Preview of W Feb 2006
Best Edit: Bruce Weber shoots NY artists + stella tennant, lola schnabel, leo fitzpatric in miami at art basel. Simply AWESOME. a return to Weber's personal, candid, incidental, art-directed/post-produced style of the 80s/90s. 24 pages. at his best Weber ranks with penn, bailey, roversi as the greatest living photographers. alex white styled & its so so great. rating 10 of 10.
2nd best edit. kate moss by inez & vinoodh. shot in st barts. all the ocean/seaside pics we'd seen from papparazzi shots. amazingly sexy, camilla nickerson styled, kate, inez/vinoo and white all at the top of their game. on an off day kate is still better than almost any model. she is ON here & so so sexy, there is no better model. superb styling by camilla [Im sure wintour misses her now] and kate & the pics are just as great. rating 9 of 10.
edit #3: tanya dziahileva shot by mario sorrenti, camilla styled again. tanya is another sallow russian matchstick girl, kind of sasha mixed with kouklina mixed with christina kruse, but nowhere near the presence or sex of those. shes more of a dreamy russian blonde, sorrenti always likes this childlike subservient type. camilla's styling is great lots of dreamy gowns, sorrenti's pics are ok, a bit impressionistic but not massively arty. tanya is ok but also not doing that much for me here, perhaps she'll improve over the year, rating 7 of 10, still a nice evanescent quality here.
cover/edit #4: resse witherspoon by thompson. its a really good cover, patent leather red LV dress very 70s/80s disco hot, euro version. thompson is an excelent celeb photog, but to say that his portraits are nowhere near as good as the artistry of weber or inez/vinoodh is quite an understatement. a few nice glamour/sophisto pics of reese, whom I like, but your average W model edit is better than this. alex white styled, its good work for a celeb story.
cover: 7.5 of 10. edit: 6.5 of 10.
a few new ads:
gisele for LV. karen elson was better. looks just like that desert campaign this time its resort with embroidered shorts. gisele is heavily bronzed, airbrushed, skin slightly greasy, eyes look red/stoned. otherwise its a good ad but not mindblowing. her legs are nice in the white shorts.
D&G girl group ad so much hotter: anja, julia, polina, snejana, emina, this sleepy girl love ad is one of the hottest of 2006. AWSEOME especially julia. LV ad is neutered & fake compared to this girl on girl love. snejana's head is in julia's lap & I am in heaven.
angie jolie for st john. classic face portrait, good, classy, not ridiculous like gisele's bullfight ads.
mariacarla as blonde in blumarine; excellent ads, so hot, so pretty. much allure, mystery.
armani; who is that? jp? anyway new armani campaign is great she is really beautiful. imaging & clothes & pics here are superb, top of the list, only D&G ad is better
VERDICT: based on weber & kate edits alone: essential purchase, the sorrenti & reese edits are pretty good too. weber shows what artful modern fashion photography is & kate/inez/vinoo show why shes the greatest model of all time. period.
MUST BUY - W is THE class of US fashion mags TWO BIG THUMBS UP!!!!
(from theearlgrey's LJ)