mert alas

love

>> LOVE Covers Popping Up — Katie Grand loves her multiple covers, and with the third issue of LOVE debuting just over a week away, cover images have started to appear.  Models.com confirmed that the Janeil Williams image below is a cover, and LOVE posted a similar image — also by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott — of Lara Stone on their blog today, which is likely a cover as well.
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>> LOVE Covers Popping Up — Katie Grand loves her multiple covers, and with the third issue of LOVE debuting just over a week away, cover images have started to appear.  Models.com confirmed that the Janeil Williams image below is a cover, and LOVE posted a similar image — also by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott — of Lara Stone on their blog today, which is likely a cover as well. LOVE is on stands Feb. 8, Dasha Zhukova's much-awaited second issue of POP is out in two weeks. [Models.com, LOVE, @thepop]

Miu Miu

>> First Look: Lindsay Wixson for Miu Miu Spring 2010 —Miucca Prada broke the pattern last season, casting a bevy of models for the Fall 2009 Miu MIu campaign after seasons and seasons of stars and starlets.  For Spring 2010, she stuck with models again, albeit just one — the polarizing, beestung-lipped Lindsey Wixson, who closed the Miu Miu show and was captured for the campaign in London last month.
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>> First Look: Lindsay Wixson for Miu Miu Spring 2010 —Miucca Prada broke the pattern last season, casting a bevy of models for the Fall 2009 Miu MIu campaign after seasons and seasons of stars and starlets.  For Spring 2010, she stuck with models again, albeit just one — the polarizing, beestung-lipped Lindsey Wixson, who closed the Miu Miu show and was captured for the campaign in London last month. [TFS]

Gucci Campaign Favorite Natasha Poly Renews Contract with Brand for 2010
Gucci

Gucci Campaign Favorite Natasha Poly Renews Contract with Brand for 2010

>> Natasha Poly may bend over backwards for Gucci — see her Spring 2010 campaign for the brand, below — but it seems to be working in her favor.
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>> Natasha Poly may bend over backwards for Gucci — see her Spring 2010 campaign for the brand, below — but it seems to be working in her favor.  The brand switched from working with Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin after several seasons to Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for Spring 2010.  As for Poly, who has consistently been in Gucci campaigns since the Spring 2005 season, she won't be going anywhere — Gucci has already renewed her contract again this year.

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W Magazine

>> Did W Use Anja Rubik's Runway Torso for Demi Moore's Cover?
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>> Did W Use Anja Rubik's Runway Torso for Demi Moore's Cover? —W's December 2009 cover of Demi Moore has had its fair share of Photoshop controversy already — enough to prompt both Moore and W to comment, the latter stating to Jezebel: "[photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott] did not do anything unusual or out of the ordinary on Demi Moore for the photo."  Now, a Balmain runway photo of Anja Rubik superimposed over the cover seems to imply that Anja's torso was spliced in on Demi for the cover. [ONTD]

David Bailey Joins Katie Grand, Peter Lindbergh in Reaction Against Airbrushing
Harper's Bazaar

David Bailey Joins Katie Grand, Peter Lindbergh in Reaction Against Airbrushing

>> Last year, there was a huge push for more diversity in fashion, culminating in the publication of Vogue Italia's all-black July 2008 issue.  Unfortunately, attention on that issue has waned this year, even though there is still much work to be done; now, the issue du jour seems to be what has become a common practice among fashion magazines: heavy retouching.Katie Grand, who while at POP was a huge proponent of the "super glossy" look, has since reigned in her reliance on Photoshop.  Of her first issue of LOVE, which came out in February, Katie told Interview, "It's not so retouched.  I just wanted to take pictures of iconic people without redrawing them."
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>> Last year, there was a huge push for more diversity in fashion, culminating in the publication of Vogue Italia's all-black July 2008 issue.  Unfortunately, attention on that issue has waned this year, even though there is still much work to be done; now, the issue du jour seems to be what has become a common practice among fashion magazines: heavy retouching.

Katie Grand, who while at POP was a huge proponent of the "super glossy" look, has since reigned in her reliance on Photoshop.  Of her first issue of LOVE, which came out in February, Katie told Interview, "It's not so retouched.  I just wanted to take pictures of iconic people without redrawing them." And she's continuing the tradition for her second issue, out Sept. 1 — she had Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott (whose aesthetic generally lends itself to a good bit of retouching) photograph cover girl Coco Sumner as she walked in off the street, no hair or makeup.  The Times UK wrote of that decision: "She is shrewdly tapping into the new spirit of the times — heavily airbrushed celebrities seem gauche and embarrassing during a recession."

David Bailey: "It’s f*cking ridiculous" »

Vogue

>> Vogue Runs Editorial in September 2009 Issue Strikingly Similar to August 2007 W Editorial —Vogue's September 2009 issue boasts an editorial called "Into the Woods," photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott; curiously enough, an editorial that ran in the August 2007 issue of W — by the same photographers — has a similar concept and the same name.  Both editorials feature autumnal leafy backgrounds and the models — Natalia Vodianova for Vogue (right), Doutzen Kroes for W (left) — strike similar poses.
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>> Vogue Runs Editorial in September 2009 Issue Strikingly Similar to August 2007 W Editorial —Vogue's September 2009 issue boasts an editorial called "Into the Woods," photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott; curiously enough, an editorial that ran in the August 2007 issue of W — by the same photographers — has a similar concept and the same name.  Both editorials feature autumnal leafy backgrounds and the models — Natalia Vodianova for Vogue (right), Doutzen Kroes for W (left) — strike similar poses. [Fashionista, Comme Artiste]

Lara Stone Scores Second Vogue Paris Cover This Year — For September 2009 — By Going Brunette
Carine Roitfeld

Lara Stone Scores Second Vogue Paris Cover This Year — For September 2009 — By Going Brunette

>> So it turns out Vogue Paris's September 2009 cover — the one that was rumored to feature a "radical model makeover" — does boast Lara Stone, as suspected, complete with eyebrows (hers are normally bleached) and dark brown hair.  The image, photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, marks the second this year Carine Roitfeld has devoted to Lara — the first fronting the February 2009 issue, in which she was the only model.
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>> So it turns out Vogue Paris's September 2009 cover — the one that was rumored to feature a "radical model makeover" — does boast Lara Stone, as suspected, complete with eyebrows (hers are normally bleached) and dark brown hair.  The image, photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, marks the second this year Carine Roitfeld has devoted to Lara — the first fronting the February 2009 issue, in which she was the only model.

LOVE Goes for "The Young and the Reckless," Two Covers with Second Issue
love

LOVE Goes for "The Young and the Reckless," Two Covers with Second Issue

>> Turns out the preview that hit the web early this month featuring a David Sims shot of Alex Hartley, a bass player from Birmingham, England, who Katie Grand "found on the Internet," is one of LOVE's two covers for its second issue, after all.
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>> Turns out the preview that hit the web early this month featuring a David Sims shot of Alex Hartley, a bass player from Birmingham, England, who Katie Grand "found on the Internet," is one of LOVE's two covers for its second issue, after all.  The second cover comes courtesy of Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, who did cover honors for LOVE the first time around, and features Coco Sumner, burgeoning it-girl and daughter of Sting. 

Both cover stars are 18; in fact, most of the issue, which hits newsstands Aug. 24, is full of emerging celebrities and unknowns who are mostly under 21 — Allegra Beck Versace, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Momsen among them. “The whole issue’s full of these kids, really, who are at that turning point of life when you’ve got no responsibilities, you’re quite free and everything’s exciting,” Grand told WWD.

Grand added "more words" to the issue, bringing on Isaac Lock as deputy editor because: “I always think visually, so it was really important that the words team was strengthened."  As for how the magazine's holding up on the business end, there are 106 ad pages from advertisers like Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Chanel in the 296-page magazine. The magazine had 116 ad pages for its debut issue, but Grand said the issue had “exceeded the targets set” for advertising.

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Miuccia Prada Plucks Five Unknowns for New Fall 2009 Miu Miu Campaign Direction
Miu Miu

Miuccia Prada Plucks Five Unknowns for New Fall 2009 Miu Miu Campaign Direction

>> After seasons and seasons of recognizable campaign faces — Kirsten Dunst, Lindsay Lohan, Vanessa Paradis, and most recently, Katie Holmes — set against vividly colorful backgrounds, Miuccia Prada did a total one eighty, choosing five unknown models — Mimmi Soderstrom, Hannah Holman, Ilda Lindqvist, Victoria Tuaz, and Whitney Coble — who were plucked at a time when only one, Coble, had walked on any major runways; the move is especially remarkable in a time when a number of major brands are sticking with celebrity or supermodel faces.
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>> After seasons and seasons of recognizable campaign faces — Kirsten Dunst, Lindsay Lohan, Vanessa Paradis, and most recently, Katie Holmes — set against vividly colorful backgrounds, Miuccia Prada did a total one eighty, choosing five unknown models — Mimmi Soderstrom, Hannah Holman, Ilda Lindqvist, Victoria Tuaz, and Whitney Coble — who were plucked at a time when only one, Coble, had walked on any major runways; the move is especially remarkable in a time when a number of major brands are sticking with celebrity or supermodel faces.  The look for the Fall 2009 campaign — which was still shot in London, early May, by Miuccia's usual standbys, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott — is stark and mostly void of color.

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September 2009 Issues To Be Lighter But Blonde-Heavy
Ashley Olsen

September 2009 Issues To Be Lighter But Blonde-Heavy

>> As is to be expected, this year's September issues are not going to be the behemoths of yesteryear: publishers are approaching their closing deadlines this week and said that they expect issues to be about a third lighter than years past.
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>> As is to be expected, this year's September issues are not going to be the behemoths of yesteryear: publishers are approaching their closing deadlines this week and said that they expect issues to be about a third lighter than years past.  

The September issues are still anticipated to be the Fall's largest, as most advertisers withdrew their pre-collection ads that run in August to focus on September and will run fewer ads, if any, in the remaining months.  As for the cover faces, magazines are sticking with safe bets — blonde white women. Vogue will feature Charlize Theron, who usually graces their October covers (in 2004 and 2007); W will, as reported, have Kate Moss photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott; Elle will boast perenially newstand-friendly Jennifer Aniston; Allure went with Amanda Seyfriend, Glamour with Jessica Simpson, and Marie Claire with Ashley Olsen.  

No word on Harper's Bazaar, POP, V, LOVE, or Vogue Italia, but Vogue Paris is said to be breaking the blonde mold by dying a usually flaxen-haired model's coif black in a "radical model makeover" — some suspect the "luscious" beauty in question may be Lara Stone.