Karlie Kloss, Costance Jablonksi and Karmen Pedaru wear full on color for Hans Feurer. The brightly adorned ladies are works of art for Vogue Netherlands.
Karlie Kloss, Costance Jablonksi and Karmen Pedaru wear full on color for Hans Feurer. The brightly adorned ladies are works of art for Vogue Netherlands.
Kate Moss bears all for the summer 2013 St. Tropez ad campaign. The international superstar simplifies the shots with a straight forward glare and skin that’s pure perfection.
Jemma Baines blends into the backdrop in a surreal shoot by Guilia Noni for L’Express Styles. The optical illusion features the stand out style selects of Yann Weber.
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The French have a superb relationship with sunlight. After all, it was Coco Chanel who made tanned skin all the rage among the style set. Photographer Gilles Bensimon snaps the true beauty Edita Vilkeviciute nude and communing with nature for Vogue Paris’ May issue.
Suntanning triggers the brain’s reward region linked to addictions. On a positive note, suntanning seems to cause a ‘runners high’ and positive sense of wellbeing.
When I look at these gorgeous images of Edita as nature girl, I’m swept into the thoughtful consideration of how different Americans are in our relationship with the female body. Due to the primacy of religion in our morality mindset, Americans view the female body with ambivalence and often contempt — much like the Arab world.
This awareness was front and center in my mind yesterday, reading British Vogue’s page-view generating headline Former Angel Slams Victoria’s Secret. The nothing story focused on meltdown, born-again woman Kylie Bisutti who is on a pr campaign to publicize her new book and modesty-inspired clothing line with news that she “has clarified the reasons why she quit as one of the faces of Victoria’s Secret”.
Certainly Kylie takes herself far too seriously and is capitalizing on her brief fame for self-promotion. But anytime the message comes front and center that women must cover-up our bodies, honoring God and husbands, I can only think of the incredible suffering religion has inflicted on women worldwide, in the name of modesty.Therefore, I believe that Bisutti is an agent of women’s oppression.
The fact that the conservative, right-wing morality police buys the most porn in America, only adds insult to injury for thoughtful women like myself. The French are far from perfect, but their relationship with the female body is much more positive than America enjoys.
Just consider the fact that the bare-breasted woman with a snake’s lower parts serves as a beast of temptation on the West facade of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Generally considered to be Lilith, Adam’s first wife in the Old Testament, the French have publicly acknowledged the conflict over women’s bodies for centuries.
Following in the footsteps of former Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld, Emmanuelle Alt herself has publicly struggled with nudity and sensuality. Little by little, Alt has come around in accepting a limited amount of nudity in Vogue Paris, which remains a shadow of its former self under Roitfeld.
Today it’s Edita Vilkeviciute who has the last word on the subject of the female body. Her fearless Gilles Bensimon images are gorgeous and inspiring. If only every woman could enjoy this kind of peace with her physicality, the world would be a far less dangerous place. ~ Anne
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Pulling off these power suits calls for an executive type of woman. ‘Strong Suit’ displays a jaw-dropping assortment of stand out suits selected by Bee Diamondhead. Aluad Deng Anei is the perfect match to pull off the shots of Kope | Figgins for Marie Claire South Africa.
The title of the editorial catches our attention with its message of the fashionable woman is taller, leaner and sexier. There is no doubt that fashion prefers this look. During the epic success of the ’90s supermodels, 25% of women could achieve their body shape. Forgetting for one moment just how much obesity has grown in the world and especially in America, only 8% of healthy women could achieve today’s body ideal.
That’s a big change in one decade, the result of shrinking ideal model size from a size 4-6 to a size 0. Read yesterday’s Does Fashion Promote Anorexia? Do Models Really Eat Tissue Paper To Stay Thin?
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The most recent wave of criticism against anorexic-looking models was launched in 2009 with the publication of a Ralph Lauren ad campaign featuring fired model Filippa Hamilton, who was photoshopped to look exactly like these images.
The debate over fashion’s obsession with ultra-thin models has continued unabated since then, with little turning away from the down-sizing of the healthy body, original ’90s supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. Most of those size 4-6 supermodels are considered plus-size models today, compared to our typically androgynous-looking size 0 models.
Brazil’s Star Models You Are Not A Sketch Campaign
Brazilian modeling agency Star Models has recently launched an innovative eating disorder awareness campaign featuring your typical fashion sketch on the left, and models photoshopped to look like the illustration on the right. The impossibly long-legged fashionista on the left has been with us for decades. Photoshopping a real model to look like a fashion illustration is a more recent phenomenon.
Fashion insiders tell women that neither image should have any impact on our psyches. Any intelligent woman isn’t impacted by these visions of the ideal female body because we know they are only ads. The same argument applies to Barbie. Are people seriously suggesting that Barbie be banned.
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Geraldine Saglio dresses Magdalena Frackowiak in diamonds for the blonde bombshell’s intimate, bed set shoot with Giampaolo for Vogue Paris.
Quadruple threat Vanessa Lorenzo, Nieves Alvarez, Bimba Bose and Laura Ponte take off Loreto Quintanilla’s subtle styling for the lens of Nico in the May edition of Harper’s Bazaar Spain.
Tallulah Morton wears a painted face, but not of makeup. The brunette poses straightfaced behind a mask of marker scribbles and the outfitting of Jana Adler. Behind the lens are Herring & Herring delivering these shots for Fit For Print volume #1.
No styling needed here. Edita Vilkeviciute, Maryna Lunchuk and Gracie Carvalho wear bare skin for the lens of Patrick Demarchelier in ‘Body Beautiful’ for the May edition of Allure.
Crystal Renn finishes off Hunger’s limited hardback issues with ‘Crystal Amaze,’ by Rankin. The spread features an article on positive body image from Crystal’s perspective.
These photos of the World’s No. 1 women’s tennis player (and the oldest at 31) Serena Williams appeared in today’s Daily Mail. I was reading about the Helena Christiansen open letter post in defense of Kim Kardashian, when Serena’s images appeared as a thumbnail.
Helena wrote: “It is disgusting and despicable the way that certain media constantly harass the pregnant Kim Kardashian,” Christensen wrote in an open letter posted on The Huffington Post. “It’s enough that they persistently project a negative focus on women’s physical shapes; but a public bullying and attacking of a pregnant woman because of her growing shape is just lower than low.”
Looking at Serena’s confident images, I went straight for the comments, wondering if Daily Mail readers were as snarky as they can be. NO! I pulled out a sequence of the comments below.
Comments in order, not picked to suit my point, are:
“But she has done an amazing job keeping feminine, while still having massive strong muscles.”
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America’s Allure Magazine is that rare US publication that celebrates the mostly female body. Models Cora Emmanuel, Maria Flavia and Eniko Mihalik are lensed by Patrick Demarchelier in ‘Naked Lunch’ for the May issue.
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‘Mad Men’ star Christina Hendricks graces the May issue of Canada’s Flare Magazine, styled Lawren Sample. The sexy stunner wears a dress from Stella McCartney on the cover, lensed by Max Abadian.
Christina’s comments about being rejected in the fashion and film industry for ‘not being right’ are all over cyberspace. Joan’s adoration of pencil skirts runs a close second. Any woman with curves and a half-way decent figure should develop a passion for pencil skirts.
We’re more interested in what isn’t making headlines. After agreeing to essentially prostitute herself out to an agency client for a promotion in ‘Mad Men’ five, season six picks up with Joan trying out her new driver’s seat as a partner in the firm — wondering whether or not she’ll be welcome at the executive level.
With all the talk about Joan really not being a feminist, this one finds her negotiating skills to be a key part of an intelligent woman’s feminist plank in those years. To date, Hendricks confesses, no one has been like, “JOAN!! Shame on you!”
Hendricks always wanted to be a florist and so she worked in a flower shop during her time off from the show -and not for the first time. Christina worked in a flower shop after the first season of ‘Mad Men’. Better yet, ‘Joan’ is a huge fan of whisky — so much so that she was appointed by Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch Whiskey to be its US Ambassador. That factoid didn’t come from Flare.
“I do ask women why they think whisky is a man’s drink,” Hendricks has commented in the past. “I think it’s a fashion thing that’s been cultivated over a long time but with the trend for classic cocktails, there’s a growing appreciation to Scotch that’s attracting a new generation of female drinkers, including me and my friends.”
Another pertinent comment came from Hendricks in an interview with New York Magazine in 2010.
“Anytime someone talks constantly about your figure, you get nervous, you get really self-conscious. I was working my butt off on the show, but then all anyone was talking about was my body.”
On that subject, dear Christina, not much has changed. And I’m happy to report that even today, my positive article about your figure Chrstina Hendricks Reveals Our Inner Lilith Women remains in the AOC top 100. Let’s hope that Joan gets a big bonus in season six! ~ Anne
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Anairam transforms Kiia Waden into a human piece of art in ‘Vision Vanguardista’ delivered for the April edition of Harper’s Bazaar Mexico.
