Baptiste Giabiconi, known as Karl Lagerfeld's current muse/favorite male model, apparently has dreams of singing and making campy but hilarious music videos.
While he's clearly got the looks to be a model, I just can't take him seriously (and I'm not sure anyone can except possibly Karl). Who looks that pretty after riding a motorcycle on desert roads? What man notices a girl's necklace instead of her halfway exposed chest? I will say that I'm happy he "saved" the girl from her abuser boyfriend, but then he has to go and feed his carnal desires in a trashy hotel room — after she'd clearly been hit by said abuser boyfriend. Maybe that's not weird? I don't know.
Anyway, this kid is kind of funny. He was studying hotel management before he became a model. (Either hotel management, working at a helicopter plant, or both. Sources disagree.)
On a side note, here's a wonderful nonsensical rambling by Karl Lagerfeld:
"Photography is photography. When people say, 'I'm making art' in inverted commas, that's just pretentious. A photo is a photo, and that's it. What other people see in it is not my problem."
Also, I have listened to this three times since I discovered it yesterday.
Why do editorials oftentimes seem aimed at a male audience, when the majority of fashion magazine readers are women and gay men?
1)
Go here to see the rest of the photos. The only way I can make sense of the seemingly necessary shower-scene is by reminding myself that sometimes men buy women jewelry. If Vogue Italia wants to entice men to buy jewelry, then putting it on a nude woman might work.
2)
You can go here to see the remainder of the photos.
I get that it's Vogue Paris and they're all into nudity like the Italians, but nudity has been done before many, many times. I understand that it is an art form, and I am totally cool with seeing naked people in art. But when it doesn't have a purpose, as in this case, I don't care for it. Arizona Muse is naked. That's great, but it's not why I want to buy the accessories. Surely they could've come up with something more original than purses and belts hanging off a model.
This one is more tongue and cheek, and most of the photos make me laugh.
4)
There are no nude pictures in Cesare Paciotti's spring '11 ad campaign, but I really want to buy that dress and those shoes if it's going to make me look how she does here. She looks glamorous and haughty and bitchy and gorgeous. Not all of those characteristics naturally go together, but it works here. The remaining photos in this campaign are not worth mentioning.
There is a distinct difference between an editorial like this and the first two spreads I mentioned. The one lensed by Sorrenti is strange and interesting; it's not exactly beautiful. The first and second editorials are boring and lack substance. I suppose the magazines are wanting to sell the jewelry/bags/belts for various reasons (like making the designer happy, etc. etc.), but they're not selling it to me. I realize not everyone shares the same taste, but I wonder if anyone who actually reads fashion magazines is tempted by the first two spreads.
(the model on left was born a male, and her name is Lea T. This is, after all, the androgynous issue)
I hope the following photo frightens you:
(jezebel)
(Also, Terry Richardson, the infamous slimy and sleezy photographer, took this photo of seemingly prepubescent Bieber. This is an alternate cover for LOVE's spring/summer '11 androgyny issue.)
Harriett Mays Powell, the NY Times fashion director, asks Gareth about his necklace: "Let me just say, I'm fascinated. This looks a little bit naughty. What is this for?"
"It's actually...my boyfriend gave it to me as a joke; it's a nipple clamp. But it doesn't get used. It's just a pendant. It kind of sums up my clothes in a sense. It's very beautiful, but it has that sort of underlying current of violence." (italics mine)
It's a good day when I hear a designer explain his clothes exactly as I see them.
The following video is ten minutes, and I understand most of us have some form of ADD now, so I don't expect you to watch it. However, it is unusually interesting.
In the beginning, it looks like there are spiders crawling on the floor. Sinister, no? The spiderish feel at the beginning does not make this short film awesome — it's the bridge (similar to the bridge in a piece of music).
The change in music around 4:30 totally revamps the feel to the video. Before 4:30, it's all about geometrical shapes and odd movement. (And at 3:53, hello! I'm dying.) After 4:30, the softness and sadness of the music dynamically alters the mood. Now we have fluid movement and a slight vulnerability. The classical music alone makes it more divine, reverent. (By the way, Beyoncé wore that shredded number shown on the male model at 6:28 in her video for Sweet Dreams.) And then, after we see the man in the shredded number making pretty shapes in the water, BAM, the bridge is over. Back to odd shapes and electronic music. And at the end! I know I said I was dying before, but I really am now. Hello Sistine Chapel! Hello Elgin Marbles! Hello Dante's Inferno! Hello fragmented sentences!
I could watch the videos he creates with Ruth Hogben all day. His aesthetic and vision reminds me of the creepiness of Eraserhead: odd, unknown, strange.
Though I do love the inkiness to it. It reminds me of the Blood Ink editorial that Dree Hemingway (Ernest Hemingway's great-granddaughter) was in.
In many ways, I see Gareth Pugh's switch to video to showcase his work like Alexander McQueen's penchant to modify the runway. Most memorably, Alexander used a chess board in 2005 as a catwalk and huge gliding cameras in 2010. Other designers change the catwalk, too, like Marc Jacobs' green winding catwalk and Chanel's ginormous (and totally kitschy) Western barn. But, both Gareth and Alexander (when he was alive, bless his soul) consistently look to the future while being influenced by the past. I love that about both of them, because most designers are only concerned with what will sell — and when that happens, the art that is fashion walks right out the front-door.
First off, the styling is superb in this video. Hello purple lipstick! Purple heels, yellow and red heels! Fifties pin-up look! Dominatrix look! Lots of rings!
In the first scene, she's in full make-up, daisy dukes, and heels. She's attempting to fix a car. She is B.B. Homemaker. But, really, is she?
"I got beauty, I got class, I got style, and I got ass. And you even care to care.
I got beauty, I got heart, keep my head in those books, I'm sharp. But you don't care to know I'm smart.
I got moves in your bedroom, keeping you happy with the nasty things I do. But you don't seem to be in tune."
The lyrics to this song scream pride and a need for self-assurance. "'Even your friends say I'm a good woman!' What the hell is wrong with you?! Why don't you need me? Especially when 'I make myself so damn easy to need.'"
Maybe he doesn't want you because you do your chores half-heartedly. You dust your grammy's off, then "oof! I'm pooped!" Maybe he doesn't love you because you present yourself as a sex kitten, even while you're cleaning the windows. Maybe it's because you set the roast on fire. And we all know, if you can't cook, you're just out of luck.
Ninety percent of the time, I stick up for women. But here, with these lyrics and this video, I can't. Beyonce's character is a floozy. Before she tells us that she's smart, she makes sure to point out that she has beauty, style, and ass. The stereotypical man concerns himself most with these characteristics. I'm going to take Kierkegaard's leap of faith, however, and say that most men put beauty, style, and ass secondary to the attributes of a good heart and intelligence.
What is it with everyone wearing crosses? Madonna wore a cross necklace in the 80s, which was her way of rebelling against the Catholic Church (she grew up Catholic). My sister (the certified Madonna expert) said that Madonna felt conflicted about the Church's beliefs and her own writhing on the ground and singing "like a virgin, touched for the very first time."
Here she is wearing a cross that dangles down to her "boy toy" belt. I'd be getting mixed signals if I didn't know this was Madonna's way of telling the Church to "fuck off." And her take on a wedding dress is just great. I know I said I wanted my wedding dress to look like this, but I think I'd rather wear Madonna's version. Or maybe I'll save Madonna's white yet non-virginal dress for Halloween.
I remember going through a cross phase a few years ago. It was a giant, gold cross. During the time I had it (I lost it soon after), I was an atheist. I thought I was being sacrilegious. Ha ha. So funny, so ironic. Except not really.
I asked my Madonna expert to give me her opinion on why everyone's wearing crosses now. She simply said, "It's become fashionable. It doesn't mean anything anymore. It meant something when Madonna wore it; now it doesn't." On the whole, that is probably true. Though, of course there are outliers that wear big, chunky, trendy crosses for religious purposes. Right? Right.
It's kind of odd that she also has a tattoo of a pistol and, at the same time, wears crosses. Though, I must say, the black haired Rihanna (i.e. "grr, I'm angry, 'got my middle finger up; I don't really give a fuck'") and the red haired Rihanna (i.e. "yay! I'm happy now! I want to be the 'only girl in the world', and 'I want to see if you can go downtown with a girl like me'") clearly have a different persona.
So here she is, dressed up as a nun, but her costume's all skewed because of the men having their way with her. Wait...there's controversy brewing here...there's an arrow pointing to her downstairs mixup! OMG SO SCANDALOUS!!11!! She's dressed as a nun and there's an arrow pointing to her ladybit! The shock, the horror! On a side note, if you are interested in a kooky analysis of this video, you can go here to read what Gaga is really doing. (I love the website's tag: "Symbols rule the world, not words nor laws." I feel like there should be some ominous music playing on their website. Oh, the people on this website also call Gaga "The Illuminati Puppet.")
I'm glad I lost that cross. I'm happy with my non-controversial jewelry — my beads, my animals (another almost horrifying trend. Horrifying only because everyone who's into looking like a hipster wears animal jewelry), my Ugandan jewelry, and all the other items I have that I can't remember at the moment because all of my lovely jewelry is stowed away in my trunk.
If I wear a cross necklace, I want to wear it because I'm either a pagan who fantasizes about torturing people to death by hanging them on a cross OR because I believe in Jesus. I'm bored with religious items that have a mocking overtone to them. Let's move on to something else.
It's January. Because it's January, everyone wants to start over. People want to lose weight, get out of their crappy relationships, attain self-worth, go to church more often, and all of this boils down to, "I just want to be a better person!"
Those things are all worthy things to strive for...but frak all that (I've been watching too much Battlestar Galactica. My sister is starting to look like Starbuck, and my mom looks strangely like Laura Roslin). All I want to do right now is look at pretty, crazy, photoshopped photos.
(Side note: Why aren't crazy colors accepted in the typical work place? Does having pink hair mean that I am a person who cannot take things seriously? Workforce, you're really getting me down.)
Seriously, Miuccia Prada can do no wrong. She's clearly off her rocker, but she never fails. Never.
The following three photos are from Marie Claire Italia, so of course they're some of my favorites.
