On the passage of time.

While starting off writing this article, I swear I was meaning to touch on a topic related with neither Steven Meisel nor Vogue Italia (because I'm under the impression I've already touched on both of them a bajillion times) - but then their January 2011 cover emerged within sight and I couldn't help but give in. This is such a pictorial image, pastel-colored yet far away from being corny, reminiscent of long-gone fashion eras yet anything but rehashed-looking.

This cover actually stands out due to the opposition you can draw up between the overall feel of it and its components took apart. Paradoxically enough, it echoes back to the past and yet it's firmly pinned down in the present : on the one hand you have the setting, the numbers held up by both mannequins and the color palette that bring you back to the 40's, on the other hand you can spot two pieces from the Chanel Spring / Summer 2011 collection, two of today's most en vogue models and the 2011 Allure words printed below the picture. When you strip away all its aesthetic value, you can begin to feel the underlying issue that's raised by the covershot : time within fashion and to a further extent, within life.

I'm aware I might be sounding like I completely missed the point of this photograph, but what most drew my eyes in is the kinetic figure in the background. It is so loaded with significance that it makes it tough to just see it. It appears like the signifier of the most menacing characteristic of time, namely its invincible restlessness : what is right now will be gone a second later (and what's in as of now will grow outdated next season). However detached from time you're willing to be, it won't stop it from slipping away ; the more you try to cling to it and hold it back to you, the more it drags you down into its nomadic course. Whatever you do, you lose, for struggling against time equates to struggling against the unknown, an unpalpable might you get put through but can't begin to describe let alone fight off.

I think this adds a brilliant touch to the picture because it also seems to question the primary purpose of photography. Prior to being an art or a hobby, it intends to capture and document fleeting moments so they're never fleeting anymore. It's utilized as a medium to keep a semblance of a chockehold on time (and is a nice testimony of what human beings are capable of thinking up to leave bits of themselves behind), but if you keep in mind that this bustling silhouette is the depiction of the continous passage of time, you're elusively reminded how much of a deceit photography is. You don't capture an instantaneous moment but an image of it ; photography doesn't enable you to immortalize the instant but only provides you with a stagnant representation of it. Magritte called it the Treachery of Images in regards to painting, but this is also applicable to all the recording means that have surfaced ever since.

As for the models choice, it earns an A+ from me. If you are either an Arizona or a Freja follower, you have probably witnessed their blossoming friendship and this should leave you as eager as I am to see how this possible chemistry between them will translate onto the main editorial (assuming and hoping they were commended to interact with each other). I personally don't belong to Arizona's fandom (not yet) but she's slowly been growing on me by means of the solid printwork she's put out and there's undoubtedly potential to be tapped in her. Besides, you may have felt how big of a Freja fan I am, so it should be enough of an explanation to back me up, but I still feel like trying to throw light on why.

I think that one of the greatest factors in keeping me hooked on Freja is her constancy in terms of persona. Working amidst a hubbub constantly moving on from the past, she embodies the sustainable force who not only sticks around but also takes on increasing importance all the while remaining the same at heart - and even through the image she projects. All throughout her most prosperous years (from late 2008 up until now) she's stayed true to the nonchalance she's crafted and that has basically taken part in making a true brand off of herself. Funnily enough, just when you think the inconceivable success she's been gaining is likely to get to her head and gets you wondering if it will cause her to change wholly, she seems to reach her peak of steadiness - untouched hairstyle, immutable streetstyle, pervading casualness.

This is a comforting feeling indeed, to know that you can count on one model at least to provide you with a certain stability that is hardly ever to be found in fashion and its endless fluctuations. Accordingly, this stability that defines Freja seems to translate into her fanbase through a certain loyalty intrinsic to a lot of her followers. Perhaps you can chalk it up to hazard, but to me there's something more than coincidental about how most of her fans can't seem to stray away from her once they start answering to the name of Freja fan. It's a tacit give-and-take relation - she guarantees you constancy, you guarantee her lasting dedication.

I am fully aware that these last sentences might come across as out of the blue, but it seemed to me that they'd fit in with the rest of this article somehow. It isn't lost on me either that this post - its length and the topic it deals with - might be off-putting to some, but sometimes you just have to get your thoughts down and write for yourself, don't you?

source : scanned by ZFashionBlog @ tFS

Néo.

June July 1988 - October 1989 - August 1992

Christmas... What a fantastic excuse to slacken off and float through the consumerist craze that has come to define this celebration (unless, of course, you prefer using your common sense rather than mindlessly throwing your money about just for the sake of being obedient to the diktats society has set). All bitterness aside, I could - at least - take advantage of the meaningless atmosphere of this all to get offered a couple fashion-related books I had been eyeing forever, among which Steven Meisel : Three Hundred and Seventeen and Counting, which pulls together all the covers the photographer has lensed for Vogue Italia from July/August 1988 up until April 2009. This book may seem too meager a mean to round up twenty one years' work (back when it was published) to some, but I personally apprehend it as an encyclopaedia not only recording Meisel's major body of work but also lifting everything it consists out of from undergoing the onslaught of time and neglect.

December 1992 - August 1993 - October 1996

The front cover is adorned with black capital letters superimposed over a plain, white bakground while the back cover provides us with a mild overview of Meisel's work ; mild, if right on :

[...] Meisel not only depicts fashion. He defines it and gives it cultural reasonance.

Way to 1) set the tone 2) sum up a two decades-long undertaking in a handful words 3) express why I admire this photographer better than I ever did. Meisel has seemingly been slagged off quite a lot recently, as well as Vogue Italia has been claimed to be going downhill. As a fan of both the photographer and publication standing in the midst of this all, you would expect me to react indignantly, but being a fan shouldn't preclude from being realistic, and fact of the matter is that I consider 2010 to be more of a down than an up for Franca Sozzani and what she's come out with.

March 1999

Nevertheless, this book helped me comprehend that the views on Steven Meisel I had been holding up until one day ago were actually incorrect. I used to think he had never been outdone because of his capability of singling out current phenomenons at the right moment and basing his photography on them, which is inaccurate. Not only does he master topical fashion photography but he also knows how to give birth to typical, though amazing, fashion photography. That is why he is unparalleled. He can swing back and forth from reality, irony or harshness to beauty, luxury and dream, and that's why I cannot pick on him for going from Water and Oil to Vision of Feminity as nonchalantly as possible. I think that's what every image-maker worthy of the name ought to be able to do : make the beauty that may not surround us on a daily basis more accessible, broaden the primary goal of fashion to more up-to-date of a function, get us to face up to reality, mock some of our current zeitgeists ; and sway between these styles in the blinking of an eye.

July 2000 - April 2002 - October 2002

However awe-inspiring and talented Steven Meisel is, here's to keeping in ming that talent is worth nothing when not left open the possibility of expressing itself and blossoming out. It is in collaboration with Franca Sozzani, editor in chief of Vogue Italia, that Meisel has churned out fashion-forward and life-inspired concepts every month since mid-1988, and thanks to her that his visionary skills got to reach their peaks of intelligence. I've always felt Franca was unfairly left out of the cuddle in terms of public recognition, as opposed to her peers Carine Roitfeld and Anna Wintour, who relentlessly get put up on a pedestal and crowned as fashion godesses. Of course I'm not trying to play down Anna and Carine's impact on fashion, the control they had/have had over their respective publication and what they have achieved as business women but unlike Franca, they can't purport to uphold fashion as a thoughtful art and can't take pride in setting creativity above selling clothes, that's why I can't help feeling resentful when realizing how poor the recognition the latter's gained outside (and even inside) the tight fashion-lovers crowd is.

July 2003 (Supplements) - November 2003

I'm sorry to harp on this as much as I do. In real life I would tend to say being under the radar is nothing worthy of getting worked up over, but it's fashion we're talking about, and the fashion industry is miles away from real life. It's a world within which you can set forth the reputation that precedes you as a favour to make your way up. The image you cast is nearly as important as what you do, while what you do, however brilliant it may be, guarantees you neither acknowledgement nor praise. This is the realm of fashion, and this isn't lost on me. Should I necessarily swallow it down without further protest notwithstanding? Don't blame me, complaining is just organic to human nature, and making your complaints heard rises up as a safe balance between utter apathy and attempting to actually change something - both being absolutely intolerable to mankind.

August 2005 - September 2008 - March 2010

source : lexposure.net ; kristenmcm.altervista.org ; scanned by iluvjeisa @ tFS ; scanned by Mojopin @ tFS ; scanned by Proximity @ tFS ; scanned by Diciassette (17) @ tFS ; vogue-italia.blogspot.com ; fashionmodeldirectory.com

Pagan Poetry.

First visual of the Balenciaga Spring Summer 2011 campaign to leak. You might recall how averse I felt to the condescingly gimmicky casting the brand tried to shove down our throats in the show, and I wasn't expecting something more demure from the ad campaign when Gisele got confirmed to star in it, to say the least. In the end it seems like Mr. Meisel and all the behind-the-scenes so-and-sos agreed to break my parti pris apart and make me learn my lesson - none should jump to conclusions without anything concrete to base their thoughts upon.

When piled next to each other, these shots get you to scratch your head at why on earth they ended up tied together and if you, as the beholder, are not leaving something out that could possibly help you grasp the meaning of such a correlation. I happen to think it actually begins to make sense once you move past the bewilderment caused by such a sight onto a different approach to the pictures as a whole. Of course it's tough to get a true sense of what point was trying to be made when only two images out of 8? 9? 10? have been released. I personally get a feeling of resistance and timelessness from the clothes within both pictures and reckon the ad is aiming at enhancing those particular properties of theirs throughout different sceneries.

On the first shot you can see - almost feel - clean pieces of clothing aswell as their well thought-out cut and pattern interacting with an immaculate surrounding ; then you lay eye on the second one, cluttered, hard to decipher, close to grotesque, and yet the clothes still get to pierce through as neat as ever, as if Balenciaga could assert itself as an unalterable high-end brand regardless what may happen around. Of course it's more of a personal interpretation than the actual concept (sorry if you were expecting me to solve the mystery and hand the explanation to you on a plate!), but there's no denying that the quality of the craftmanship that went into the creation of the clothes is brought out as a strong sales argument here.

As for Gisele, she is made barely recognizable with a random wig on, something I couldn't wrap my head around in the first place (I mean, why hiring Gisele-legendary-Bündchen and attempt to transform her into someone else with various ornaments?) but which I could figure out after a deeper look into these first pictures and the overall feel emanating from them. It's like getting Gisele's charisma and presence in front of the lens without Gisele stealing the focus from the fashion the campaign intends to bring out prior to having any artistic value whatsoever. All in all, the cunning minds behind the Gisele-not-looking-like-herself trick definitely outwitted most of other advertising-makers, who tend to get trapped into laying far too much emphasis on the celebrities/supermodels at hand and forget the goal they should actually strive toward and carry out - doing the clothing a favour, that is.

Finally - the Balenciaga origami. You actually owe this entire analysis to it, because it is what stirred up my curiosity and caused me to read a little deeper into the first pictures released. It is such a whimsical touch to the ad, let alone a spot-on one. It seems to me that it echoes back to what partly makes Balenciaga this cutting-edge of a label - namely the intricate, sharp and futuristic cuts - and sums up what the brand is all about in the most evocative way possible.

I am well-aware that it's time for me to put an end to my garrulity, but I'll just add that this is when feeling rushes of Balenciaga-related inspiration such as this one (and it's not the first one I've experienced) that I realize that I cannot not love this brand, despite leaping at the chance to rant about it whenever I can. However elitist and pretentious the shows may be, regardless the disappointment the collections have bred for a couple seasons (minus the last one), it remains too inspirational not to keep me under its spell.

source : wwd.com via Flashbang @ tFS

Back in November 2008.

I've grown aware that moments during which I get the point of an editorial and love it at first sight don't come around often, all the more when it comes to Vogue Italia. Its being among the most boundary-pushing publications out there gets me to unconsciously set high expectations each month in regards to the upcoming issue, which automatically sets me up for disappointment. Exception that proves the rule? Cottage in Riva al Mare didn't need me to look back to it. I did love it at first sight.

The emotions portrayed are overwhelming and enough to set this spread apart from the sea of spreads coming out every years, and make it all worthwhile. There's an apathetic, worrisome stillness piercing through the photographs, an electrifying uneasiness between the characters (played by Toni Garrn and Katrin Thormann), a tender melancholy and from time to time an ambiguous defiance that might leave the beholder aghast. You cannot really keep track of every sentiments involved but you cannot get lost either, since the shots are straight to the point and adornments-free... Tacit ambiguity, underlying ambivalence : this is what it's all about.

This editorial looks like a mighty collection of stills from a silent movie that were gathered up into a tiny book aiming at summing up the plot... Although the lines are blurred. You can't know for sure what are the sentiments both women feel for each other. Are they old friends who've set off to their youth's vacation spot and whose friendship is growing wrong? Are they in love, hopelessly, passionately, head over heels in love with each others to the point of destruction? You can just let your imagination run wild and daydream what could possibly be happening in between each still, envision the stormy arguments both characters could be having, make this semblance of a movie your own and mold it in accordance with your own fantasy.

This is what I'm longing for when I open up a fashion magazine. A story that sends shivers down my spine. In my mind's eye, these women aren't mere friends, but they have to deny it - because the society they live in doesn't allow it, because they were brought up in families that couldn't support it, because they won't themselves accept it. Homosexuality is actually, and still nowadays, a sensitive matter to deal with. It may not be as taboo as a few decades back, but it's more stereotyped than ever (and I assume you possible reader know what I'm talking about). And this is what a fashion photographer worthy of the name should do. Getting inspired from nowadays' zeitgeists and concerns all the while smashing clichés into pieces, and it is a tricky thing to pull off. As from the beginning we all get fed on intruding stereotypes and then, up to us to conform to popular beliefs or get down to the essence of everything and form an opinion of our own. Not only do artists have to carry this out, but they also have to express their opinions through their oeuvres, as an attempt to open up people's mind. I feel like this is what Vogue Italia teamed up with Steven Meisel have (partly) been trying to achieve : bringing out the complexity in every topical issues, instead of reducing them down to simplistic clichés, and get us to break our own prejudices.

I can't help drawing an interesting comparison between this very editorial and another highly controversial one lensed by Terry Richardson. I won't get into the Richardson debate that's been on everyone's lips for a great amount of time - okay, I will, but not back and forth. On the one hand you have the love affair between two lesbians, on the other hand you have the love affair between two (several) lesbians. Same topic, opposite outcomes. One ennobles women, the other one disempowers them. Just to make it clear ; I don't support mindless and relentless feminism, as I think it's because of the very kind of feminism claiming that women are equal to men in every ways and have to act accordingly that women get, to a certain extent, treated like - for want of a better phrase - shit. But hmm, this is a blog about fashion so I'll hold myself back.

Anyway - I just meant to say that I am taken aback. How two basically similar editorials - and even pictures - can be so different in execution? How one of them can be so thoughtful and moving that it could have me shedding some tears, and the other one so exploitative that it simply has me shutting my eyes to it? How can we call Steven Meisel a fashion photographer and Terry Richardson a fashion photographer? How can the fashion industry be so compelling and off-putting all at once? Aaaah so many questions left unanswered. I guess that is precisely where the interest lies.

source : scanned by Diciassette (17) @ tFS

Fashion gets real.

Artists are known for being keen on abusing the thin, blurry, fragile line between beauty and horror, enticement and revulsion. For its August's issue, the Vogue Italia team decided to bring out a topical theme, more dramatic and impact-ful than the portrayal of a putrescent carcasse in that the latter may remain rather abstract in people's mind. Here it has nothing to do with working out a completely contrived concept leaving the mere beholder startled. It's about throwing a crude reality at the reckless readers looking for eye candies, labelled clothing and sylphlike figures.

Troughout the story, beauty gets secondary, hence the choice of Kristen McMenamy as the melancholy mermaid. An outstanding face, a daunting presence, a commanding confidence threatening the standards of classic beauty, turning them to ashes, making them sound incredible... This grossly sums up the supermodel's appeal. There's no dichotomy to be seen within the pictures. No glamourous opulence showing up among the crudeness. It's all about upsetting... and evoking.

Any fashion editor having a newspaper at hands could have envisionned to get inspired by the ecologic drama going on in the Gulf - appearing to die out, at the moment, though the impact on the environment isn't bound to do so. But all in all, which one would have been bold enough to publish shots so saddening and thought-provoking? In an industry where the obsession with making money is omnipresent, and thus where satisfying the buyers is the main purpose to reach, not many editors dare produce fashion stories likely to burst their readers' bubble - fashion stories that go beyond fashion. It seems like Franca Sozzani is the exception to this dismal rule. And only for this she'd deserve to get applaused and praised.

It's down to the reader to interpret this editorial as he wants to. Tribute? Denounciation? Mere whim? Anyhow, if I was to prove that fashion isn't only a matter of glitsy shallowness and ethereal, conceptual beauty, I would grab that issue and show it away.

EDIT : High Quality

Source : dnamodels.com via Omnis @ tFS