fashionologie

Carine Roitfeld on the Vision For Her New Magazine, Emmanuelle Alt's Paris Vogue

fashionologie — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:38:59 PDT

>> Carine Roitfeld has confirmed that she's working on a new magazine, and hints that the imagery may be different than the vampy irreverence she was associated with at Vogue Paris: "I will always be irreverent in my own way, but I will try to use new approaches. I've used a lot of cigarettes, a lot of sexy pictures, a lot of naked girls. I will try to do something totally different now, because I don't want to get bored of myself or to bore my readers. So, if I learn something new today, I will use it. I have to reinvent myself." She continues: "I want to see a link between the catwalk and reality. It's difficult for the woman to understand how to wear the clothes she is seeing on the catwalk. Maybe I can find a new way of thinking and a totally different way to express myself."

When asked what she thinks of Vogue Paris under Emmanuelle Alt, meanwhile, Roitfeld is dismissive: "I am very happy with what is happening to me today. I am focusing on the future, new challenges, and projects. I am not really looking to the past or what others are doing."

Lara Stone Covers Vogue Paris August, Still Repping for Calvin Klein

fashionologie — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 08:54:49 PDT

>> Lara Stone graces Emmanuelle Alt's fourth Vogue Paris cover - Alt has yet to feature anyone other than a model on one of her covers - for August 2011, wearing Fall 2011 Haider Ackermann in a cinematic shot. A peek at Stone's new Calvin Klein Collection campaign for Fall 2011 also just came out, which means that despite her recent stint for Tom Ford, her exclusive contract for the brand must still be going strong.

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See Emmanuelle Alt's Second Vogue Paris Cover, Featuring Kate Moss

fashionologie — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:22:51 PDT

>> In a followup to her first Vogue Paris cover featuring Gisele Bundchen, Emmanuelle Alt's second cover for the magazine features another supermodel: Kate Moss, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott in London. [Vogue.fr, HuffPo]

Carine Roitfeld on Anna Wintour, Drugs, Boring Fashion Shows, and Her Upcoming Book with Karl Lagerfeld

fashionologie — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:16:21 PDT

>> Carine Roitfeld is enjoying her new status as a free agent. While meeting with an interviewer from Spiegel, for instance, she was told that she looked "remarkably normal" (She showed up in a "no-name" T-shirt from Los Angeles, Current/Elliott corduroy jeans, and satin shoes that she had custom-made in violet.). Roitfeld's reply? "That's part of my newfound freedom. I always wore a tight skirt at Vogue; it was like a uniform." And the former editor already has plenty of new projects in the works - the Fall 2011 Chanel campaign, consulting work for Barneys, her biographical retrospective book with Olivier Zahm that comes out in October - plus, she mentions that she's working on "a book with Karl Lagerfeld," and adds, "Who knows? Perhaps I'll become a muse for designers again."

Needless to say, there's been no second-guessing her decision to leave Vogue Paris: "[It was] the perfect moment. The French edition of Vogue had never been more successful, had never had more readers or advertisers. And it had never made as much money. For 10 years, my American publisher, Jonathan Newhouse, let me do what I wanted, even when he thought it might be crazy. But it couldn't have gone on for much longer."

A few more highlights from the interview, below.

On editing Vogue Paris and the current state of the industry: "For 10 years, it was a hell of a lot of fun. But, toward the end, it unfortunately got less and less fun. You used to be able to be more playful, but now it's all about money, results and big business. The pret-a-porter shows have become terribly serious. The atmosphere isn't as electric as it once was, and they now have about as much charm as a medical conference. But it takes just one good fashion show to get things exciting again . . . Creativity needs space and a willingness to take risks, but businessmen don't like risk. What's more, designers are coming under more and more pressure. Today, a dress can't just please the women in Paris; it also has to please those in Beijing, Tokyo, Moscow and New York."

On the frequency of drug use in the industry: "My only drug is a small glass of vodka in the evening, if that's what you're asking . . . [Drugs are used in fashion] no more and no less than they are in other artistic circles. Yves Saint Laurent was the first person to openly admit to being a drug addict. Since I never touched drugs myself, I find it hard to tell whether people are taking them. But, of course, some people do. The industry has become faster and faster. People are constantly fighting jet lag and working through the night."

On the rumors of her succeeding Anna Wintour at Vogue: "That was never seriously under discussion. I like to provoke. I'm very French. In America, they're not even allowed to show a hint of nipple in photos. Anna Wintour is the most powerful woman in the global fashion industry, the first lady of fashion. She's a politician; I'm a stylist. They are two very different jobs. Incidentally, despite all the rumors, she is actually very nice."

On the John Galliano scandal: "I had no idea how unhappy John Galliano must have been. You have to be very unhappy and lonely to praise Hitler in public while completely drunk. The House of Dior has always addressed a range of topics, for example, by having haute couture shows on homelessness where all the models look like people living on the street. But drunkenly shouting 'I love Hitler' and calling people in a bar a 'dirty Jew-face' is unacceptable. I don't think he really believes what he said; they were simply the actions of a drunk."

Watch Inez and Vinoodh's "Girls on Film" Video for Vogue Paris, Featuring Anja Rubik, Natasha Poly, and Isabeli Fontana

fashionologie — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:19:33 PDT

>> Vogue Paris had Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin produced a stylized behind-the-scenes video of their October 2010 "The Party" editorial to celebrate the magazine's 90th anniversary and its newly-launched iPad application. Although the Emmanuelle Alt-styled editorial ran last October, the video - which features Isabeli Fontana, Natasha Poly, and Anja Rubik vamping to the Duran Duran song "Girls on Film" - just got uploaded to YouTube a couple of days ago, a fact van Lamsweerde pointed out on Twitter: "Did any of you ever see this video we did in 2010? Count the fashion shoot clichés!more to come.kisses Inez ."

A Look Inside Emmanuelle Alt's First Vogue Paris Issue

fashionologie — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:57:38 PDT

>> Although Emmanuelle Alt says her full vision for Vogue Paris won't be felt until the August 2011 issue, the April 2011 issue marks her first as editor-in-chief of the magazine. Already, she's made some changes - expanded beauty coverage, simpler layouts and typography, a bigger commitment to feature articles among them. And she has plenty more in mind: “I want to show in French Vogue more and more a lot of clothes." In fact, of this first issue, she says: "It’s simple fashion. You can see the clothes perfectly.”

She plans to continue devoting covers largely to models, but will require them to show less skin than they did under Carine Roitfeld's eye. “One boob,” she says of this first issue: “Otherwise, you don’t recognize it’s French Vogue.” And instead of Roitfeld's edgier vision, Alt says: “I want the Vogue to become very feminine. Women are very interested in fashion and beauty.” She's also recruiting a new team of freelance stylists: “I want to have new people working for the magazine. I also want to push some young stylists: all the girls who have been trained by French Vogue.” A look at the outcome - Alt's first issue - in the slideshow.

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Will Emmanuelle Alt's Second Vogue Paris Cover Also Feature a Supermodel?

fashionologie — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:23:13 PDT

>> Emmanuelle Alt's first Vogue Paris cover - for April 2011 - came out last week, with Gisele Bundchen photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin in a white Dolce & Gabbana dress - a dress that has also been recently featured on the covers of Vogue Spain and Germany. Is Alt planning to go the supermodel route again for May, her second cover? Apparently she recently styled Kate Moss in a haute couture editorial for Vogue Paris's May issue - shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott in London. It seems unlikely that the shoot wouldn't come with a cover deal, and Moss is, after all, among the coterie of Alt's favored models. [Telegraph UK]

Saskia de Brauw Scores Two Influential March Vogue Covers

fashionologie — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:26:05 PST

>> Lately one of Riccardo Tisci's go-to models, 29-year-old Dutch model Saskia de Brauw is catching on quickly elsewhere, too. She is simultaneously featured on the big March 2011 Spring covers of two different Vogues: Vogue Paris, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott (left) - which also happens to be Carine Roitfeld's last cover for the magazine - and Vogue Italia by Steven Meisel (right). [Models.com]

Carine Roitfeld and Emmanuelle Alt Are No Longer Speaking

fashionologie — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:07:55 PST

>> She didn't name names, but it was fairly clear that Franca Sozzani, in a blog post last month, was criticizing one of Carine Roitfeld's last issues of Vogue Paris - the December Tom Ford guest-edited issue. In a more recent interview, Sozzani said, “Honestly, I don’t think a stylist has a vision for a magazine.” Both Roitfeld and her fashion director - and now new Vogue Paris editor - Emmanuelle Alt are stylists.

Sozzani wasn't the only one who wasn't feeling that Tom Ford-edited December issue - people in Paris speculated, Cathy Horyn reports, that it triggered Roitfeld's undoing. Roitfeld last month told Horyn that her bosses received complaints from advertisers over the Ford issue. “I was killed for that,” Roitfeld added. “You know, it’s difficult to try to do something new each month.”

According to several close to the matter, Roitfeld offered to resign when the issue of her management came under question (she was frequently out of the office on shoots). She could have been bluffing, but her resignation was accepted. When asked whether her frequent office absence was a contributing factor, Roitfeld admitted: “Maybe, maybe. Everybody has an opinion. Before, it wasn’t a problem, and anyway the magazine was doing very well. It’s difficult to work with a big team. Maybe it’s good I go back to my roots.”

But she says she doesn't regret resigning: "I’m very sad, but in a way I’m very happy, too. I don’t want to get old in this golden cage. I’m very punk in a way.”

Apparently she and Alt no longer speak, however, and neither would say why. Alt, who is attending New York Fashion Week for the first time in years, notes: “I don’t look back and see clouds anywhere. Carine is someone who needs to be free. She’s the rebel of the class. She hates authority. She dealt with it for years but . . . ” The magazine was profitable and experienced a 40 percent leap in circulation under Roitfeld's tenure.

Emmanuelle Alt Explains Her Vision for Vogue Paris, Her Stance on Celebrity Covers

fashionologie — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:44:11 PST

>> During couture, Emmanuelle Alt hinted that Vogue Paris under her direction would be "the same, but different"; Vogue's Mark Holgate got her to expand a little more on her vision for the magazine:

“I want to keep the quality, the photographers we work with - David [Sims], Mert and Marcus, Mario [Testino], and Bruce Weber. I don’t think there should be radical changes. The magazine should still be chic and sophisticated. It’s a bit like buying an apartment: Before you move in, you have all these plans of what you are going to do, but then you get there, and you realize it is better to spend time living in it, and transforming it over time. I’d like there to be more beauty trends; there was so much of that in Vogue back in the eighties. More French girls, more French lifestyle. And I am going to keep shooting for the magazine - hopefully a story every issue." She adds: "I always want a relationship with reality: nothing too sexy, or provocative, or fashion victim. We are French - we can show smoking, nudity. We have no boundaries, and it can be good to have them."

As for her position on celebrity covers: “We don’t have a systematic point of view on it. But here in France we are back in a much more glamorous time. French actresses were respected, but not so evidently in the fashion world. Now we have Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg. I’d be very happy to put an actress on the cover if she is the right girl.” And her model favorites are no surprise: “Daria [Werbowy] is the girl I work with the most. She has a natural, strong beauty. You can put her in a white tee and she will make it look fantastic. I like Kate [Moss] too, because she cares about clothes. Most models don’t care what you put them in, they just play the game.”