presentation in New York in September, even Elsa Schiaparelli's sixtysomething granddaughter, actor Marisa Berenson.  

But there's just something a little gratuitous about a couple of these images.

And it's well worth noting that when it comes to his own ageing, you won't find a single grey hair or wrinkle on babyfaced 49 year-old Ford, who told The Advocate in December last year, “I’m a firm believer in Botox and Restylane. Absolutely.”

all images: tom ford for vogue paris via fashion_screen

Tom Ford recommends a head job with that boob job

tom ford for vogue paris via fashion_screen

In the much-hyped, Tom Ford-edited December 2010 edition of Vogue Paris, which is out tomorrow, Ford tackles the subject of cosmetic surgery with an eight page editorial called La Panthère ose (which translates as “the panther dares” - a play on the French version of the film title The Pink Panther). Starring the world’s most high profile plus size model Crystal Renn, the editorial was shot by Ford and styled by editor in chief Carine Roitfeld. Yes, cosmetic surgery makes an interesting editorial backdrop for any fashion magazine, considering that such magazines stand accused of only ever showcasing unrealistic – and frequently digitally enhanced – images of female “perfection” that prompt feelings of inadequacy in “normal” women and lead them to eating disorders and cosmetic surgery. But it is not the first time this has been done. The July 2005 edition of Vogue Italia featured an 80-page cover story by Steven Meisel called Makeover Madness. Shot inside a medical equipment rental facility and a suite at the St Regis, the story depicted Linda Evangelista and eight other models before, "during" and after staged procedures (complete with fake blood). It's interesting to compare the two editorials. 

The 2005 story (here) depicts nose jobs, breast augmentations, liposuction and blepharoplasty or eyelid surgery, male doctors and female nurses. 

The 2010 version (above and below) depicts exactly the same procedures, minus liposuction - and two male attendants in the place of the doctors and nurses. 

One could speculate that Vogue Paris deliberately omitted liposuction from this story because of the body image debate that has been raging since 2006, following the deaths of several models from eating disorder-related conditions. And it would defeat the purpose, surely, of having a plus-size model in the editorial? Unless that's a shadow on Renn's leg in image four, however, we would put money on her thigh having been airbrushed by the magazine. 

Renn has revealed that she wore a prosthetic mask in some pictures – presumably those showing her with grotesquely overinflated lips and acutely chiselled cheekbones. The kind of cheekbones frockwriter has spotted on more than one high profile twentysomething model.

There is one interesting addition to Ford’s cosmetic surgery story: sex.

In one shot, Renn's character appears to be on the receiving end of some oral pleasure from one model - with her left arm dangled around a second male model, who looks barely legal - while casually sipping Coke from a straw in one hand and channel surfing with the other.

Many will no doubt find Ford’s post-op cunnilingus proposition - which all looks very consensual, save for the fact that the patient requires assistance to walk and shower and would most likely be on heavy duty painkillers - funny. The score of women who claim to have been indecently assaulted by cosmetic/plastic surgeons while under sedation probably won't be amongst those laughing. Nor indeed, any date rape victims.

Another image in the series (second from the end) is ambiguous. Renn is lying in the lap of one model, who is holding an ice pack to her forehead, while the other leans over her suggestively. The latter is holding her waist with one hand, while "administering" Chanel No 5 - either orally or perhaps as a substitute for an Amyl Nitrate "popper", a hugely popular drug in the gay mens' scene.  
 
Ford aims to be controversial. After all, he is in the process of making his big comeback in women’s fashion. Besides, he has never shied from controversy, either with the advertising imagery for Gucci or more recently, through the advertising campaigns for his own brand, notably the mens’ fragrance campaign shot by mate Terry Richardson. The duo team up again in this issue of Vogue Paris in a western-themed editorial called (what else?) Pussy Western, starring Renn once again, opposite Abbey Lee Kershaw and Eniko Mihalik.  

Interestingly, Ford's cosmetic surgery story coincides with the publication of The Daily Beast’s roundup of some of the new, far less invasive cosmetic surgery procedures that are currently being hailed by various US cosmetic and plastic surgeons as having "revolutionised" their practices.

They include skin resurfacing machines that some claim have eliminated the need for upper and lower eyelid surgery and fillers that have reportedly proven to be so effective they are replacing some nose jobs and the traditional facelift – with one plastic surgeon describing the latter as “an outdated insane operation”.

all images: tom ford for vogue paris via fashion_screen

Andrej Pejic channels Ziggy Stardust for Vogue Paris

Australia’s edgiest new modelling star, Andrej Pejic, was the talk of the town at last month's Paris mens shows. Frockwriter mentioned at the time that he had just worked with a well-known photographic duo for a major international magazine. Well that magazine is the just-launched September edition of Vogue Paris and Pejic features in a 16-page fashion story called 'Rive gauche et libre'. Shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott and styled by no less than Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld, the story was inspired by '50s chanteuse Juliette Gréco and '70s gender bender Ziggy Stardust and also includes Malgosia Bela, Daphne Groeneveld and transsexual Givenchy muse Lea T. But make no mistake, Pejic is the star of the story. He not only opens and closes it, but accounts for almost half the images (below). Click here to see the entire spread. And stand by to see what role Pejic may play in the S/S 2011 womens show season, which is about to kick off in New York. Not to mention the November edition of an equally high profile international womens' title, for which he has just been shot by an even bigger name, opposite a top female cast. He also features in an upcoming spread in Arena Homme Plus. 

all images: mert + marcus for vogue paris via the frenchy/TFS