>> For Spring 2009 more than ever, brands stuck with campaign models who guarantee a sell — supermodels like Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss for Versace or Claudia Schiffer for Yves Saint Laurent, Daria Werbowy for Roberto Cavalli — or the classic blonde hair-blue eye combination that Toni Garrn and Anna Maria Jagodzinska's campaign sweeps represented.  Also of note for the season, Prada and Balenciaga's decisions to go with big groups of models — eight and ten, respectively.

With Fall 2009 campaign season under way, it sounds like at least a couple of brands have decided to break from that latter part of last season's formula — Wayne Sterling of The Imagist reports:

"It is too early to say and too tenuous to reveal who's holding/confirming what these days but rest assured it is the striking and the extreme that seem to be filtering into the next phase. Among the buzz I picked up by some art directors is a disenchantment with the 'multiples' ideal, that concept of an army of models rocking as many of the looks from the show as possible while waving as many possible it-bags as can be crammed into a double page. Two VERY big brands have already gone 'Only Girl.'"

The most likely candidate from that description of packing the models in seems to be Prada — so does that mean Prada is one of those already-decided brands, and Miuccia's current favorite exclusive Ymre Stiekema is going to finally get a main season campaign under her belt?

As far as further trends, Sterling highlights "a sudden deluge of 15-and-unders" this season — "Is it me or did the average age of the current crop of Newcomers drop precipitously this season?" — pinpointing Monika "Jac" Jagaciak (born in 1994) in New York, 14-year-old Auguste Tomasuite (aka Auguste Abeliunaite) in Milan, plus 16-year-old Rose Cordero and 16-year-old Addison Gill in Paris.  But because of their ages, "those break out girls found their Paris bookings severely curtailed": models in Paris under 16 are not allowed to work on Sunday or do anything past 8 PM on weekdays.  Auguste didn't even attend Paris because of her age, and Rose saw the dissolution of a Givenchy exclusive because the show was on Sunday.

Filling in their places, Sterling names Tao Okamoto, Alina Ismailova, Anna De Rijk, Bara Holtova, and Luisa Kamshilina as standouts, adding that three of the aforementioned have already picked up "some serious FW 09 campaign options."  Also on his watch list for the campaign season?  Eniko Mihalik, "who now sits in prime positioning for the FW 09 campaign season, precisely because she's proven to have a life in front of the cameras. Eniko is a lot of things that is not ultra-fashionable these days. She's womanly and her portfolio of 'sexy' shots is beginning to rival Lara Stone's."
*image: source