Dynamic Blooms Looks - Christian Dior

! Love it  - Dynamic Blooms 

The first highlight featuring Jac in Lanvin and Christian Dior a.o.

Today, for me it was a great day, following the Live-stream by nick Knight's Showstudio - Dynamic Blooms photo shooting for AnOther Magazine's 10th Anniversary.

Source: SHOWstudio.com 

High Praise

In a video interview about the February 2010 Vogue UK cover shoot featuring Natalia Vodianova, Nick Knight happens to bestow some high praise on Freja.

"Natalia is one of those models like Kate or Naomi or Freja who are just fantastic. They know how to express themselves. First of all they interpret the narrative of a piece of clothing really interestingly. And that's one of the main things the model does. Models are kind of an interesting mixture of very, very good actresses (oh really?) and very good sportspeople."

Check it out @1:20

That's quite the compliment coming from someone who's only photographed Freja for two editorials (Pop Hit for Vogue UK March 2007 and About a Boy for Vogue UK April 2008). She must have made quite the impression in order to have Nick lump her in with models like Kate, Naomi and Natalia (who are arguably the last of the supermodels). I hope this means that we'll be seeing a Knight lensed editorial sometime in Freja's near future. Or maybe they just recently worked together which is why Freja was so fresh on his mind? (Hmmmm.....keep those eyes peeled.)

Lately Freja has been expanding her oeuvre in terms of photographers who she's worked with (think Demarchelier, Meisel, Olins, Richardson, Summerton) so adding Knight to the list again would be quite lovely. If not for an editorial, then perhaps a multimedia project for SHOWstudio? It's been quite a while since the last one Freja did for Knight's online forum that has the the lofty goal of expanding fashion film parameters.

"Writing on the Wall"

Anyway, being a successful model has as much to do with the people who support you as it has to do with what qualities and talents you bring to the table. With regards to Freja, perhaps I focus too much on the later and not enough on the former. I've mentioned Freja fans in the industry before (Alexander Wang, Marcus and David of Rag & Bone, Stella McCartney and artist Chantal Joffe, Vogue UK's Jaime Perlman) but I've done so in a very flippant way. Well, not only are these people fans; they're also supporters and I'm guessing that a good measure of Freja's success is owed to them and the many others in the industry who have supported her since her early years. People like Russell Marsh who gave Freja her first runway exclusive with Prada her first season, Michelle Lee of KCD who repeatedly casts Freja for the Marc Jacobs shows, and Freja's mother agent Jeppe at Unique Copenhagen. Of course, you can have all the right people backing you, but if you don't have the goods as a model your career will fade away just as quickly as it lit up. Luckily, Freja has both components: a strong foundation of supporters and a huge reservoir of talent. This is why she's been successfully modeling for half a decade.

Nevertheless, I'm not so naive and caught up in my own fandom as to think that everyone loves Freja. I know that some people don't get her appeal and I have no trouble understanding and accepting that (but if you're reading this you're probably not one of those people). Luckily the people who count, in terms of models getting booked for work, do get it. The people that have a say in which model we see in whatever campaign, editorial, and runway show all seem to see what we Freja fans see. And knowing that doesn't make me feel so weird about having such a singularly focused blog. I get enough heartache and disappointment whenever I see my lesser known model favs fade, so it's good to be a part of the vast majority when it comes to Freja. You know...if she ever stops working or decides to pull a SS08/SS09 again and partially skip another season, a lot of people are going to be inconsolable. Fortunately things seem to be going in our favor.....for now.

Credits: Vogue UK video via rox_yr_sox @ tFS

On the Casting Horizon

With fashion shows now over and campaign season around the corner it seems like everyone has casting on the brain. The Imagist recently posted a very interesting piece on the model outlook for the upcoming campaign season.

He tells us that the "circle of power photographers who decide which models cross over from all that runway traction into blue chip work seem to be holding back on their campaign shooting. There is not the usual feeding frenzy to lock up those hyped new faces . No epic "New Faces" edit yet at W, no New Prada Contingent marching through Vogue Italia...yet. This is an indicator that the campaign castings are going to run even more conservatively than in recent years, skewing back to the Raquels, Sashas and Natashas, if there is even a model on the premises. Celebrities are going to continue to take a huge chunk of those choice bookings..."

And take this quote photographer Nick Knight gave in a recent interview: "To make money, the industry is increasingly catering to the lowest common denominator and, as far as the people who run the big companies are concerned, anything even slightly out of the ordinary frightens people. But anyone with a brain knows that it is the quirkiness and imperfection in a person that attracts other people. That is completely obvious to human beings; it's just when it gets to a corporate level that it all falls apart."

Reading all of this made me more than a bit disappointed. For one, I can't stand seeing the current crop of celebrities in ad campaigns. It's already bad enough that I have to see them on the covers of American fashion magazines month after month--leave modeling to the professionals please. Secondly, this season I really took notice of and a liking to many of the new girls so it will be sad to see most of them ravaged and tossed aside by the industry. Especially since they are so young and all so gorgeous in unique ways. They looked different enough that I could actually tell them apart for once.

Anyway, it's during times like these I'm so grateful that Freja has Karl firmly in her corner. Even if I complain about it sometimes, and even if she's just going to be relegated to his entourage, at least she's getting new work that we'll be able to see. And who knows...we might even see her in a few other campaigns despite the dire outlook for models. After all, she made a killing last season coming away with 5 campaigns, and she's coming off one of her stronger runway seasons in a long time. Hopefully Freja can channel all this momentum into some more results. And hopefully Karl will let her go long enough so that she can work with some other people.

All things considered, Freja is in a great position having just shot the Chanel campaign. And with her quirky and palatable looks to draw upon (providing a nice compromise between the corporate and creative sides of the industry), I think she could be poised for more. Unfortunately, that probably won't be the case for your other favorites. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Karmen and Karolin, and hoping that my new girl favs like Mirte and Lisanne emerge unscathed. What about you?