UrbanOutfitters.com
The early spring 2009 Urban Outfitters catalog has more emphasis on nudity than ever. Nudity served 2 different ways:
à la Abercrombie…
UrbanOutfitters.com
à la American Apparel…
UrbanOutfitters.com
Sex sells…
Chloe ads always feature girls in flowy dresses in full movement. The girls are running in the mood of Carmen Sandiego–to and away from the scene of crime. The images are framed in a haphazard way to emphasize the candid moments. Florals in bright purples and pinks are part of this winter’s highlights. Comfort, playfullness, and a sense of casual luxury are attained from this season’s campaign.
Marie Antoinette and her court in American 1950′s wear drifting down the Seine while the world around her is in despair. The court celebrate their fabulousness in poodle skirt pink and black and 50′s suits.
An androgenous couple is featured in this month’s Calvin Klein ads. Male and female roles are reversed and masculinized. Faces of all models are sterile, clean, drone-like. Combat boots signal vigilantism of the coming future.
Claudia Schiffer plays the ringleader of the circus. Siamese twins, scary brown bear brown woman, muscular man, and big lady are all in a sandy pit surrounded by red and white. The 2009 Dolce & Gabbana cruise collection unveils a fantasy world where the freaks frolic and celebrate their unique qualities. This season’s print campaign is a Dolce & Gabbana redux of a Barnum and Baily circus.
Here is an article about the man behind Marc Jacobs ads. I remember the first time I was impacted by him–with the sophia bag—the bag on a fountain in a park in nyc with snow falling gently…it was years ago, but it truly made a deep impact on me.
Now with Posh in the ads, it’s very comic and funny. I like how she is intentionally having fun in creating and being her character.
I feel like I’ve seen these pictures in some old hair style book you can find at some salons. The ones where they feature tons of hairstyles and you can point and choose how you’d like your hair to look. The ads have a particular style nostalgic of the 80′s and early nineties. I have a hard time being convinced it is an intentional look–they don’t really go all the way with extreme neon colors, and the Gisele’s styling is more reminiscent of JLo and Versace’s 70′s Hollywood glamour. I’ve seen previous Vogue Eyewear ads where Giselle’s styling is pretty consistent, but the layout and design of the ads are different.
Vogue Eyewear is formally known as Vogue Occhiali by Luxottica.
The S/S 2008 campagin: Kate Moss pressed up against the glass windows of a YSL store in Paris. I feel a connection with these photos–I am the girl who presses her face up the windows of designer stores. It’s as if the objects in the store windows were staring up at me and had a life of their own. In this case, Kate Moss dressed in YSL, is the girl pressed up against the glass. This is different from a girl who loves fashion and can’t afford it.
The mannequin is now on the other side of the glass!
She is on a sidewalk in Paris, glued to the store windows. The mannequin has escaped from a traditional contained fake backdrop to one that actually exists in reality. She remains a mannequin, we see her through glass.
I like how the text of the store window marks our isolation from her. On the print ads, there is a border around each photo–further removing her from us.
Behind the scenes footage of the photo shoot is available during this season here. Click on Manifesto to watch the video and to photos of the campaign.
I like the kitschy stars that characterize this collection.
Maybe the stars are a little too much. Here is a window from the Upper East Side store. There are large paper stars in the color and form of post-it-notes. The plastic stars on the sleeves look cheap.
Dior reinvents the classic 1920′s flapper girl by bringing them to the present. This time, there is a fine line between the feminine and masculine. The pin stripes and broad shouldered suits that were characteristic of the men who frequented jazz bars are now meshed in the same collection with the lacy, sparkly, see through sheers of flapper girls. The combed over hair is very masculine, the makeup is still very much the essence of a flapper girl. This women’s collection encompasses the essence of the roaring twenties while representing how much women have evolved from the flapper girl era–now it is the norm for women to also have a masculine side.
The sharks are colored with cooler toned photographs. The free spirited, un-confined Stella McCartney woman is simple and sexy. She dives into water wearing silk chiffon. Look at the model’s hair, the soothing colors, the excitement of the floral pattern. This print ad is very summery. The heat of the summer is shown on the dress, the coolness of water shows up in her wet hair, the blue hues of the pictures of her in a wet dress.
