The eyes are not the windows of the soul, they are the doors. Beware what may enter them.

Long time no see. For some reason I thought I'd drop by and look back at some of my posts. Needless to say, most of them make me cringe. Weird to see how much I've grown and how my opinions have evolved since I last posted here. I've been totally out the loop regarding the fashion industry. School has been eating my soul and taking up most of my time and I can't say that fashion has particularly wowed me lately anyway, so it's not like I feel the need to scramble to keep track of things. 

I may resume posting when I'm done with school. I may not. I'm racking my brains trying to come up with a fashion-related topic I could write about, but nothing comes to mind. Fashion doesn't seem to inspire me as much as it used to, and my interests have shifted away from models and fashion magazines. It makes me nostalgic and I wish I could swiftly get back into it all, but what would be the point of forcing myself to care about something I have lost interest in? Sigh. I'm just kind of thinking out loud at this point. 

Most of the fashion blogs I used to avidly follow have been shut down, which makes me feel pretty shitty, too. Nostalgia is a curse, one I've been under as far back as I can remember. If anybody's got the counter-curse, please do hit me up. Anyway I'm going to step down from my soapbox now and go back to what I was doing (nothing).

The sin without the sinner.

By Sam Hessanian

My latest obsession goes by the name of Nadya Trofimova and sure is one newcomer capable of sticking up for herself amidst the most established models the industry has doled out. If you frequent fashion forums you'll easily pick up on one recurring thread through discussions pertaining to models and castings: bashing over newfaces and blind frenzy over the supers. I'm often baffled by the propensity of most fashion aficionados to put down emerging talents (whether they be models, photographers, or designers in fact) for the sole reason that they're not widely heralded - just yet. The industry does need new blood to move forward! Not that the ideal solution to swing away from the triteness magazines and runways have been dishing out for a while lies in tossing aside all the massive weapons that have partaken in defining fashion up until now. I personally think newcomers need to be allowed into the industry to back up seasoned characters in revamping fashion from scratch and staving off repetitiveness. My point being that there's no selling short great and skilled new [something's] just because they haven't made a name for themselves yet.

By Alex Covo

I went off on a tangent a bit so back to the topic at hand. Nadya hails from Russia, is signed to Aquarelle in her homeland and Elite in both New York and Milan, and got her feet wet on the runways this Fall season, keeping it low-key. She pretty much typifies androgyny (a word I nearly shy away from using seeing how it's been senselessly thrown around) and knows how to transform mere tests into impactful photographs in and of itself. The camera seems naturally endeared to her razor-sharp cheekbones and arresting set of eyes, and images come alive as she goes from being vibrant, to being effortless, to being tough. It might be too hasty to assert this right now but basing off of the work Nadya has put out, her talent seems all-encompassing ; she has the powerful runway stance, the photogeny and the malleability every outstanding model comes by. She might not be conventionally beautiful enough to win unanimous support from the entire insider community but it would come as no surprise if the Antwerp Six and the likes of Rei Kawakubo, Peachoo and Krejberg or Nicolas Andreas Taralis saw fit to sneak her in their runway shows. Here's hoping they will!

credits : samhessamian.com ; alexcovo.tumblr.com

Cold Water Symmetry.

No, you're not witnessing a paradigm shift in my views on modelling - I do happen to indulge into conventional beauty albeit it's not the field where the wow factor mainly lies to me. It turns out that Danish newbie Juliane Grüner, whose classic appeal very much harks back to the infamous newfaces wave that dominated Spring Summer 2009, made me do a definite double take. Her astute gaze and strongly defined jawline would indeed reconcile anyone with her tame type of beauty - though after setting these words down, I'm starting to ask myself if anyone out there would actually consider her as safe-looking as I do. I suppose that after delving into the modelling land for as long as I have (and I mean it in the humblest way possible, lest I sound condescending) your opinion gets a little skewed, and so gets the way you measure beauty. Either way I've come to the realization that Denmark is a country to be kept an eye on. Most of the models it's brought to life within the last five years have never utterly dropped off the radar and continued on wandering across magazines and runways avenues or cemented themselves a prosperous comeback. From Freja's dominance, to Agnete and Gertrud's bounce-back, including Caroline's rise-up and Amanda's constancy, Denmark not only seems to swarm with beautiful mannequins who can nevertheless stand on their own, but also with girls who can indeed carry their modelling niche over several seasons and thrive off of the lulls within their careers to come back full force. It's as if there were a certain thread running through their modelling that enabled them to pull this off... I wonder what this thread could possibly be? Is it due to their ability to straddle the line between overall conventional looks and singular facial characteristics, which, when took apart, appear significantly eccentric? Out of the five models I mentionned earlier on, none of them could actually be lumped in under the common beauty category because of remarkable features of theirs and yet each one of them can easily fill the bill as such. Search out the newest Danes into the modelling scene and this definition will most certainly be applicable to most of them too (check out Solveig to begin with!). The point I've just brought forward is just assumptive and I may aswell be completely far-off ; however it's never seemed to me that the ins and outs of modelling only amounted to a blend of coincidences therefore I'm standing by my guess and there must be a theme concerning Danish models. At any rates there's no hamming it up and claiming that Juliane is the next Denmark-born hot thing - even though in real life I tend to deem Carpe Diem a convenient manoeuvre to let loose under the guise of well-being and pass off irresponsibility as a philosophy of happiness, I'm hankering to go by that motto in regards to Mrs. Grüner for the time being... regardless what might happen next.

source : scoopmodels.com

Rejoice.

Never knock down a newcomer as a one-trick one-season wonder before she's debuted in print. Ever. This is the lesson whirlind of a model Arizona Muse has learned me and I'm willing to stick by it so I won't be missing out on watching the evolution of another up-and-comer of her caliber (if any) any time soon. I assume I don't need to go about typing down Arizona's resume ; other blogs have and will better than I ever could. In a nutshell she's been working for three years but has only started burning up the fashion industry this season, and... she's got a baby. Chill out, I'm not heading down mundane debates lane (isn't she too young? irresponsible? selfish?), nor am I willing to expound upon her personal life, but being cognizant that she hasn't left everything behind so as to get her face plastered all over Vogue Italia is a thought I deem comforting - not to mention it takes someone who has a good head on their shoulder to be fully aware of the fickleness of the fashion industry and not to get invested into it at all costs.

To a certain extent, knowing that insignificant bit lulls me into thinking Arizona doesn't fall into the category of girls ready to write off their off-duty lives so as to keep the pace with the industry they happen to work in and God know there's nothing more miserable than self-dismissive, obsessively aspiring demeanors (at least to me). I've earned this repulsion through witnessing countless wannabes trying to make it into any industry whatsoever undergoing ludicrous make-overs so as to stay relevant, but at the end of the day it felt so like self-denial that it took away all the authentic freshness they had embodied at some point. Here's to hoping Arizona never gets tempted into changing drastically basically, for it would truly affect my love for her and her work. She stands out to me because she is so malleable as a model and yet so genuinely and unassumingly herself. She can be the vehicle by which photographers convey their vision and remain recognizable by means of her infectious smile, her sophisticated stance, and her risky posing above all.

Poses happen to impart much more significance to the way we look at the clothes than we realize. When clothes just hang down a body we're kind of bullied into seeing them but all in all we're so bombarded with different aesthetics and cuts and patterns that there's nothing left to do but gloss over the whole without absorbing anything at all. When a model dares to try out eccentric poses, not only can she cancel out the staidness of studio photography and the one-note goal it strives for, but she also draws your eyes into concentrating away from the garments upon the lines of her body and the intricacy of its angles first, then back upon the fashion and all its subjacent details per se. Not to mention a mannequin who has no setting to work off of and who still gets to do the clothing a favour solely within the limitation of her body commands respect, doesn't she? And well, correct me if I'm wrong but I think Arizona is slowly yet firmly entrenching herself within the model who masters the art of posing type. Her postures give off such a determined fortitude, an unwavering dominance, that even poses that could look contrived at first cursory glance come across as bluntly immanent to her body language. Only a model who's well-versed in her own body can carry this off.

I'm finally starting to comprehend the why of the Arizona Muse phenomenon. I couldn't wrap my head around her sudden blow-up in the first place, but I've gradually grown to see the wow-factor that was overshadowed by her unpolished runway appeal. Sometimes - no, often, success in modelling doesn't boil down to looks. I know it would sound paradoxical to anyone not dissecting the fashion industry, as well as I'm certain mannequin connoisseurs will grasp my point. You know a model is great when you can peel away the prettiness - or look past the absence of that for that matter - and still get enough fodder to chew on and ramble about. Blatant beauty can be irksomely depthless and unexciting, while presence... presence is an unexplainable and complex power that pulls you in and keeps your level of fascination up. Being a talented model, it's being versatile enough to be capable of taking on a myriad of characters all the while being detached from this all enough to cling to your individuality and let your idiosyncratic presence pierce through the layers of artifice. I do reckon presence and consequently personality win out over beauty. Arizona perfectly exemplifies it.

source : scanned by push @ tFS

L'Anamour.

Is it me or there has been an outpouring of noteworthy newcomers hailing from France? I'll hand it to you, outpouring remains an overstatement as of now, but there have been a few new faces cropping up here and there who could be strong contenders to French modelling scene frontrunners Sigrid Agren and Constance Jablonski. Anyhow there's no winding down the French models enthusiast in me ; after quick write-ups on Victoire and Aymeline, it's Hélène Desmettre's turn to make it here. Out of honesty I'll admit that I used to have a mind-boggling love-hate relationship with her before she grew on me altogether - I'm close to being ashamed for spelling this out so casually, given she just screams out potential and that I should have noticed it upon first glance. Albeit Hélène doesn't fall into the outrightly memorable models category I am such a sucker for ; she's more of a girl who leaves an imperceptible impression on you, which gets you to keep her name in the back of your mind. Enough to cause you to click away whenever seeing it popping out in industry-related news and gradually memorize the face behind the name. And yet, despite visiting her tFS thread on a regular basis and starting to get the hang of recognizing her, I would continue moving between fascination and indifference cyclically and back again... up until Rokas Darulis's imagery came in and saddled me with the pictorial proof I needed to put to rest my unsettled hesitance as to Hélène. I'll direct you to the photographer's website where the entire set is to be found. It's a right-on mirror of Mrs. Desmettres per se : straightforward, touching and intriguing. Besides, her capability of connecting with the camera is unquestionably born out all throughout. Lens and model, more than working in tandem, are as one and the chemistry between both entities is palpable. It is tough to put into words the feeling of cohesion and unity I get from the pictures since it is mainly dependent upon sight and individual partiality... But anyway, you (hopefully) got my point : time has come for Vogue Paris to change their list as soon as possible. Is this also too demanding of me? You know, my hopes concerning the magazine being back to a more creativity and culture-centered direction are stretching thinner and thinner now that Emmanuelle has reportedly taken the helm, so I'm just trying to hold on to minuscule wishes in order to soften the blow.

source : elitemodellondon.co.uk

Lost in Hollywood.

Yay! The first double-page shot of the campaign I was most awaiting has eventually leaked out. The last advert that made me feel such an unbridled reaction of visual awe was lensed by Mert and Marcus and sported the creations of a certain Miuccia Prada aswell... there must be a theme here. It seems like Miu Miu never fails to hit the nail on the head in terms of ads. I love that the spirit of the collections always translates onto them without any emanating sense of monotony or sloppiness, and I equally find myself admiring their capability of moving freely along a nuanced spectrum of models castings, going from one pole to another ; from newcomers to established models, including rising stars aswell. This season we get Polish model Kasia Struss, reported to keep company with Sasha Pivovarova and Querelle Jansen (double yay!), whose pictures have yet to surface.

That line-up seems pretty neat to me. Neither Querelle, who's coming back from the void after a few years' absence, nor Sasha walked this season's show, but they've been featured in Miu Miu and Prada campaigns in the past, respectively. I would somehow not lumped in Kasia under the Miu Miu girl category (then again, what is a Miu Miu girl?) but she's both exceeded my expectations and beaten up my a prioris here. And if you're well-versed enough in her career, it musn't be lost on you that she's actually sustained a solid collaboration with the brand since her debut season - it may not stick out as much as other label-model pairings, such as Freja and Chanel or Sigrid and Calvin Klein, but it does exist (less constantly so, though). She first made her way in the Spring Summer 2007 show, sat out the four following ones, fought her way back into the casting in Spring Summer 2009 and has grown into a regular of the brand ever since. Therefore, if you can't take anything from this all, it's that this season's Miu Miu girl is patient and self-possessed ; she can wait until an optimum opportunity to gain momentum passes by and is able to grasp it dexterously.

A tFS member laid out his own interpretation of these first pictures released and although I don't apprehend the campaign as he did, I can value his comment for being so insightful and putting forward a take on the shots I hadn't envisonned. This is the beneficial aspect of this forum (and all places up to public discussions) and its appealing to a wide array of people ; anyone can step up on their soapbox and render their valuable points accessible to others. As far as I'm concerned I had to carry over my own thoughts onto this blog for fear of cluttering up The Fashion Spot from being too wordy.

I find the idea of encircling the models within mirrors to be beyond brilliant, especially when you know about the impetus behind the collection, namely stardom and celebrity - two (one actually) concepts largely ubiquitous in our lives whether we try to face away from them or not. In my mind's eye, Kasia's different angles reflected in the mirrors are the signifiers of the numerous - whether they be interviews, redcarpet or magazines-ready - personaes mainstream personalities have to take on to gloss over the human being (and its flaws) lurking underneath, while the latter, embodied by Kasia, is caught up amid all those made-up images ricocheting off each other. These photographs raise a callous issue bound to rear up that a lot of people lose sight of (don't they..?) when dreaming up schemes to make it in any stardom-related industry : going down the route of fame goes hand in hand with taking the risk of losing the essence of your being in the process, through the onslaught of public eye and what it demands in return for its interest in you - that's to say enough substance, whether it be praise-worthy or scandalous, genuine or not, to get it talking. This idea of self-loss is made even more poignant by means of the bewildered impuissance conveyed by Kasia's expression and haphazard posing.

This actually brings to mind (I apology in advance but I just have to sneak that in) a most well-known text of Sartre's, The Waiter. He spells out in it that the role you get into every day in order to live up to others' standards and expectations will, in the longrun, insidiously encroach upon your true self to the point where you mix up who you are and who you play at being. It's indeed a risk we all run as soon as we step out into society, but this is a plague even more pervasive in the life of a celebrity who gets continuously pressured into projecting a fully put-together image that isn't necessarily in accordance with reality.

Don't get me wrong though. I thought I'd dwell on this campaign because of its ominously inspirational quality solely. Lord knows that I've had more than enough of that asinine, afflicting stardom culture. Then again, I wonder who is to be blamed... Celebrities themselves or the sea of celebrities worshippers? Eternal conundrum, isn't it.

source : scanned by style_expert @ tFS ; vogue.com ; wwd.com

Mélancolie urbaine.

(Before I lay out all my thoughts, I'll let you know that this post might seem lacklustre to you possible reader since it all in all hasn't much to do with the substance I've picked out to accompany my writing. Consider yourself forewarned - and apologies for this!)

I've been hell-bent on being a loyal purchaser of Vogue Paris through thick and thin, and I might not regret it when I'm back to poring over old issues of mine within the years to come. Yesterday I randomly fell upon their June 2005 issue, which had been tucked away in a shelve of mine probably since I got it. I can actually remember buying it off eBay in 2007 just for collection's sake, for both the cover and contents looked pretty coarse to me back then (and to be frank, over-tanned Demi Moore is still not the most appealing sales argument Carine has come up with).

Well, all in all, this encounter with the magazine proved to be a much more enjoyable experience than I thought it would be. I'm in a kind-hearted mood enough not to expound upon the infamous lieu commun "[back issues of magazines] are like wine they get better with time" but this saying is a great summation of the first thoughts that crossed my mind. I was definitely shown that you can't fully soak up the current fashion when caught up within the whirlwind of trends that rages as of the moment. You grow cognizant of the fashionable quality of magazines / collections a certain number of seasons after they hit the shelves / runways, when you can finally value them for what they are and not what you were expecting or willing them to be. The rediscovery of this issue actually took on an introspective significance as I was reminded the fashion enthusiast I was back in 2007.

It was peculiar to find myself gazing at pictures I would have literally disdained four years ago, while some of the pictures that used to leave me awestruck felt incredibly trite within my page-turning. For instance I laid eyes on one of the shot of the Chanel Spring / Summer 2005 campaign which I used to glorify - not only did I feel a tangible aversion to it this time around, but it also learned me why I've kind of hated most of location-shot Chanel campaigns of this past decade. If Karl's going to shoot outside, he can at least decides on doing so in France because - take a d-e-e-p breath - Chanel was born in France before being the widely-spread brand it is known to be nowadays. Not that I am uptightly patriotic, not that Lagerfeld should be burnt at the stake for displaying Chanel clothes in New York, but I still find myself a little appaled at people's unwillingness to stick to their roots - in general that is. Globalization was pleasant before starting to take away the cachet and idiosyncracy of every country, before bringing to being a flat and overpowering world culture (which I'm fully complicit in, much to my dismay). And while Vogue Paris dedicating an issue to American fashion (as they have done in regards to Russia, Brasil or China) seems to me like an in-depth study written from a French point of view, a Chanel campaign lensed in South America or Los Angeles appears like crossing out the French spirit that is full part of the brand.

On a brighter note, I was positively thrilled that my soft spot for this editorial of Daria's hasn't died out after all these years. Photographed by Mario Sorrenti and styled by Emmanuelle Alt, I love it for its self-reflective quality, which is eminently patent on the shot of Mrs Werbowy with her head affectedly leaning forward. The detachment portrayed all throughout the story could easily come around in us mere mortals' life. This is one of these lonesome moments you experience when you retreat back into yourself and ponder over your existence : your past, your future, but your present above all. What you are, what life and your surroundings have made you grown into and what you would have liked to grow into. In spite of the laid-back styling and Daria's nonchalant persona coming through, the story isn't devoid of tension. The casualness of this all collides with the intricacy of the process that goes into self-analysis, which is itself mirrored through the travel between frownings and eased-up expressions (for musings can be as soothing as desolating). This is such an enchanting editorial in that there is a storyline underneath all this sleek leather and raw denim and you can get a sense of a wide spectrum of emotions. Every shot can stand on its own in addition to working in concert with the other ones.

Spreads such as this one are delectable reminders about Vogue Paris not always being the forcedly tongue-in-cheek publication it tends to be mistaken for. Carine started latching onto the over-sexualized aesthetic that has come to characterize the magazine as a whole towards the second midst of her editorship. Prior to that, you'd get Liya Kebede by Corinne Day or Jessica Miller by Sorrenti within one issue, an no trace of Terry Richardson arising from it to boot. I find it really saddening that Mrs. Roitfeld intended so determinedly to make her stamp by founding (and limiting) her work upon recycling oh-so-hype stereotypes as to French people being free-spirited not shying away from cigarettes and erotism all the while beating up dress codes and managing to look classy doing so. It may have come off as daring and invigorating to begin with, but by dint of using up this cliché, this publication got stale and try-hard, it gradually lost its witty substance. Whoever the new editor in chief will be, I hope with all my might they drift away from the road Carine Roitfeld went down in her last days, and get the magazine back to being effortlessly risky with a twist of intellect.

source : westmagz.com via kasper! @ tFS