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

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

Polychromatique.

I'll give you a break from my favorite blog topic, nevertheless - brace yourself for another one I've touched on twice before : Dazed and Confused. Another publication that would deserve to be bestowed much grander praises upon than it already is, because even though their covers tend to be underwhelming they can do no wrong in terms of contents. Hiring newcomers and emerging photographers? Not the type of delightful combinations we get to savor from every magazines out there. This month we're spoiled and get Polish image-maker Kacper Kasprzyk and Swedish model Theres Alexandersson working in concert in a twelve-pages long colorfully flowery editorial.

The vibrancy of the colors takes over your sight at once ; the textured quality of the images draws out the fabrics the clothes are made out of, while the model's stately poses add a certain starkness to the whole. There's a certain dichotomy organic to the spread in that despite its being a glorious bacchanal of colors, it still has a statuesque austerity to it. Theres's modelling has a lot to do with setting up this chilling atmosphere. Naysayers would argue that oh my God! she sticks to the same facial expression all throughout the editorial! but within certain aesthetics, a semblance of inertness can be more befitting than smiley faces and extravagant poses. Being a good model doesn't solely amount to having a wide repertoire of poses and expressions. It also - and above all - comes with knowing when to use this repertoire, when to change the things up. A good model is able to adapt to the defining signature of every photographer she works for, and here the lack of variety expressions-wise is not only welcomed but also meshes together and increases the brooding intensity of the imagery.

In regards to the latter, I think you have to see past the pared down and and stern feeling that sticks out from the overall composition of the set to fully get absorbed into Kacper Kasprzyk's photography and his painterly approach. Being a dilettante art enthusiast, I can actually detect a tenuous reference to French artist Matisse here. He is deemed the leader of Fauvism, an art movement that spanned over four years (from 1904 to 1908) and was characterized by a cheerfully vivid aesthetic, in which colors were utilized as the main mean to channel your emotions and feelings onto the canvas (just as a heads-up). The resemblance may seem quite implicit - and even insignificant to some - but the color palette that runs through the set is very much akin to the colors Matisse falls back upon all throughout his oeuvre, while some of There's poses also happen to echo back to the painter's work.

Yet again my eyes may just be playing tricks on me and deceiving me into making out references to art that by no means exist, but given the photographer studied both painting and sculpture before branching out into photography, I might aswell allow myself to think he did take his cue from Matisse's paintings. I suppose you're starting to know my inclination to make fashion and art intersect by now, so this whole babbling shouldn't leave you overtly bemused. It's just that I've had enough of people pigeon-holing fashion into the uni-dimensional misconception it's widely attached to, and even though I'm just whiling away the time by dropping a few lines onto this online platform, I hold out hope some passerby changes their mind about fashion (or at least, about some aspects of it) after reading them.

source : scanned by williscrazy @ tFS

Lignes et Attitude.

Denmark's Cover is not a publication whose releases I usually look out for. I think this magazine fails at cultivating a solid connection to Danish fashion scene and the talents it most likely holds in, and hiring home raised insiders is the most crucial standard I expect a local publication to live up to (don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming that foreigners should continuously get written off the editorship of the magazine - let alone that the era of globalisation must make this increasingly tough a project to take on... but still). However, a most pleasant surprise turned the corner as their January 2011 issue hit the newsstands : Snejana on and inside the magazine, wearing denim from head to toe (or almost.)

The impetus behind the editorial may not consist in challenging the fashion codes related to wearing jeans, but there's something about this that is so akin to Daria Werbowy's printwork circa 2003-2005 that I cannot help being partial to it. Nostalgia takes up an important place in my relation to fashion and I will be more prone to soak up a recent editorial if it brings to mind an older one that had a hand in reinforcing my love for the fashion industry. As for the instant association I drew up between Daria's early body of work and these images, it must have to do with the strong sense of rawness pouring off them, the proeminence of casual pieces throughout the set and the subtle range of expressions - no wonder I'm drawn to this spread so much all in all, not to mention it features Ukrainian model Snejana Onopka, who is high up in my book.

If they're going to stick around, mere models can't allow themselves to miss out on opportunities to pop up in magazines, as opposed to Snejana, whose scarce appearances only add to her mystery, and who has this brooding daintiness to her that holds her up a notch higher than the sea of tall faceless creatures that will get whisked away sooner or later.

The downside to being a model whose work extends beyond the pages of low-key publications is that you consequently earn a certain reputation and ineluctably run the risk of getting entrenched within the stereotypes people attach to you. Snejana is no stranger to getting labelled as someone she might or might not be, and sadly, her supposed persona seems to overshadow the role she's playing here, at least from the opinions I've read. To be honest, I wish her going tough wouldn't equate to her letting her inner bitchiness shine through - in people's minds, that is. I wish they would see a model getting into the character she was prescribed to get into. I wish they would stop letting what Snejana is rumored to be tarnish/magnify the image they hold of her, and I wish they would concentrate on her capability of channelling emotions into print instead.

That's why, to a certain extent, I wish models wouldn't emerge as public personalities as they've been doing for a while, so we could all objectively dwell on their actual work rather than what they may be like outside the modelling sphere - although this non-distinction between work and privacy also applies to commoners, and I find myself a little startled at how these two often get intertwined together into a single entity. Who you are privately shouldn't overstep your job, while your job shouldn't come to define who you are. At any rates, this makes me wonder if that increasing enthusiasm towards models and the personalities behind is due to fashion and the part they play in it rendered more accessible and thus more recognized thanks to the Internet, or if models are shaping up to be tomorrow's mainstream entertainment...?

source : scanned by iluvjeisa @ tFS

Le temps déborde.

I've already implied this in the last article, but lately I've been feeling like my whole relationship to fashion was built upon illusional interpretations and personal fantasies. For instance, I find the fact of being able to see beauty where most of the people can't to be a soothing treat. I most particularly cherish these moments when I run my fingers through newsstands filled in with fashion magazines, grasp one of the less notorious publications, cluelessly look through it, lay my eyes upon an arresting story featuring a model who's hardly ever to be seen and get to recognize the latter in the blink of an eye. It's the comforting feeling of being favoured, as though merged into a weary, hopeless, inhumanity-struck crowd I was given the chance to catch a glimpse of beauty and hold on to this vision, while nobody else could. It may account for my more and more turning my back on foremost publications and models ; I'm clung to this sentiment, as greedy and far-fetched as it is, to the point where I concentrate on discreet, if worthwhile, newfaces and magazines so I can feel like being sighted enough to spot under-the-radar talents while others just get satisfied with what there's (however mediocre it possibly is) at hand. I know, I know. It makes nonsense and sounds like pretentiousness verging on ludicrousness. Though humans in general do (like to) live upon illusions, and that's partly why fashion - and so on and on - exist(ed) in the first place, isn't it.? But it's not the point here, and I'm digressing as per usual. Thing is, I was digitally going through the September / October Wonderland Magazine issue - you can hand it to the Internet to give you a first appealing approach to a magazine contents and plunge you into the dire need of getting ahold of it - when my eyes went across a six-pages long set of photographs - and there it went again : the feeling I mentionned earlier on.

Displaying the Fall / Winter 2010 Cerruti collection, here is India Farrell, whose shots got squeezed into an issue jam-packed with clothing-centered, if subtle, spreads. She exudes a witty vulnerability which can be both distressing and captivating, according to the beholder and their inclination to this kind of beauty. Upon first seeing her I was smitten, without getting my hopes up as to her being propelled full force into the industry (which she hasn't been... yet?), for her tests didn't do her possible ambivalence favour. Then again, test shots (up to editorials actually) tend to reduce models down to a unidimensional definition nowadays, in lieu of enhancing their malleability. But never mind.

Plain backdrop, clothes that probably cost a bomb just because they bear the name Cerruti... - nothing spectacular at first glance, but then India comes into play and takes the editorial up to a new level of drama and ambiguity. Transitionning from being inert and mercy-demanding to being kinetic, the role the model's playing changes altogether depending on the picture you look at : alternately threatened, threatening, impassive. I think this set is interesting when you aim at not only weighing the model's value but also that of the clothes (if you don't happen to overlook them, as I nearly did), in light of the movement or lack of it. Yes, interesting, but also darksome, engaging, perturbing... up to the observer to assign the adjectives they find most suitable to this editorial, to like it regardless general consensus, to see beauty where others might see ghastliness or dullness. Exclusivity.

The entire set here.

While I'm at it, I cannot restrain myself from holding up to view these breathtaking images of Marina Buniaka. No matter how hard I tried to spell out my point - Marina being completely potential-gifted, that is - a few articles back, being convincing when you have no material to rely on but a handful digitals and candids is always a tough task to carry through. So if you were still on the fence, peek at the lookbook lensed by Sarah Piantadosi right above,which is most likely to make you fall head over heels in love with Lithuanian wonder.

source : myfdb.com ; gabriellamarinagonzalez.com