9 posts tagged "Crystal Renn"
Pamela Love’s Summer Solstice
Pamela Love may be a favorite among New York’s downtown urban darlings, but her Spring ’13 jewelry collection was all about the wonders of the great outdoors. “It was very much inspired by the idea of nature taking over and the whimsy and magic involved in that,” explains Love, noting that her organic offerings were a departure from the architectural, technology-inspired baubles she’s focused on the past few seasons. The designer further explored the concept via a new film, which debuts exclusively on Style.com (above). “It was a labor of love [no pun intended], like it always is,” says Love of the film, which was directed by her friend Skye Parrott and features pal Devendra Banhart’s song “Sight to Behold.” Shot in upstate New York, the ethereal short stars Crystal Renn, who transforms into a bewitching woodland goddess (which makes sense, considering Diana—the goddess of the forest and the hunt—influenced the collection) and finds Love’s wares wedged inside tree stumps, hanging from branches, and buried in the earth. “I love the idea of Crystal starting out with no jewelry and ending up completely covered in it,” says the designer. Renn has a literal out-of-body experience while frolicking in the great outdoors, dripping in leaf-shaped cuffs, chunky gold necklaces, a silver moon pendant, and a bevy of rings. But if we found a bunch of Love’s jewelry scattered in our backyard, we’d probably dance a little, too.
The Weight Debate
From Kate Upton’s curves (left), which are flaunted and lauded on the cover of British Vogue this month, to the controversy surrounding Karlie Kloss’s photoshopped ribs in the October 2012 issue of Numero, models’ weight is once again (or should that be “as always”?) a hot topic. Today’s Wall Street Journal features a story about Israel’s new law, which will both ban models with a BMI of less than 18.5 and require magazines to reveal whether models have been photoshopped to look thinner. The story also notes that the CFDA has not tried to implement such regulations, although they did create a health initiative in 2007 and, according to CEO Steven Kolb, continue to promote education and awareness about eating disorders. Fashion shows in Madrid and Milan have, like Israel, imposed a ban on models with BMIs under 18 and 18.5, respectively. But these guidelines are difficult to adhere to and gray areas exist even within the hard-and-fast measurements. In the same vein, Refinery 29 reported today, with some optimism, that a Plus-Size Fashion Weekend will take place in London during the upcoming women’s collections. However, the piece also recalls when, during his Spring ’09 and Fall ’10 shows, Mark Fast put plus-size models (like Crystal Renn, who, by human standards, is hardly plus size at all) in ill-fitting garments on his runway. With the exception of a guest appearance from Laura Catterall during his Fall ’11 show, curvy catwalkers haven’t been featured on Fast’s runway since.
Models We Stand
“For too long, the modeling industry has been like the Wild West,” said Coco Rocha at last night’s launch party for the Model Alliance, a new nonprofit group organized by models, for models. Top models including Doutzen Kroes, Crystal Renn, Missy Rayder, and Ajak Deng stopped by the Standard Hotel to toast the cause. The Alliance started as an idea established by model Sara Ziff (the filmmaker behind the revealing documentary Picture Me), explored in a paper she wrote while studying community organizing at Columbia University. Ziff, who at 29 has now been modeling half her life, understands firsthand how young girls are often mistreated in an industry without real labor regulations. For example, catwalkers often begin working in their mid-teens, and many never get the chance to finish high school. They can go through an entire day of walking back-to-back runway shows without actually making any money, getting paid in “trade” (a.k.a. designer clothes) instead. And, there are still a great deal of complaints about backstage photographers taking unauthorized pictures of the girls changing. Typically, the models don’t speak up about these inequities because they know they’re highly replaceable. “Most models’ clout is as tiny as our size zero frames,” Ziff told Style.com. So she teamed up with former model and current fashion writer Jenna Sauers to give these girls a voice, and developed the Alliance along with the support of the CFDA and the new Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School. “Having experienced the highs and lows of this industry, I am ultra-excited about this,” said Rocha. “But we’ve still got a long way to go.”
Carine Roitfeld: Agent Provocateuse
Today we published a preview of Carine Roitfeld’s new book Irreverent, which Rizzoli is releasing in mid-October. Roitfeld watchers will recall many of the images we’ve posted. There’s Carine as arch provocateur, staging a portrait of the luminous Eniko Mihalik with an octogenarian’s hands, and another with a nude model sipping from an enormous bottle of Chanel eau de cologne. And then there’s Carine in career-maker mode. We’ve included her first shoots with Crystal Renn and Lara Stone, both of whom owe no small part of their fame to the visionary editor in chief of Paris Vogue. “I love how she’s almost naked here,” Roitfeld says of the Terry Richardson-lensed shot of Stone. “It seems like a good beginning.”
To my eyes, the most striking shots depict Roitfeld combining both instincts. I’m talking about Eva Herzigova playing a butcher for a Mario Testino portfolio in The Face circa 1997. Nothing says man-eater quite like a gorgeous blonde with a bloody pile of gnawed bones in her lap. Roitfeld has included a thank-you note from the model alongside the spread. “The ‘Butcher’ story we did gave me the chance to be seen and understood as a model with a much vaster potential…” writes Herzigova. “I had this pin-up label attached to me for so long that it seemed impossible to shed it. Thanks to your and Mario’s imagination you helped me to be liberated from this.”
Which images resonate with you? Let us know below.
Welcome Back, Zac
After taking his show on the road to Paris the past two seasons, Zac Posen is bringing it all back home to New York. He’ll present his mainline collection at Lincoln Center on September 11, and last night, he cut the ribbon on his first-ever retail store, for the Z Spoke diffusion line, in the Meatpacking District.
Measuring just 725 square feet, the space didn’t take long to fill up with a coterie of Posen muses like Coco Rocha, Crystal Renn, and Anna and Pat Cleveland. Despite its compact size, the store manages to pack in the entire Z Spoke spread, including Illesteva shades and bags that look way more expensive than their under-$700 price tags. Posen brought in storied book collector Michael Gallagher to add a few rare fashion reads to the boutique’s shelves, like Cecil Beaton’s Memoirs of the 40′s and Isabella Rossellini’s Some of Me. “I collect old issues of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and grew up haunting his store,” the designer told Style.com. Now that he’s set up his own shop, Posen can focus on putting the final touches on his namesake collection for its reintroduction to the bedlam that is NYFW. “I’m incredibly thrilled to be back,” he said. “I’m excited to appeal to the fantasy side of the American woman again.”
Z Spoke by Zac Posen, 875 Washington St., NYC. For more information, visit www.zspoke.us.