Toni Mateu

Silician designer Maria Francesca Paternò has released her bridal and haute couture collection for 2012, entitled Ouverture.
   The self-described ‘fashion engineer’ mixes a number of cultures, along with poetry and art, as part of her inspiration.
   The collection features one-shoulder necklines reminiscent of ancient Greece, long and flowing skirts, and a nostalgic use of silk, satin and lace. Paternò’s cocktail dresses have vivid, vibrant colours. She employs only the highest quality materials and techniques.
   Paternò’s atelier is named la Via della Seta, or Silk Road, paying tribute to her love of the material.
   The advertising campaign was shot in Barcelona by Toni Mateu.
   Paternò was mentored by designer Gianna Baragli, and had worked for several notable companies beginning in the 1970s. Her website describes her gowns as works of art ‘brought to life with sentiment and feminine sensibility.’

Copyright ©2012 Danjaq, LLC, United Artists Corporation and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.

The first official image from Skyfall, the 23rd Eon Productions James Bond picture, has been released on the movie’s website at 007.com.
   The photograph sees Daniel Craig as James Bond, in a scene set in Shanghai.
   The film sees Craig joined by Javier Bardem, Dame Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Ben Chaplin, Albert Finney, and Ralph Fiennes. Sam Mendes directs.
   The plot is a closely guarded secret, but the official statement from Sony, released in January, read: ‘In Skyfall, Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.’
   Regular scriptwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with Gladiator’s John Logan, penned the script, which has no connection to an Ian Fleming novel.
   The James Bond films celebrate their 50th anniversary this year. In 1962, Dr No, the first big-screen Bond movie, was released, starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress and Joseph Wiseman.
   Skyfall will be released October 26 in the UK and Éire, and November 9 in North America.

Jones New York has launched its optical eyewear collection in New Zealand, available through Visique. The range features tailored frames that are masculine in style, with a selection of fashionable colours and modern materials.

   Brancott Estate, meanwhile, has released a new smartphone application, called World’s Most Curious Bottle. There are 14 ‘unique consumer experiences’ on the app, including entertainment and wine information, that users can unlock when they scan the QR code on the new Brancott Estate labels. The app is compatible with Apple and Android.
   Opening today at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is The Inverted Mirror: Art from the Collections of la Caixa Foundation and MACBA, representing movements such as Dau al Set, the El Paso group, the Vancouver School and the Düsseldorf School. It features 93 works by 52 artists who worked with various media, especially photography, video and large-format sculpture. Artists include Antoni Tàpies, Sigmar Polke, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Wall, Martha Rosler, Michelangelo Pistolletto, Thomas Ruff, Gillian Wearing, Bruce Nauman, Andreas Gursky, Martí­n Chirino and Antonio Saura.
   The introduction below from curator Alvaro Rodríguez Fominaya is in Spanish, while the walk through the gallery is silent.

Todd Cole/ASOS magazine

Above Elizabeth Olsen, on the cover of ASOS magazine, wears a MiH Aztec jacket, and an Elizabeth & James striped silk Ella blouse. She wears an ASOS long-sleeve Breton top inside.

ASOS—once better known as As Seen on Screen—has continued to grow in profile. Its latest magazine features actress Elizabeth Olsen on its cover, photographed by Todd Cole at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York, reportedly one of her favourite spots in the city.
   She is the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and was one of the break-out stars at the Sundance Film Festival 2011 for thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene, about a woman who chooses to leave a cult.
   Her new film, Red Lights, with Robert de Niro and Sigourney Weaver, débuts at this year’s Sundance, while Liberal Arts, with Zac Efron, was released this week. Her horror film Silent House opens March 9.
   ASOS has 18·5 million unique visitors per month, 7 million registered users, and 4 million active customers, according to its own data.

Thomas Salme

Top Italian model Francesca Donetto, wearing Enrico Coveri, photographed by Thomas Salme. Above Francesca Donetto wears Federico Sangalli.

Francesca Donetto is one of many thousands of Italian young women who want to make it as a model in the hard fashion world of Italy—and especially that of Milano.
   I shot her latest photos in my studio in Milano last month and got to know a young girl full of beauty and passion.
   Francesca is from Treviso, close to Venezia, and is born on December 10, 1992. Her measurements are 92–70–94 cm, or 36–27½–37 in. Her height of 182 cm—6 ft in Imperial—does not only make her a good model, but a skilled basketballer: she has played the sport for the last five years with considerable success. She love the cinema and is a very positive young woman, with a great vision, even in times like today. Even if she would like to make it in the fashion world, she says that it is not the most important thing in life.—Thomas Salme, Photographer

Thomas Salme

Above Francesca Donetto in Chiara Boni, photographed by Thomas Salme.

Bailey, copyright ©1965 by the Condé Nast Publications (UK)

BBC/Kudos

Compare the pair. Top Jean Shrimpton, as she appeared in Vogue shot by Bailey in 1965. Above Karen Gillan and Aneurin Barnard as Jean Shrimpton and David Bailey in a publicity shot for We’ll Take Manhattan, which aired last week on BBC4.

The visitor stats have been very clear: one of the most searched-terms at Lucire has been David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton over the last few days.
   Presumably, it’s due to BBC4’s We’ll Take Manhattan, a TV film about a ground-breaking New York shoot by David Bailey and his model and lover, Jean Shrimpton. The shoot defined, according to the programme, the 1960s.
   As previewed in Lucire, the BBC4 film starred Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) and Aneurin Barnard as the couple. While it took a little while to get going—it begins with the pair boarding a jet to head to New York, then goes into flashback—with the charged arguments between Bailey and Vogue fashion editor Lady Clare Rendlesham occupying a great deal of the action once the story gets back on track. The centre of the argument: that it’s the 1960s, that Bailey wants to catch more liveliness, and that the stuffy portraits shown in British Vogue—which had, of course, covered the Coronation the decade before with HM the Queen and aristocratic ladies-in-waiting—were a thing of the past.
   Of course it’s idealized, but it’s not too far from the truth when the film claims that Bailey and the Shrimp defined the decade.
   The forces had been coming in for a while, but perhaps not with the youthquake that the Bailey represented after national service was abolished in 1962 and there was plenty of youthful energy around Britain. Technological changes in the 1950s and the telephoto lens already meant fashion photographers were experimenting with more lively shots, and Vogue photographers such as Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson and Antony Armstrong-Jones (later Lord Snowdon) were capturing moments that the magazine’s readers would not have seen the decade before. While staged, they appeared to be casual moments, with the model seemingly living her life in the editorials.
   What Bailey did was take this into raw sexiness, tapping correctly into the Zeitgeist. Starting at British Vogue in July 1960, Bailey had in fact met Shrimpton while she was being shot for a cornflakes advertisement by Brian Duffy. And unlike the film, Bailey was actually very grateful for the gig and knew what British Vogue was: ‘When Vogue offered to pay me to photograph beautiful women all day I thought I was on a dream-boat.’
   Gillan captures the innocent country girl that Shrimpton was at that point, which makes the transformation into ’60s sex icon all the more poignant. Never mind posh locations with Bailey: the Shrimp was on the floor, legs akimbo, complete with teddy bear or another prop. Skirts got shorter, progressively so till 1966, and Jean Shrimpton and her long legs modelled plenty in the decade. It might not be inaccurate to say that Shrimpton was the 1960s supermodel, along with Twiggy—certainly they were two of the most recognized women in Britain.
   Vogue had gone from being a magazine read by the well-to-do lady to one that reached the masses—and for the first time, its pages even became pin-ups.
   Bailey has remained in the public eye with his ongoing work, though Shrimpton has opted for a quieter life, running a country hotel. Both had reportedly approved of the script, which showed them in a positive light—though given Shrimpton’s silence over the years, we’re guessing it must have had some verisimilitude for her to give it the nod.
   There were some glaring mistakes—a 2005 Chevrolet taxi zooms by in a 1962 scene in New York—and Mad Men it was not, neither in feel nor in execution. Where Kudos was once known for lavish productions—Life on Mars springs to mind—some corners felt cut, probably thanks to the recession and the difficulty of securing locations that still looked “’sixties enough” in New York. It lacked the pace of another winter BBC film around this time last year: Eric and Ernie, covering the pre-fame period of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise.
   But, on the other hand, period Vogue covers were faithfully re-created, the wardrobe department did extremely well securing period costumes, and Frances Barber stole the show with her portrayal of Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland in the New York scenes. And it summed up the period well: while a telemovie will take liberties with history, there was no denying that Bailey and Shrimpton were influential and very deserving subjects.—Jack Yan, Publisher

Marcus Dawes

Swarovski launched its retail concept store, Swarovski Crystallized, at Great Marlborough Street in London, with a VIP event on Thursday. It also celebrated the winners of supermodel Hélèna Christensen’s Unsigned Model Search, Freya McHugh and Reece Sanders, who front the Swarovski Crystallized spring–summer 2012 campaign.
   Christensen, who is a photographer in her own right, shot the campaign featuring McHugh and Sanders. It will break in the UK, the US, China and Swarovski’s home country of Austria during the season.
   She said, ‘It was an absolute pleasure to photograph them both and a thrill to finally reveal the imagery for the spring–summer 2012 Swarovski Crystallized campaign. From the response to the photographs, I know we have unearthed two people with successful careers ahead of them and I can’t wait to see their progress over the coming months.’
   Christensen wore Stella McCartney at the launch, accessorized by a Jayde by Melissa Kandiyoti Trapeze necklace and earrings from Swarovski Crystallized.
   Other VIPs included Daniella Issa Helayel, Grace Woodward, Harold Tillman, Olivia Inge, Nicky Haslam, Noëlle Reno, Ozwald Boetang, Patrick Grant, Olivia Grant, Rachel Barrett, Tolula Adeyemi, Scott Young, Olivia Lee, and Nat and Leah Weller. British Chase Vodka provided the drinks.
   Swarovski Crystallized features jewellery collections and accessories created by international designers using Swarovski Elements.

Top Diane Krüger is one of the VIPs at the Versace Étoile de la Mer eyewear launch. Above Donatella Versace and Anna Wintour.

Versace hosted a dinner at Restaurant Lasserre in Paris on January 23 to unveil its spring–summer 2012 eyewear collection, dubbed Étoile de la Mer.
   The capsule collection features two sunglasses and one optical model, each in various pastel colours. Eagle-eyed readers will spot the signature frameless pilot-shaped model at the spring–summer 2012 women’s fashion show in Milano.
   Donatella Versace and Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt played host, with celebrities including Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Abbie Cornish, Diane Krüger, Haider Ackerman, Ludivine Sagnier, Daphne Guinness, Maggie Grace, Suzy Menkes, Bérénice Bejo, Salma Hayek and Riccardo Tisci.
   The campaign image features supermodel Gisèle Bündchen, photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott at an abandoned pool in the California desert. Giovanni Bianco art-directed.
   Donatella Versace says of the campaign in a release: ‘Gisèle was the perfect choice for this campaign. Her beauty is so bold in these images and she radiates true strength and sensuality. As an iconic beauty, she is also the perfect fit for the Étoile de la Mer eyewear collection. The images of her in the collection are stunning and powerful. This is exactly the vision I had when I started the design process.’
   The Versace Étoile de la Mer optical style will be available at OPSM in New Zealand from February, with the sunglasses following at Sunglass Hut in April.

Above Scenes from the launch event, with guests including Maggie Grace, Emmanuelle Alt, Daphne Guinness, Bérénice Bejo and Salma Hayek, and Haider Ackerman and Suzy Menkes. Below The Gisèle Bündchen campaign image and the three Versace Étoile de la Mer designs.