I have a major pet peeve when it comes to blogs and fashion magazines. I realize that in order to stand out from the crowd, it's necessary to make your images look unique and to show the clothing in a new and interesting way. When you read as many magazines and blogs as I do, you start to see the same clothes over and over again. Even so, there are journalists and bloggers who still make their images and the accompanying information fresh. Then, there are those photojournalists and bloggers who show barely discernible pictures that may or may not be of a model wearing clothing. I fail to grasp why it is so important to hire a famous fashion photographer if said photographer can't be bothered to photograph actual fashion.
Case in point, these images were part of the WhoWhatWear blog post for today. The images are of the Vanessa Bruno Spring Summer 2011 collection and feature "models" Lou Doillon and Jessica Joffe. Lou Doillon is a hot model of the moment because her mother was a British pop singer and actress in the 60's who's main claim to fame is that she was a muse to another 60's pop singer and had an Hermes handbag named after her. There is a whole crew of models who currently have jobs solely because they are the offspring of a rock star and their model wife/girlfriend/random acquaintance. Some people are just born lucky, but I digress...
As an artist, I fully understand and appreciate the need for artistic license when photographing one's collection for publicity and marketing purposes. You want to grab people's attention and make them love your work. Otherwise, they'll just move on and buy someone else's. My problem is when you spend a fortune hiring photographers, models, stylists, and people to do make-up and hair to showcase your work, only to end up with a final result that doesn't actually show the clothing it took you nine months to design and create.
Example #1: I think this girl below is dead. Maybe she's just passed out after a hard night of night-clubbing. I can see that she's wearing a dress but that's only in the vaguest sense. I can't really tell what color it is or whether the fabric is supposed to be wrinkled or if that happened when she fell down into that pit.
This woman doesn't seem to be wearing clothes. I'm not sure what the point of this picture is. The girl could be a mermaid floating underwater or a fairy in a windstorm. Whatever she is, she's not showing off any clothing and it looks like someone spilled chemicals all over the image when it was being printed. I think a five year old shot this picture.
You can barely see that there is a female in this picture. I'm assuming that she is wearing clothing but without a microscope, it's difficult to tell. I wonder why she's playing the drums in the middle of a smokey forest. If you play the drums in the forest but no one cares, does it even matter?
I'm not sure why WhoWhatWear felt this photoshoot was so amazing that they featured it. Maybe it was a slow day because they just posted the photos without any comment. Usually, they're full of helpful information.
So you don't think I've just singled them out, I do have to admit that I've been a fan of Who What Wear for several years. They send out daily emails that show stylish models and celebrities of the moment. They track down what these fashionable ladies are wearing in the photos and frequently offer suggestions for similar but lower-cost alternatives for those of us who don't have access to daddy's rock star millions. While most of these fashion ingenues are size 0, there are the occasional sightings of actual human being sized women who still manage to look fashionable or even, gasp, GLAMOUROUS. I love their concept of making fashion accessible whether you're an admin in Los Angeles, a student in Bismark or an executive in a large city like New York. Too much of the fashion world focuses on wealthy young New Yorkers while ignoring anyone who isn't 19 and a size 0 (aka, the rest of the world).
So what is the point of all this ranting? It's this. If I'm going to look at a fashion spread, I want to be able to see the clothes. (Are you listening W Magazine????) How else will I know whether I can't live without those shoes or that handbag or that jacket? A girl's gotta have something to dream about.
Case in point, these images were part of the WhoWhatWear blog post for today. The images are of the Vanessa Bruno Spring Summer 2011 collection and feature "models" Lou Doillon and Jessica Joffe. Lou Doillon is a hot model of the moment because her mother was a British pop singer and actress in the 60's who's main claim to fame is that she was a muse to another 60's pop singer and had an Hermes handbag named after her. There is a whole crew of models who currently have jobs solely because they are the offspring of a rock star and their model wife/girlfriend/random acquaintance. Some people are just born lucky, but I digress...
As an artist, I fully understand and appreciate the need for artistic license when photographing one's collection for publicity and marketing purposes. You want to grab people's attention and make them love your work. Otherwise, they'll just move on and buy someone else's. My problem is when you spend a fortune hiring photographers, models, stylists, and people to do make-up and hair to showcase your work, only to end up with a final result that doesn't actually show the clothing it took you nine months to design and create.
Example #1: I think this girl below is dead. Maybe she's just passed out after a hard night of night-clubbing. I can see that she's wearing a dress but that's only in the vaguest sense. I can't really tell what color it is or whether the fabric is supposed to be wrinkled or if that happened when she fell down into that pit.
This woman doesn't seem to be wearing clothes. I'm not sure what the point of this picture is. The girl could be a mermaid floating underwater or a fairy in a windstorm. Whatever she is, she's not showing off any clothing and it looks like someone spilled chemicals all over the image when it was being printed. I think a five year old shot this picture.
You can barely see that there is a female in this picture. I'm assuming that she is wearing clothing but without a microscope, it's difficult to tell. I wonder why she's playing the drums in the middle of a smokey forest. If you play the drums in the forest but no one cares, does it even matter?
I'm not sure why WhoWhatWear felt this photoshoot was so amazing that they featured it. Maybe it was a slow day because they just posted the photos without any comment. Usually, they're full of helpful information.
So you don't think I've just singled them out, I do have to admit that I've been a fan of Who What Wear for several years. They send out daily emails that show stylish models and celebrities of the moment. They track down what these fashionable ladies are wearing in the photos and frequently offer suggestions for similar but lower-cost alternatives for those of us who don't have access to daddy's rock star millions. While most of these fashion ingenues are size 0, there are the occasional sightings of actual human being sized women who still manage to look fashionable or even, gasp, GLAMOUROUS. I love their concept of making fashion accessible whether you're an admin in Los Angeles, a student in Bismark or an executive in a large city like New York. Too much of the fashion world focuses on wealthy young New Yorkers while ignoring anyone who isn't 19 and a size 0 (aka, the rest of the world).
So what is the point of all this ranting? It's this. If I'm going to look at a fashion spread, I want to be able to see the clothes. (Are you listening W Magazine????) How else will I know whether I can't live without those shoes or that handbag or that jacket? A girl's gotta have something to dream about.
OMG blame that crazy Tyra Banks and "America's Next Top Model", she has taken editorial photography and spun it to the masses of Kentucky in scary, scary ways thus pictures that are about the model and the photographer not about the clothes, which was supposed to be the point!!!!
ReplyDeleteExactly! As someone who has literally made garments that took months to create, I don't appreciate it when someone else's vision of said garment involves shooting it from 100 feet away through a cloud of smoke on a dark day in the middle of a forest. I just want to sell my clothes! Or at the very least, I want someone to look at them and say, wow that's cool.
ReplyDelete