Hello all :)
None of these three fashion icons needs any introduction, but for the layman here is a super quick run through of why this shoot (the alternate cover shoot too) from Carine Roitfeld's Book 3 is my one of my stand outs to see out the A/W 13/14 season.
Carine, image purveyor of the high times of Gucci, inseparable from Tom Ford during that era. Champion of Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy (a tenure already nearing 10 years, can you believe it?!) And last, undoubtedly serving as the inspiration for Jacqueline Follet in that industry classic with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway (and Emily Blunt of course!). As the editor in chief of Vogue Paris she helped to popularise a darker kind of sex in fashion, and a masculine feminine dressing where I personally think the the strong woman always won. Now as consultant and creator of her own magazine where it certainly looks as though she controls the content and direction, and of course starring in the campaign for Givenchy alongside her gorgeous daughter Julia, Carine is an unstoppable force of fashion.
It's clear that Bruce Weber has a love of the human body in perceived 'action'. Certainly homoerotic but universally sexually charged without verging on the vulgar. He has of course shot countless celebrity portraits including Madonna, Heath Ledger, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Pfeiffer, Matt Damon and the list goes on and on. With widely known work for Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani, for me he will be best recognised as the force behind Abercrombie & Fitch's All American young sexy college jock, which showed it was OK to hang out naked with your buddies in a lake and on the football field. As of last week, Weber shot 20 transgender models and non-models for the Barney's magazine campaign, a huge step in the mainstream recognition of transgender individuals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/fashion/Barneys-Bruce-Weber-transgender-models.html
(I hope the link works, it seems to not be highlighting itself oops!)
Finally completing the triumvirate is model Karlie Kloss, All American girl but with an assuredly European feeling. In my humble opinion she is poised to take the mantle from the other All American corn picking girl Cindy Crawford minus mole. Kloss has walked for everyone in all for major fashion weeks and the Haute Couture. She has been on countless covers and in countless editorials in countless magazines. A Victoria's Secret Angel, she has moved up the ranks of the modelling world to now be represented by IMG, undoubtedly the best agency in the world, not least because its talent sits amongst the world's biggest sports people and we know that sport is a far more lucrative world than is modelling. The word 'supermodel' is thrown around very loosely indeed, and if you really want to knit pick they were really Gianni's girls in the late 1980's and early 1990's, but looking at Kloss's track record I do think the term can be applied here unsuperlatively!
So why do I love this shoot so much?
It's the youth and lustful energy that is so elegantly captured by Weber that makes this special. Like we're posing but not really posing, we can see you taking photos but we're going to keep kissing anyway. Now we've forgotten about you and we're getting hot and heavy. Of course the fact that there are less clothes in this shoot as a fashion shoot is somewhat ironic, but that doesn't seem to matter to Carine and her books. The carefree nature and creation of beautiful images is more important than selling clothes, and I wholeheartedly agree. :)
xx
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