Pop just announced that Natalie Portman is engaged to NYC ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied. What's more, she's pregnant with his baby! We posted this Club Monaco Fall campaign starring Benjamin and model Malgosia Bela a while ago, but in honor of this happy news, here it is again. The theme is "Dance Dance Evolution," and who better to show off the clothes than the principal ballet dancer. Sequins, feathers, pearls . . . step inside to see what's in store. Then watch the video version.
Whether or not you recognize their names, you have for sure seen at least one shot from Dutch photographer duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. That is, if you have flipped through any fashion magazine. The married couple have worked with the hottest like Gucci, Pucci, Roberto Cavalli, Yves Saint Laurent, Isabel Marant, Givenchy, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, the list goes on. Inez and Vinoodh are celebrating 25 years in the business, so in honor of their top-notch work, let's gaze at 25 of our favorite shots. And if you happen to be in Amsterdam until mid-September, be sure to stop by Foam Museum for a retrospective on 300 of their photographs from 1985 to 2010.
For Fall '10, Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci decided to stir the pot by featuring a transgender model in his ad campaign. Joining the top model ranks with Mariacarla Boscono, Joan Smalls, Ming Xi, Catherine McNeil, and Malgosia Bela — we love her pink hair — is Riccardo's personal assistant, Lea T. (previously known as Leo, here in the red lips). "She’s always been very feminine: superfragile, very aristocratic," said Tisci, who also noted Lea T. will be starting a new career in veterinary medicine in Milan. What are your thoughts on this feminine-masculine dichotomy?
>> In his continued exploration of masculine-feminine, Riccardo Tisci cast nine male and female models for the Fall 2010 Givenchy campaign, including his muse Mariacarla Boscono, Joan Smalls, Ming Xi, Catherine McNeil, Malgosia Bela (her hair dyed pink for the occasion), plus his Brazilian longtime personal assistant and former fit model, who also happens to be transgender, Lea T. Lea, formerly known as Leo, is now heading towards a new career as a veterinarian in Milan, but Tisci says of his choice: “She’s always been very feminine: superfragile, very aristocratic. She’s part of the family." The ads were shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott in a Paris studio.
>> Some thought that Vogue Paris's August 2009 cover with Daria Werbowy all decked out in Burberry check looked too blatantly like an advertisement, but in the context of Inez van Lamweerde and Vinoodh Matadin's 65-page accompanying editorial inside — with a plethora of models, each embodying a different brand's identity — it all makes sense.
It's a few of the magazine's usual suspects — Anja Rubik doing Gucci's "glam star" in fauxhawk, Kamila Filipcikova striking an eyepopping McQueen silhouette — plus a few new faces like Regina Feoktistova and Ranya Mordanova in Gianfranco Ferre and Junya Watanabe, respectively. The trifecta of stylists that produced these images — Joe McKenna, Emmanuelle Alt, Carine Roitfeld — prove that there is creativity to be found within the bounds of a studio shoot, after all.
Full editorial here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; gallery below NSFW.
>> INSIDER WIRE — No word on who graces the cover, but here's a preview of the Spring 2009 issue of Self Service, due out March 5. Inside? Dree Hemingway, who seems to suddenly be appearing everywhere, Mario Sorrenti, Camilla Nickerson, Malgosia Bela, Raquel Zimmermann, Lara Stone, Stella McCartney, Jeff Koons, Katie Grand, and Diane Von Furstenberg — who must be making the indie magazine rounds, between this and her Purple cover. [Petronio Associates]
>> Deep in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, photographer Peter Beard directed Mariacarla Boscono and Malgosia Bela to "show me fun" as they mucked through an algae-covered swamp in May. "Does it feel nice?" he asked Malgosia, who was submerged up to her waist in the goo. "It's nice," she replied, bringing her green hands up to her face.
The finished product — the 2009 Pirelli calendar — debuted yesterday, and you can see the whole thing here (NSFW), but it didn't come without the model cast (Rianne Ten Haken, Isabeli Fontana, Kemp Muhl, Daria Werbowy, Lara Stone, and Emanuela de Paula in addition to Mariacarla and Malgosia) going out on a limb — literally: one shot features a number of them posing nude way up in a bare tree. And they weren't always so comfortable — a big bug was placed on Isabeli's face, and though Peter directs, "Eyes open! Eyes open!" she visibly flinches, "I can't."
Gallery is NSFW.
*image: source
»Naomi Campbell named a tree at her father's home in Jamaica "Kate Moss," will be debuting a new SoBe Life Water commercial to "Black Magic Woman" nationwide tomorrow [FabSugar UK, Chic Report, CBS News]
»An art gallery employee got fired after not recognizing Marc Jacobs and kicking him out for looking "scruffy and homeless" [Page Six]
»Dolce & Gabbana may have stolen Claudia Schiffer from Chanel for their Resort 2009 campaign [Fashionista]
»Anna Wintour will be speaking to the Conde Nast interns on Wednesday [The Fashioneo]
»Kate Moss cruised through Sardinia over the weekend [PopSugar]
»Malgosia Bela wrote a 100-page thesis on Richard Avedon to earn a graduate degree in Cultural Anthropology [The Imagist]
»Heather Marks goes dark [TFS]
»Alexander McQueen: Now with e-commerce [Alexander McQueen]
»A peek at Karen Walker's Resort 2009 collection [Refinery29]
>> Just a couple of days after we got a first look at the making of the 2009 Pirelli calendar (NSFW), more footage from the shoot in Botswana has appeared, complete with the girls riding around on elephants, jumping off elephants into water, and writhing around in the mud. There is even a preview shot of Daria Werbowy included.
Accompanying the video are interviews with photographer Peter Beard and Lara Stone — all in Italian — but when the narrator introduces Lara Stone, she mentions that Lara is thinking about retiring. Nothing for sure, but surprising, considering how much of a following she has in Carine Roitfeld and at W.
The footage below is NSFW:
>> Last month, seven models made the trek to a luxury elephant camp in the Okavango Delta of Botswana to shoot the 2009 Pirelli calendar.
Mariacarla Boscono, Malgosia Bela, Daria Werbowy, Lara Stone, Emanuela De Paula, and Isabeli Fontana mucked around in the mud, waded in the marsh, and climbed trees, sporting little but a square of leather here, a string of beads there, while Peter Beard documented the whole thing.
The calendar won't come out until later this year, but until then, a look at the behind-the-scenes shots and retro photographs that will be interspersed between (NSFW).
*images: source
