FASHION Magazine

For the first time in 97 years, Vogue Paris featured a transgender model on the front page of the magazine. The March issue has Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio standing in multi-coloured lighting with a metallic dress and bright red lipstick. The cover line reads, “Transgender beauty: How they’re shaking up the world.” This month we are proud to celebrate transgender […]

The post French <em>Vogue</em> Makes History by Featuring a Transgender Model on March Cover appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Somewhere between doing what I could and doing what I wanted, the last line of Jonathan Franzen’s 2001 novel The Corrections became one of my favourite mantras: “She was seventy-five,” it goes, “and she was going to make some changes in her life.” The “she” here is Enid, a wife, mother and grandmother whose husband has just passed away, and who steps out of the hospital into a green spring night. It’s a sweet ending. It is also a real thesis, and few embody it better than public editrix number one, the Parisian expat and pushing-60 sex symbol Carine Roitfeld.

In February 2001, Roitfeld took the reins at Vogue Paris. After 10 years, a hundred wickedly “erotic-chic” issues and many, many angry calls to Condé Nast from duly offended citizens, she left—abruptly, amid a thicket of rumours. “I don’t want to get old in this golden cage,” she told The New York Times’ Cathy Horyn. Because her tenure at Vogue had shot her to the kind of icon status it takes most icons a lifetime to achieve, and because the attendant pressures had somehow left her forehead as cleanly unlined as her pencil skirts, it was easy to forget that Roitfeld was then 56 (she’s just five years younger than Anna Wintour). Post-Vogue, she promptly collaborated with M.A.C and posed with her family and friends in a Barneys campaign called “Carine’s World.” Then, moving to New York, she started her own ultra-culty magazine, CR Fashion Book, with offices in the Standard Hotel East Village. In other words, she did everything a thoroughly millennial It girl would do, except she was—is—a mid-career mother of two.

The Carine Roitfeld for M.A.C Cosmetics collaboration is a mere two days away, and to celebrate the occasion M.A.C has shared a behind-the-scenes video featuring the former Vogue Paris editrix herself. In the video, Roitfeld shares tips on how she achieves her carefree style, including the smoky eye and bushy brow that’s been elevated to an art form.

View the photo shoot »

He’s no lady. Boy wonder Andrej Pejic brings his dry wit and supermodel moves to the top Canadian designs for spring.

Watch our video with Andrej Pejic »
Read our interview »

Just weeks after banning Dakota Fanning’s ad for Marc Jacobs’ Oh Lola! fragrance because they decided it sexualized children, the British Advertising Standards Agency is now claiming that one of Hailee Steinfeld’s Miu Miu ads is “irresponsible because it depicts a child in an unsafe location.”

The ad in question was shot by Bruce Weber and features Steinfeld sitting on train tracks, which clearly looks staged to evoke her gun-slinging Mattie Ross in True Grit. Seeing as most publications will be moving on to Spring 2012 adverts with their next issues, we’re not exactly sure where the complaint will lead, but it’s safe to say that it’s got the industry riled up over a whole lot of nothing.

With all of the recent controversy over Steinfeld’s and Fanning’s ads and Vogue Paris’s editorial featuring 10-year-old model Thylane Loubry Blondeau this past July, we wonder whether hiring younger models will become out-moded. With Miu Miu’s  recent revealing 34-year-old Guinevere Van Seenus as the star of their new campaign, it’s a possibility.

After months of searching for the chicest gifts to share with you, our dear readers, we’ve come across more than a few items that have made their way onto our own lists! For even more holiday inspiration, check out the items we’re lusting after as well as what we’ve got coming for our nearest and dearest.

View the list »

Jump to an editor: Bernadette Morra | Susie Sheffman | Caitlin Agnew | Lesa Hannah | Sarah Daniel | Randi Bergman | Emilie Dingfeld | Jordan Porter | Rani Sheen | Nicole Stafford | Sarah Casselman | Rachel Simpson | Caitlan Moneta | Paige Dzenis | Michael White

Carine Roitfeld, the world’s most inimitably chic fashion editor, is back. She tells Rani Sheen what’s next for her.

When it was announced in December that Carine Roitfeld had stepped down as editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue, the fashion world erupted in speculation about what she’d do next. The answer, in part, lies in the book Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent ($110, Rizzoli New York), a mid-career retrospective of her most arresting shoots, notes from designers, and personal mementos. It’s a satisfying read because there is such a fascination with Roitfeld, the coolest woman in any front row. We asked her what else she’s been up to.

We’ve all spent time playing dress-up in our mothers’ best dresses and heels, but photos of 10-year-old model Thylane Loubry Blondeau dressed and made-up like a lady in Vogue Paris have got critics in an uproar.

Though the editorial was published months ago, it has only been getting negative attention on our side of the pond recently. Good Morning America aired a segment about the sexualization of young girls, using Loubry Blondeau as a prime example. Since then, the corresponding headlines have been dubbing the photos sexually inappropriate and shocking while blaming everyone, from the magazine to the fashion industry as a whole to Loubry Blondeau’s parents.

While famous models like Kate Moss and Gisele Bündchen started their careers by the time they were only 14, they were always portrayed as adults. Even 13-year-old Elle Fanning’s Marc Jacobs campaign and 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld’s Miu Miu campaign portray them as older and less sexual. What doesn’t sit well with critics is that Loubry Blondeau looks overly suggestive and—above all—undoubtedly like a child.

Is this media backlash refreshingly appropriate, or are critics just looking for a way to brutalize artistic liberties that they don’t understand? Everyone seems to be holding different opinions, but as the French would say, “C’est la vie!”

By Corinne Perez-Abergel, Gillian Pryor and Renee Reardin

The now infamous sheer tube dress that Kate Middleton wore when Prince William apparently fell in love with her, just sold at an auction for over $125,000! But we don’t think it’ll look as good on the highest bidder: “Nick from Jersey.” [Fashionista]

By Corinne Perez-Abergel, Gillian Pryor and Renee Reardin

Emmanuelle Alt’s first Vogue Paris cover is out starring Gisele Bündchen! Curiously enough, the supermodel wears the SAME Dolce and Gabbana lace frock that also appears on the covers of the Spanish and German international editions! [Fashionista]

By Corinne Perez-Abergel, Gillian Pryor and Renee Reardin Graffiti on handbags?  That’s so Vuitton 2001. Or the runway backdrop at Issey Miyake’s fall menswear show. Marc, what’s your next move? [Nymag] Like we weren’t already jealous. Now Patrick Demarchelier has shot six of the hottest models around, along with their beautiful men for the February […]

The post Fashion news: Models make us (more) jealous, RJ Cutler might be back at 4 Times Square and Issey Miyake pulls a Vuitton appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Photographers will not be allowed at the presentation of Alexander McQueen‘s Fall 2010 collection. [@BinkleyOnStyle via Fashionologie]

Seems that there’s some tension between the Balenciaga house and Carine Roitfeld; the Vogue Paris editor-in-chief was not allowed at the label’s show in Paris, with Rotfield telling WWD, “We’re blacklisted…It’s too bad, it’s a beautiful house and it’s French. I hope that it’s not forever.” She offered the bait, saying that the label no longer advertises in the magazine or lends it clothes, but when asked why, all she had to say was “Ask them.” [Racked]