Vogue Paris June/July 2010 : Kate Moss by Mario Sorrenti

[eneroenero]

Thank Harumi!

 

[Emmanuel]

The documentary was great. It followed the 5 models (Sasha, Freja, Natasha, Constance and Sessilee) during last Paris Fashion Week. You get to see them backstage at Dior, Lanvin, Karl Lagerfeld, Balmain, Isabel Marant..., going to casting calls, fittings, rushing to go from one show to another, at their hotel. Sasha was particularly interesting. I did not know that she was an artist for instance, and I found her very likeable. Otherwise, Freja oozes charisma.

 

[gossiping]

catherine looking stunning

 

[Harumi]

DVD Review:

​

​

There are three features on the DVD:

1# A 52mins documentary produced by Loic Pingent. If you are familiar with his style, you'll know what to expect. Emmanuel gave a pretty good synopsis.
Imo the movie is very enlightening as to exactly how hectic and demanding the life of a model is. We see the glamorous side (with Constance shown living at the Crillon during fashion week) but we also see the exhaustion, the fear of rejection (in particular in Sessilee case) and the pressure these girls have to deal with. You end up realising this is a really taxing job and the girls deserve every dollar they make.
The movie also repeatedly address the fairly scandalous under-usage of Sessilee. In a particularly heartbreaking scene, she is seen trying on a Sonia Rykiel grey suit in which she looks outstanding but then we see that she wasn't cast in the actual show but replaced by a blonde model who looked just bland in the same outfit*.
Sasha was the revelation, imo. I was utterly charmed by her: she's such a sweet little girl at heart.
Overall, a great documentary

*disclaimer, the model didn't look bland because she was blond, she was bland for the look period and especially in comparison to Sessilee. The point I'm making is that it's obvious from the video that Sessille, despite fitting the look admirably, wasn't cast because the designer was favouring blond girls, by her own admission.

2# A short 2mins feature on the Dior show make-up.

3# A 10mins making-of the beauty ed with Iselin (much like the Daria feature last month).
Absolutely hilarious! Tyen is one crazy b**** on steroids! His hysteria is just something really special.


A preview from the documentary:

Since the movie is not a Vogue production but a Loic Pingent production and will be aired on TV in June, I don't feel like uploading a lot of it for fear of infringing copyright. I will just leave you with some clips showing models in their down time.
I made the movie with Imovie so I apologize for the weird formatage (the screen was cropped during conversion, I can't do anything about that) and know that the transition thingies are mine.

Enjoy:

​

 

[FrenchCactus]

The documentary was great. It followed the 5 models (Sasha, Freja, Natasha, Constance and Sessilee) during last Paris Fashion Week. You get to see them backstage at Dior, Lanvin, Karl Lagerfeld, Balmain, Isabel Marant..., going to casting calls, fittings, rushing to go from one show to another, at their hotel. Sasha was particularly interesting. I did not know that she was an artist for instance, and I found her very likeable. Otherwise, Freja oozes charisma.

I agree. I didn't think much of Sasha and Freja personality wise before, but after seeing the documentary I found them very likeable.

 

[retailqueen]

thanks for the preview. on what channel will it air on? ARTE?

 

[retailqueen]

EDIT: it wil be on Paris Premiere the 5th of June in the evening.

 

[gossiping]

it looks so interesting i really wish i lived in france now so i could get the magazine

 

[Chanelcouture09]

^you can get it in june from whsmiths or order it in with your news agent, the magazine may well come with the dvd, or maybe they will do what they did with last years and package it in with a later issue

 

[Harumi]

it wil be on Paris Premiere the 5th of June in the evening.

Yes. And I expect it will be on Youtube in its entirety soon after that.

In the meantime, I've decided to upload the Sessilee's Rikiel casting bit so that people can see why I was so upset with that bit.
For the non French speaker, Rikiel's remarks goes on like this:

"The show is blondes, blondes, and more blondes. With long blond hair, very tall and very thin. And then amoung the all those blondes who are very thin and very tall there are a few Blacks who are very pretty, because that's important." (humm... )
​

For the record, the actual show ended up with zero Black model but plenty of brunettes.

​

 

[fantastical]

Major thanks to Harumi for uploading these!!!! karma!

I really wish I could see the entire thing now, that part with Maryna, Sasha and Vlada was too cute as was Sessilee and Wendell cute little embrace . That was pretty sad about the Sonia Rikiel casting though, it is the sad and unfortunate truth of what actually happens. it really pisses me off too


Kate & Isabeli are such standouts for this issue, with Constance at a close second. The styling and the story concepts were just beautiful in this issue. I may just have to try and pick this issue up if I can find it.

 

[CrisGalaxy]

Wow, Sasha's personality is amazing!!!

 

[retailqueen]

Sonia just went way way down in my esteem.
I have a Sonia Rykiel for H&M bag and frankly, I feel like burning it right now .
Its not the fact that she didn't choose Sesslie but her comment was all types of wrong and implicit bullsh*t undertones *plenty of very blonde very thin girls* I see what she tried to do there

 

[Harumi]

^I was also upset by the tone and implication of her comments, even more so than by the fact that Sessilee didn't get the job even though I though she deserved it (I realise that it's subjective).

I have been vocal in the racial diversity thread about how I'm opposed to diversity for the sake of diversity. Designers should feel free to cast whomever they want and I don't care if it means some shows end up with only one type of models.
If the theme of that particular show was 'blondness', fine, whatever. But first, it didn't end up being that at all, so the blond thing was blatantly a bulls**** excuse to not hire minorities, and second, don't make some patronising comment that reeks of tokenism.

 

[Emmanuel]

I agree with your comments. It was quite saddening to watch all the girls walking all the big shows while Sessilee ran from casting call to casting call, not to be selected in the end. I thought the documentary aptly pointed out the lack of diversity. Of course, fashion is not about fairness and a model might just not fit the theme or the spirit of a collection but in the Sonia Rykiel case, Sessilee clearly worked that suit better.
As for the magazine issue itself, based on first impressions, I love Isabeli's editorial - all the blue shades ! - and Kate's one is also very good I think, pure summer glamour in both cases. I still have to read the different features, the one on the Andam finalists looks interesting.

 

[BerlinRocks]

I really didn't get what is beeing said here, in Sonia Rykiel speak ....
To me, it mostly sound like "we have tons of blond in this casting, and among all these blonds, we have some few blacks, some very cute black models" ...
I think she's mostly saying that Sessilee was some fresh air, among the blondes ...

I cannot tell, since I cannot read minds (and less in a video), but her tone of voice really isn't saying what you guys are trying to translate ...

But the fact, that the commentator (voice-off) is trying to tell you and how it is built up really guide to make you think that Rykiel is * what ? * racist ....
I'm not saying I hold the truth, but be aware of some video montage and what exactly they are trying to say and do ...

(just for a reminder, VP puts Sessilee on its cover, not so long ago, so that would mean: "Oh Rykiel and all these designers are so racist, we, at VP, are not ! We put her on our cover !)
B***S***

 

[FrenchCactus]

^ I agree with you BerlinRocks.
As a French person, I didn't understand Sonia Rykiel's comments as being disparaging. She said that all models look the same (very tall, long blond straight hair) but that it's great to also have a few beautiful black models in your show (probably because they stand out from the rest of the girls and you don't want your show to be boring with all the girls looking the same). And when Sessilee is trying out her suit, you can hear Sonia and her team saying how beautiful she looks.
That said, Rykiel had no black model on her catwalk...

As for VP, if you had to define their castings, "racial diversity" would definitely not pop into my mind. It's all about the Russians, girls from Eastern Europe, etc.
They do put a black model in their eds from time to time, but they are absolutely no example in terms of racial diversity and are not better than those designers they criticize

 

[Harumi]

^^BerlinRocks, I don't think for a second that Rykiel is a racist (I don't use that word lightly). Rather, I felt her remarks were patronising and rather disingenuous.
Maybe the stark contrast between her claims and the reality of what the actual show ended up looking like emphasised my impression.

Also, I don't believe the commenter was trying to make Rykiel look racist, or they would have edited out the enthusiastic compliments she makes toward Sessilee.
But I agree everything was done to make Vogue Paris look as good as possible.

 

[before]

When was Sessilee on the cover of VP?

 

[Emmanuel]

I don't think Sonia Rykiel is racist at all, she seems to be a very nice person, and I think she genuinely thinks that Sessilee is beautiful when she says it. It is true that the narrator's comments can be quite tricky, as the whole documentary really puts the emphasis on the contrast between the work overload of the 4 girls and Sessilee lack of such work. As I said, fashion is not about being fair (I think...), it's just that, the way the documentary is edited, you don't understand why she did not get to walk the runway for the Rykiel show, after having been praised on camera by the designer. Of course, there must be many reasons for that and it might be a tad simplistic to just see it as a form of discrimination when it certainly has been motivated by aesthetic or creative reasons.