jacquetta wheeler

>> ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL —The first of many Fall 2009 Gucci ads has dropped, this one featuring Anja Rubik. Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin still did the photographing honors, but the look is a hard-edged change from the pastoral, verdant ads of seasons past.  Expected in upcoming images: perennial Gucci faces like Jacquetta Wheeler, Raquel Zimmermann, Freja Beha Erichsen, Natasha Poly, and Abbey Lee Kershaw, with a few surprises — Myf Shepherd, Dree Hemingway, and Jamie Bochert. [TFS, TFS, TFS]

>> INSIDER WIRE —Carine Roitfeld dedicated the entire February 2009 issue of Vogue Paris to Lara Stone, and now it sounds like an upcoming issue of Vogue Paris will be dedicated to Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin — they are photographing the entire thing, cover to cover.  Recent rumors have placed the duo shooting Jacquetta Wheeler with Shalom Harlow and Sessilee Lopez with "the fastest rising new Asian star on the scene" and a recent VP cover girl for the magazine — perhaps it's all for this issue? [TFS, The Imagist, The Imagist]

>> Natalia Vodianova took us around Moscow yesterday, and now Jacquetta Wheeler chronicles her recent three-month trek through Southeast Asia — highlights below.  Although she's back at work now, walking in Singapore earlier this week (left) and shooting the upcoming Gucci campaign, she spent February through the middle of last month wandering through the backcountry of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, because like a number of other models recently — Daria Werbowy, Coco Rocha, Caroline Trentini — she needed a break:

Often I’d wake up in a hotel room and it would take a few seconds before I’d figure out which country I was in. My life had become a whirlwind of catwalk shows, hotels, airports and studios.  There was another reason why I needed a change. I had come out of a six-year relationship [Ed. note: presumedly with photographer Alexi Lubomirski], and up until three weeks ago was feeling utterly lost. I was dealing with both the pain of the break-up and the muddle that my life had become.

The decision to travel cost her.

So, here I am, sitting at a cafe in Nong Khai, about to cross the border into Laos. I have just cut off all communication with my agent after I received an email from her offering me a job for thousands of dollars. It would be so easy to be seduced by the money and abandon this trip, but I know that if I don’t commit to this journey now, I never will, and I would hate myself for that.

Eating beetles, $20 dresses . . . »

>> We found out a couple of weeks ago that Frida Giannini chose nine models for the Fall 2009 Gucci campaign, and now we've got more details.  Apparently the designer is quite taken with London and decided to have her usual campaign photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin do the honors in a north London studio; she's even picked to feature native Londoner and 1999-2000 Gucci face Jacquetta Wheeler (left, Fall 1999).  “We’re in London, so of course I had to have an English girl.”

Joining Jacquetta in the campaign are Raquel Zimmermann, Natasha Poly, Freja Beha Erichsen, plus Myf Shepherd and Abbey Lee Kershaw, whose television commercial for the brand's Flora fragrance, which was filmed over four days in Latvia last July and created using more than 20,000 fake flowers, just debuted.

Three faces are left to be named — Lily Donaldson is likely one of them, since Frida likes to stick with the same girls and Lily has been in at least two of her campaigns.  Plus, a Gucci spokesman advises that the upcoming campaign will be similar to past seasons, “a continuation of Frida’s Gucci generation."
*image: source

»True story?  Lily Cole inadvertently caused an argument between Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil, during which they barricaded themselves in the bathroom, prompting the Olsens to try to bribe the happy couple with free late-night shopping at Harvey Nichols if they’d only open up [The Times UK]

»Jacquetta Wheeler is moving back to London after seven years in New York [Style File]

»More photographic evidence that Agyness Deyn and Albert Hammond, Jr. are into each other [INF Daily]

»Diane von Furstenberg sent a dispatch last week asking designers to do presentations rather than runway shows for fashion week [The Cut]

»An actress in Italy's adult-entertainment industry tried to go by the pseudonym Roberta Missoni, until Missoni's lawyers intervened [Style File]

»American Apparel is expanding into jewelry, starting with lots and lots of chains [Racked]

»IMG Models signed Gossip Girl actress Taylor Momsen [Fashionista]

»Net-a-Porter is going to carry A.P.C. starting in the Fall, promising to host more selection than the A.P.C. website [Nylon]

»Previews of Emilio Pucci and Givenchy Resort 2009 [WWD, WWD]