Asche zu asche.

By Franck Gelabert

If you've been a long enough follower of this blog, you certainly know that I don't deem exclusives indicative of successful careers prospects when it comes to newcomers. IMG's Eileen Hydorn walked exclusively for Prada in Milan, and seemed more than randomly thrown in the all-around brunettes casting, as though with the purpose of rounding out the line-up. So if you can take anything away from this all, it's that I don't raise my hopes as to Eileen and don't lull myself into thinking she's bound to rack up countless opening slots and prestigious covers (I wouldn't mind eating my words within the couple years to come though). Nonetheless the shots above, deftly lensed by Franck Gelabert, led me down the path of writing a few words down about her, because she remains among the newbies I'm most keen to see exist, at least. What warmed me up to her is that antagonistic quality to her presence : that runway-ready sterness about her, which dies away and grows into a certain vulnerability - though slightly androgynous aswell - on pictures.

By Karl Rothenberg

Killing two birds with one stone, I'd also like to devote a few lines to Karl Rothenberg, who is among my favorite tester around as of late. Actually his work doesn't clamor to be more than what it has the humble goal of being (i.e. testing models and make them more familiar with the camera), but it's all to do with how he captures the essence of every girl he snaps a shot of through his photography than his photography per se. He lays bare the beauty that lies beneath in every model ; it's not a type of beauty that instantly burns into the cerebrum but one you can identify with, or at least feel close to, because it's neither burried under insane amounts of airbrushing nor rolled up in unaffordable clothes. There's also a tangible sense of modesty and a palpable emotion to his imagery that makes it truly stick out.

Just when you're certain that superficiality has a stranglehold on fashion as a whole, you stumble upon such odes to naturalness, and there's no denying it is refreshing. This is a little puzzling when you think about it, the way fashion is capable of breeding two ideal beauties that utterly go against each other - abstemiousness versus shallowness : the first one that people embrace with the will to stay true to themselves, and the other one that a decent amount of fashion aficionados buy into at all costs. I won't dare any conjecture as to what pushes the latter into such an attention-demanding, (self-)deceptive take on beauty and style, but it most definitely isn't the crowd of fashion lovers that sollicits the most positive responses from me... Though Anna dello Russo approves of it, and it's naturally all that matters at the end of the day.

source : franckgelabert.com ; karlrothenberg.blogspot.com