The Roitfelds In Herself

My enormously talented friend Lula has outdone herself this time, she has launched a fully illustrated fashion magazine titled Herself featuring many of our favorites: Carine Roitfeld, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Sofia Coppola, and Giovanna Battaglia, among others. I was thrilled to receive a copy of Herself No. 01: The Portrait Issue last week from Lula and was smitten with the glossy beauty instantly. Much like the Vogue Paris Collections, Herself will serve as a wonderful reference to the fashion season for years to come, I plan to collect every issue and I recommend you do the same. Congratulations to Lula on her fabulous new concept in fashion magazines.

Lula illustrations © 2011 Lula — The Subject I Know Best. All Rights Reserved.

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld For Oyster

Oyster just published issue 94 featuring cover girl Kristy Hume and inside are a few lovely shots of Julia Restoin-Roitfeld by Roger Dekker. Among other pithy thoughts, Julia relates in the interview with Alice Cavanagh, "I love the whole aesthetic world. I love beautiful images. That is what drove me to art direction. I love Helmut Newton pictures because I like how the women are strong and Amazonian, but... I really don’t follow trends; I don’t know all the new designers. I am not a fashion victim." More fabulous people to be found in the issue: Sébastien Tellier, John Waters, Brad Elterman, George Lewis Jr. also known as Twin Shadow, Eva Michon, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Kinga Burza, and Binki Shapiro in Rodarte's Fall/Winter collection as photographed by Lauren Dukoff. Visit the photo gallery for more shots of Julia, I love the strong resemblance to her mother in this one.

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld for Oyster photographs courtesy of thevine.com.au

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld In ELLE Finland

Huge thanks to a kind reader in Helsinki who sent me the clipping seen here from the July issue of ELLE Finland featuring the beautiful Julia Restoin-Roitfeld. Although she did not have time for a full translation, she offered the following summary of the article. Also note that she wished to remain anonymous, otherwise I would refer to her as other than "she" at some point.

In short it's about her, what she does, her work and campaigns, favourite clothes (Emilio de la Morena dress with polka dot tights and Miu Miu heels). She tells how Richard Nicoll found her on Facebook and sent her "a beautiful dress." She likes to wear dresses because they flatter her figure and wears jeans very rarely. She also likes designs by Canadian Mark Fast. She says that people in the fashion circle think it's strange when someone wears the same outfit twice but she doesn't care about such rules, if she likes something, she will wear it more than once. That's about it. Oh yes, and your blog is mentioned in red in the bottom left corner.

"Laadukas faniblogi Roitfeldien perheestä löytyy osoitteesta iwanttobearoitfeld.com" which translates roughly from the Finnish as "High quality Roitfeldien family fan blog can be found at iwanttobearoitfeld.com." How cute is that! They called us a "faniblogi"! Thanks again to my favorite reader in Finland and to ELLE Finland, what an honor! I would not have know if she had not bothered to send it to me so I am doubly touched. Kiitos!

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld editorial image © 2011 Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld: Everybody Loves Julia!

The July 2011 issue of Vogue China features this striking editorial with Julia Restoin-Roitfeld titled "Everybody Loves Julia!" and it is true, we do! I love especially the high contrast images of Julia, the background and the clothing play together to perfection. Then of course the cat adds a fine strangeness to the mix. "Everybody Loves Julia!" is the vision of Nicoletta Santoro as captured on film by Max Vadukul.

Vogue China editorial images © 2011 Condé Nast. All Rights Reserved.

Roitfeld And Testino For The Face

In light of the exciting news about the latest collaboration between Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino for V Magazine, I thought it would be fun to look at the influential work this fashion powerhouse created for The Face. One of the coolest magazines to come out of the UK, The Face was launched by Nick Logan in May 1980, and last published in May 2004. Legendary as an arbiter of taste in pop culture and particularly fashion, The Face was a natural stage for the vision of Roitfeld and Testino which was especially raw during this period — literally at times. The first cover, shown above, featured Jerry Dammers of The Specials as styled by Steve Bush, the founding art director. Other notable art directors for the groundbreaking publication were Neville Brody (1981–86) and Lee Swillingham (1993-1999). A few of the fashion photographers that were first published in The Face are Inez Van Lamsweerde, Craig McDean, Steven Klein, David LaChapelle, Glen Luchford, Norbert Schoerner, and Elaine Constantine.

“The Butcher”
The Face, 1997
Stylist: Carine Roitfeld
Model: Eva Herzigova
Photographer: Mario Testino

When asked which of her editorials was most compelling, Carine named "The Butcher" with Eva Herzigova for the humor: "I had a very good period where I was working at French Glamour and I was working for The Face. The 'butcher' shoot with Eva Herzigova and those sort of stories. They’re memorable stories, and you say why? Maybe because it’s not just about fashion. It’s because it’s a moment of the time." She elaborated in an interview with Self Service:

Ezra [Self Service]: Your early collaborations with Mario Testino were quite provocative in a certain way!
Carine: I think that in the beginning of my love duo with Mario, we did a few series that really disturbed people.
Ezra: Such as some of the stories you did with him in The Face?
Carine: Yes, for example, and I think that we had a lot of humor. We were talking about the problem of the moment, which was mad cow disease.
Ezra: And the other one on royalty.
Carine: I think you need humor, there is not a lot of it in photos, and it's very hard to put humor in photos.

And yet this amazing editrix continues to present that eclectic and unexpected sense of humor in so many of her classic editorials. I have added three more stories from The Face to the photo gallery, notice how the sharp chic of black and white pervades Carine's early work...

“Yves Gauche”
The Face, July 1996
The two films currently being made about the legendary Studio 54 nightclub are only the start of it. Hail the spirit of the original Bianca.
Stylist: Carine Roitfeld
Models: Astrid Munoz, Gregory, and Samuel
Photographer: Mario Testino

"Naughty Parisian Maid"
The Face, December 1997
When Madame's away, her clothes come out to play...
Stylist: Carine Roitfeld
Model: Ehrinn Cummings
Photographer: Mario Testino

"Never Mind The Bollocks... Life's A Beach"
The Face, May 2000
Stylist: Carine Roitfeld
Photographer: Mario Testino

The Face editorial images © 1996, 1997, 2000 The Face. All Rights Reserved.