Jenny Packham Kampagne F/S 2018

Bilder © Jenny Packham.

Prada F/W 16/17 Ad Campaign by Steven Meisel

Prada unveils its seasonal campaign for the Fall/Winter 2016 Womenswear collection by Steven Meisel featuring twenty-seven top models set against multiple artificial backgrounds. The campaign introduces Miuccia Prada’s highly regarded collection that takes as its subject the current cultural bricolage where every code, every style, every fragment in fashion history, and every personal experience, is equally present and available to the designer.

The ensembles juxtapose radically divergent shards of silhouette, materiality, technique, and accessories in exuberant compositions: prints, argyles, lames, quilting, heavy knits, brocade, nylon, illustration, leather, satin, velvet, all have their place.

Presented as a series of rough collages, the campaign evokes the deeply human – and inexorably feminine – nature of Prada’s eclectic collection. The designer depicts a woman’s identity as conundrum, an intersection of overlapping and interdependent systems. Every woman carries on her body fragments of her own history, her experiences, her loves, her tragedies.

These various references accrue with time, with age, with knowledge, so that each woman is an ineffable agglomeration of the symbols and indices of her personal journey. Such symbols find parallels in the simultaneously restrictive and liberating clichés of the feminine wardrobe: dress, corset, belt, garter, brassiere, high heel. In dressing each morning, a woman recomposes her unique collage of a life. Therein lies her strength.

By generalizing the message over twenty-seven different models – there is no single face – Prada enacts her theory of individualization. Each body reorders the elements of the collection in a singular way. The models are placed against randomized backgrounds that suggest a radical insouciance.

The settings are interchangeable, indicated by the placelessness of landscapes. The scenery ends abruptly, the edges clearly exposed: day and night collide; desert and seascape occupy the same conceptual space. As the woman roams through the world she carries her stories on her back. In the end, place is unimportant, the narrative only coheres on the body itself. The woman is the site.

Photos © Prada.

How do you like the ad campaign?

Miu Miu 'Found Narratives' Ad Campaign F/W 16/17 by Alasdair McLellan

Actress Amanda Seyfried leads an enigmatic cast of characters through a weekend of playful reverie, in Alasdair McLellan’s debut campaign for Miu Miu.

“Any hour for my friends” is the motto inscribed on the sundial in the gardens of the historic Norfolk estate, Houghton Hall. With its 24-hour lived-in decadence, it is the perfect environment in which to explore the layers of modernity and history in the motifs of this collection.

In Found Narratives, meta-history is laced with playfulness and female-empowered fun. The Player, The Ingénue, The Whisperer: a cast of characters represented as subverted archetypes of high society.

This season`s Miu Miu girl reinterprets the sartorial rules of the past. Tweed, argyle sweaters, oversized frilled collars and pearl slippers that speak of heritage, faith, craftsmanship, uniform and purpose are irreverently re-mixed for play and pleasure – a weekend of laughter and games.

In this playground of the imagination, the Miu Miu girl is carefree but not careless. Social and cultural divisions are abandoned. Her day blurs into night as one long, colourful occasion unfolds and a game of invention and role-play emerges. The collaged layout of the campaign, emphasising the idea of “Found Narratives”, also alludes to the Insta-reality of the new Miu Miu girl, whose life is played out off-screen with friends in a real-life daily performance.

Photos © Miu Miu.

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Swarovski 'Brilliant Inspiration' Ad Campaign by Tim Walker

Swarovski is set to launch an inspiring new brand campaign titled Brilliant Inspiration in september. Starring eight brilliant talents from the worlds of art, design and style. Consisting of eight striking portraits shot by Tim Walker, the images represent an anthem for creativity, designed to break through boundaries and open up a world of possibilities beyond.

The portraits in the Brilliant Inspiration campaign include Rodarte's Kate and Laura Mulleavy, champions of exquisite and original American fashion, surrounded by their delicately crystallized butterflies.

Edward Enninful, W magazine's Creative and Fashion Director and the visionary behind many runway shows, campaigns and shoots for fashion's global players, wears an immaculate suit crawling with bejeweled insects.

Shoe and accessories designer Charlotte Olympia Dellal, with her distinctive nostalgic take on contemporary styling, sports her famous Kitty flats as Playboy Bunny ears.

Jason Wu displays his refined, modern take on old world feminine glamour, from fashion to furniture, by draping himself in breathtaking, intricately embellished embroideries.

Supermodel Karlie Kloss, who also is the new face of Swarovski's consumer campaign.

Mary Katrantzou, the 'maximalist' fashion designer famous for her explosive prints, who dramatically clutches a richly embroidered creation to her chest. 

Thom Browne, the master of impeccable tailoring is captured with an extravagantly crystal-encrusted briefcase, giving him a distinctly 007 air.

Makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench, who has elevated her unconventional craft to an art form, stares defiantly at the camera, paintbrush in hand and a palette of scarlet crystals, next to a disembodied model's head.

Photos © Swarovski.

I`m superloving the campaign. Tim Walker`s precision and creative play with angles, proportions and perspective is fascinating. It`s amazing the see the designers and artists work the crystals, too.

What is your favourite photo?

Miu Miu S/S 16 Ad Campaign by Steven Meisel

 

The Miu Miu woman possesses a creative intelligence and an overtly rebellious sense of fashion, perfect for a label that defies any preconceived category or aesthetic. It is fitting then that the seasonal advertising campaigns have often featured emerging actors: Miu Miu celebrates the outsider, the iconoclast, and the risk-taker.

The S/S 16 collection is a study in extreme contrasts: tweed, jacquard, knit, satin, gingham, lace and leather are all featured simultaneously in complex, textural compositions. The colors are as diverse as the materiality comprising greys and taupes intercut with deep maroon, gold, and blue. The forms range from the exaggerated trench with white and brown leather to a yoked cotton shirt drawn straight from the prairie.

For the S/S 16 campaign, long-time creative partner Steven Meisel brings the collection to life through a series of elegant portraits featuring a quartet of new, international actors – contrasts in themselves – Millie Brady, Julia Garner, Matilda Lutz and India Salvor Menuez.

Always the consummate craftsman, Meisel presents his impeccable images in a frank, straightforward manner. Tightly cropped, asymmetric, and shot against a neutral grey backdrop, the actors directly confront the camera in a manner that highlights their expressive range and luminous beauty. The neutrality of the approach reveals the richness of the eclectic looks coupled with the palpable intelligence of the women.

Photos © Miu Miu / Meisel.

How do you like the ad campaign? How do you like the choice of actresses instead of models?

Prada Resort 2016 Advertising Campaign by Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel captures a series of informal portraits for Prada’s Resort 2016 advertising campaign. Pop decorativism is subverted by industrial minimalism, as his muses lock us in an authoritative gaze.

Lexi Boling, Meghan Collison, Ina Jensen, Lineisy Montero, Julia Nobis and Greta Varlese are bad girls turned good, or good girls turned bad, exuding a kind of unhinged innocence. The cool knowingness of their gaze is offset by expressive body language, hands on hips or folded across the body, arms swinging as if in dance.

The concept of post-modesty and luxury are investigated in a dialogue of contrasts and dichotomies. High impact pieces, with soft silhouettes, are based on the simple T-shirt. Paillette-covered coats, leather shifts and skin-tight printed sweaters are layered over extra-long striped sleeves. Multi-coloured bags in printed or perforated leathers and bold, oversize earrings are all part of the story. Decorativism, through the serial repetition of symbols recalls the concept of post-pop art. Simplicity becomes uniqueness.

An anonymous silver backdrop suggesting a post-industrial landscape jars with this sensual overload, suggesting the collection’s recurring rabbit motif is perhaps not as naive as it seems. Shadow falls across the images, reminding us darkness and light often come entwined. The gaze of the muses is both complex and seductive, warning anyone following them down this particular rabbit hole to expect the unexpected.

Photos © Prada / Steven Meisel.

I`m superloving Prada`s bunnies! The pixel- or xerox-effect and the arrows add a postmodern edge to it. Very cool! 

How do you like the ad campaign?

Roberto Cavalli Ad Campaign F/W 15/16: Ciara`s Kingdom

The story of a world encapsulated in one room. A surreal kingdom where the walls look like a magical sky and surfaces enchant with desert volumes and earthy hues.

The star of the Roberto Cavalli Fall/Winter 2015/16 advertising campaign is Ciara, the American hip hop artist, who embodies beauty with a hint of wildness.

The Maison’s tailoring workmanship enhances the printed silks, which evaporate from black into the colours of a dreamlike world, until they capture the warmth of a starry night with the brilliance of elegant solid colours.

The long, flowing dresses bear traces of precious traditional oriental embroideries, transforming them into sumptuous, modern details.

Ciara interprets the Cavalli woman with purity and spontaneity.

Her youthful, proud elegance dominates the colours of the scene, entrusted to the lens of photographer Francesco Carrozzini.

Shots that capture the seductive energy of a woman ready to build her very own kingdom beyond mere dreams, taking the beauty to the throne of personality.

Photos © Roberto Cavalli.

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Prada Fall / Winter 2015 Advertising Campaign by Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel reframes the notion of reality in an elegant, ironic ode to meta-modern femininity. The narratives bring to life a feeling of natural elegance, where suspended youthfulness intermingles with the classic, and very new codes of the ultra-feminine. 

 There is a relaxed feel to the casual postures, rooted in the real, frozen moments of an imagined story. The perfect soft pastel surroundings are pure artifice, upon which the layering of multiple codes and narratives is played out. 

The materials of the collection re-wire tradition with science, to bring illusory surfaces and new forms and uses to fabric. Cropped trouser suits appear in otherworldly colors as ununiform. A subtle but significant re-addressing is played out when opposites such as opera gloves and cropped metallic sparkling tops are paired to create powerful new codes of attraction. 

The distinctive architecture of the clothes is reflected in the staging of these wide-screen vignettes, where off-hand gestures and a playful body language are casually orchestrated in a conversation about the power of a hyper-style reality. 

The season’s exciting new faces are the stars: Avery Blanchard, Estella Boersma, Inga Dezhina, Lineisy Montero, Ine Neefs, Greta Varlese and Maartje Verhoef.

Photos © Prada / Meisel.

How do you like the ad campaign?