COLLECTORS’ EDITION
FT25 fashiontelevision celebrates 25 years of image makers photographers eccentrics
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from the broadcaster
On On With With the Show!
Television shows, by nature, are ephemeral. They might last for a few years or just a few episodes, and then vanish into the ether. FashionTelevision has transcended that fate, becoming a worldwide brand that has deďŹ ned how fashion is covered on television for a quarter of a century. In the vanguard of making the sexy, crazy world of fashion accessible and popular, FT has taken us behind the silk curtain and introduced us to the compelling, often eccentric characters of the designer studios, showrooms and runways all over the world. And from the beginning, FT has given special attention to our homegrown fashion industry. Congratulations to Jeanne Beker, Jay Levine and all of the talented people who have worked on FT over the years. Thank you to the designers, models, photographers, marketers and other dream merchants who have shared their lives with our cameras. Thank you to our sponsors who have loyally supported FT. And most of all, thank you to our viewers who have made it all possible! I really hope you enjoy this commemorative magazine based on the television special and continue to watch Fashion Television grow and evolve. Ivan Fecan, CEO, CTV President & CEO, CTVgm
24 FT25 from the broadcaster
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When I first came up with the idea for a fashion show on television, it was not that well received. Twenty-five years ago, fashion was thought to be the perfect subject for magazines and newspapers, not TV. But timing is everything, and times were changing. With the advent of cable, the number of TV channels grew significantly, opening the door to new content. And at the same time, the fashion business was poised to become a new form of entertainment. The time was right to explore this intriguing world and what goes on behind the scenes with a medium that could deliver it best. Fuelled by its novelty, sexy style and the viewers’ increasing fascination with the people who create our clothes and set the trends, FashionTelevision, a little show from Toronto, became a hit around the world. Many TV shows and new-concept fashion magazines would follow, and with all this attention, the fashion business had to up its game. Runway shows started to look more like theatre, models became supermodels, designers became stars, and the press fought to get into shows where celebrities populated the front row. The fashion scene was undergoing an explosive change and we were right in the middle, recording it all. And it just kept getting better. As the luxury fashion business grew, competition became fierce amongst fashion labels. Advertising became the front-line battleground to seduce buyers, with designers paying huge fees to secure the best photographers and top models for their extravagant campaigns. Crossing the boundaries of sexuality and good taste became a common attention-getting strategy.
26 FT25 from the producers
Courtesy of FashionTelevision Archives
from the producer s
Fron t ROW Seats Much controversy ensued. Ads were banned and fashion got a bad rap for creating the “heroin chic” look, hiring models that looked like waifs, and promoting impossible body images. That’s the nature of the fashion game: always pushing buttons, always evolving. By definition, fashion refreshes itself and its image every six months. Despite past achievements, you must keep moving forward, constantly coming up with something new. And that’s what’s so great about covering this world—it’s always changing. On the occasion of our 25th anniversary, we’ve dug deep into our archives to tell the story of a pivotal era in fashion, and to revisit the colourful characters we’ve met along the way. They’re the people behind the story, the risk-takers, trouble-makers and image-creators who make the fashion world so vital and fascinating.—Jay Levine
Time’s most precious aspects are best captured by facets that highlight it
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Courtesy of FashionTelevision
from the hos t
After hearing a few rumblings around the old Citytv building that a pilot for a new series about fashion was in the works, I was determined to be part of it. I can vividly recall walking into that Queen Street East station one day to see a wide assortment of young lovelies with stars in their eyes, all there for the casting call put out by Jay Levine in his search for a host. I immediately began lobbying for the job, convincing the execs that my passion for style and my years of experience interviewing rock stars on The New Music might be just what they were looking for. Luckily for me, they bit. And now, a quarter of a century later, my face is synonymous with this phenomenal series that’s become such a big part of all our lives, and a staple in the viewing diets of fashion enthusiasts around the globe. While I always had a penchant for the subject matter, it took me a while to become a bonafide fashion “expert.” None of us who produced, wrote, shot and edited the show particularly identified with the rarefied arena we were covering. We were just adamant about making great television. I think that’s the reason the irreverent style of our approach had such appeal: there was nothing too esoteric going on. We were simply fashion fans, eager to turn others on to the wonders we were discovering in ateliers and on runways around the world. Today, one of my biggest joys is having people tell me how they “grew up” watching Fashion Television, and in countless cases, how it inspired them to pursue careers in the fashion industry. We opened a window onto a universe filled with creativity and magic, and the larger-than-life characters we profiled filled
Quite the Ride impressionable minds with untold possibilities. Pioneering this style of coverage at a time when both the medium of television and the fashion industry itself were growing in leaps and bounds provided us with the most exhilarating ride of our professional lives, and defined our tiny team as true originals. Happily, the elation of witnessing brilliant catwalk presentations, chatting with innovative designers, and being part of the backstage mayhem hasn’t waned a bit for me. And while our access has certainly grown with our credibility, often, it can still be a challenge going after those precious moments that make for such great television. I remember when we used to be the only TV crew backstage. Now there are scores of them, and sometimes, it’s quite the ruthless battle as we push to the front of the line, fighting for every inch of our well-earned ground. But frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s the thrill of the chase that keeps me going—that, and the blessed opportunity we have to share this wondrous world with you each and every week. So thanks for watching. It really has been quite the ride.—Jeanne Beker from the host
FT25
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th
fashiontelevision 25 Anniversary Magazine is a special commemorative publication encapsulating the past 25 years of FashionTelevision. This collectors’ edition captures the essence of the finest TV moments in fashion, design and architecture, along with the people and places that excited, inspired and entertained viewers around the world. Please enjoy all the wonderful discoveries and over-the-top highlights within this visual scrapbook, as we look forward to the next 25 years of FT. Editorial Directors JAY LEVINE & ADRIENNE REID Special Contributing Editor JEANNE BEKER Publisher GEOFFREY DAWE Publishing Partner GERRY MAMONE Creative Director RIC LITTLE Editor DOUG WALLACE Executive Producer ASHA HODURA Project Manager MICHAEL PAYNE Contributors MICHAELA CORNELL, ALISON GARWOOD-JONES, VANESSA GRANT, JOANNE LATIMER, KATE RAE, JACOB RICHLER, JACOB SHEEN, CHRISTOPHER TURNER, KAREN VON HAHN, RICKY ZAYSHLEY Art Production MARIE-NOËLLE CHATELAIN, GERRY LONG, ANDY SMITS
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FASHION TELEVISION
FASHIONTELEVISION CONTRIBUTORS Supervising Producer JAY LEVINE Producers HOWARD BRULL, ADRIENNE REID Host/Segment Producer JEANNE BEKER Image Clearance CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Brand & Event Marketing SANDRA CARDOSO Creative Director Design AMANDA GRANT Creative Director On-Air SCOTT GREIG CTV President and Chief Executive Officer, CTVglobemedia and Chief Executive Officer, CTV Inc. IVAN FECAN President, Creative, Content and Channels, CTV Inc. SUSANNE BOYCE Director of Operations, Entertainment Group, CTV Inc. NANCI MACLEAN Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs CORRIE COE Director, Business & Legal Affairs KATHY SCIANITTI Director, Business & Legal Affairs EMA WORSLEY Clearance, Business & Legal Affairs PAUL SOMMER SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT Fashiontelevision.com MEREDITH DUNCAN, MICHELLE VILLAGRACIA Vice-President, Communications SCOTT HENDERSON Director of Communications GABRIELLE FREE Communications Manager ELENI TENUTA Communications Coordinator MATTHEW ALMEIDA Magazine Advertising Contact GD&CO Publication Director GEOFFREY DAWE Vice-President, Sales DONNA MURPHY Account Manager JOHN PRICE Production Director MARIA MUSIKKA Advertising Coordinator ANNIE ROBINSON Events & Promotions JEFF DINAN, HEIDI FERRIS, KALYNN CRUMP Distribution ABACUS Digital Pre-Press CLARITY Printing THOMPSON PRINTING AND LITHOGRAPHING LTD. FOR ADVERTISING INFO, PLEASE TELEPHONE 416-571-3703
FT25 MAGAZINE IS PRODUCED BY FASHIONTELEVISION (FT), A DIVISION OF CTV LIMITED, PUBLISHING CONSULTANTS MAMONE AND PARTNERS, GD&CO AND THOMAS SCOTT & ASSOCIATES. CTV® IS A TRADE-MARK OF CTV INC., USED UNDER LICENSE. FT25 AND FASHIONTELEVISION® ARE TRADEMARKS OF CTV LIMITED, USED UNDER LICENSE. FT25 IS DISTRIBUTED BY NEWSSTAND, SELECT RETAIL PARTNERS AND CONTROLLED CIRCULATION. NO PART OF FT25 MAGAZINE MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT FROM CTV LIMITED. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE CONTRIBUTORS ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE PUBLISHER, EDITOR OR STAFF. *FT25 MAGAZINE DOES NOT TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS OR PHOTOGRAPHY. *FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT FT25 AT MAMONE AND PARTNERS, 400 EASTERN AVENUE, SUITE 201, TORONTO, ON M4M 1B9 CANADA, 416-466-2522. PRINTED IN CANADA. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES AND FASHIONTELEVISION, UNLESS OTHERWISE CREDITED. COPYRIGHT © 2010 FASHIONTELEVISION
36 FT25
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FT25CONTENTS
20 a message from the broadcaster: Ivan Fecan
22 from the producers: Jay Levine 27 from the host: Jeanne Beker 28 masthead & special acknowledgments
61 timelines: Documenting a world constantly in motion
83 originals: Douglas Cardinal, Vidal Sassoon, Horst, Mary Quant, Bob Richardson, RuPaul, Marc Newson, Lillian Bassman, Moshe Safdie, Kevyn Aucoin, Peter Minshall, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Renzo Rosso, Levi Strauss
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COVER model: Coco Rocha, elitemodel.com photographer: Miguel Jacob, migueljacob.com special thanks: Matti Gidilevich at Elite, Jeff Brown at S1, Nicole Stafford at FASHION
93 48 FT25 contents
Strut and th orld struts ith ou.
FT25CONTENTS
106
103 image makers: Oliviero Toscani, Yousuf Karsh, George Lois, Julius Shulman, Ralph Lauren, Philippe Starck, Annie Leibovitz, Saul Bass, Tom Ford, Jean-Paul Goude, Ivan Karp
123 eccentrics: Anna Piaggi, Isabella Blow, Daphne Guinness, Leigh Bowery
131 mavericks: EstĂŠe Lauder, Richard Avedon, Eileen Ford, Frank Gehry, Lauren Hutton, Philip Johnson, Alexander Liberman
143 troublemakers & provocateurs: Naomi Campbell, PETA, Linda Evangelista, Janice Dickinson, Mark Kostabi, Richard Blackwell, Charles Kernaghan, Allen B. Schwartz, Dana Thomas, Calvin Klein, Jeff Koons, Will Alsop, Kate Moss, Vanessa Beecroft, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Dov Charney, Peter Beard, Spencer Tunick, Helmut Newton, Terry Richardson, Rankin, Elle Muliarchyk
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125 50 FT25 contents
Congratulations to Fashion T l ision on 25 ars of l ading st l .
QUEBEC CITY MONTREAL OTTAWA TORONTO CALGARY EDMONTON VANCOUVER HOLTRENFREW.COM
FT25CONTENTS
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171 designers: Prada, Jean Paul Gaultier, Christopher Bailey, Oscar de la Renta, Giorgio Armani, Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, John Galliano, Michael Kors, Gianni & Donatella Versace, Marc Jacobs, Betsey Johnson, Azzedine Alaia, Donna Karan, Bill Blass, Roberto Cavalli, Steven Sprouse, Stella McCartney, Viktor and Rolf, Dsquared, Isaac Mizrahi, Hussein Chalayan, Geoffrey Beene, Christian Lacroix
193 canadian success stories:
159
167
John Fluevog, Roots, Sonja Bata, MAC, Aldo Bensadoun, Joe Mimran, Coco Rocha, Daria Werbowy, Yabu Pushelberg, Bonnie Brooks, The Weston Family
200 faces: The Androgynes, The Girls Next Door, The Unconventionals, The Waifs, The Bombshells, The Do-Gooders, Music & Fashion, Models-Slash-Actors, Actors-Slash-Models
208 last look All images courtesy of Getty Images and FashionTelevision, unless otherwise credited.
188 52 FT25 contents
206
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DOCUMENTING A WORLD CONSTANTLY IN MOTION, FASHIONTELEVISION HAS LIVED TO TELL THE TALE. timelines
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AMERICAN DESIGNERS EMERGE FROM THE BACK ROOMS TO START THEIR OWN COMPANIES. DESIGNERS ARE THE NEW ROCK STARS. FASHIONTELEVISION GOES ON THE AIR. CELEBRITIES FOLLOW. SOME BECOME SUPERMODELS. 62 FT25 timelines
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AMERICAN VOGUE EDITOR ANNA WINTOUR EMERGES AS A POWER PLAYER. VERSACE IS MURDERED. HEROINE CHIC BECOMES A FAD. THE INDUSTRY IS ACCUSED OF PROMOTING IMPOSSIBLE BODY IMAGES, AND A LACK OF BLACK MODELS ON MAGAZINE COVERS. HOLLYWOOD RED CARPETS BECOME timelines
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CELEBRITIES AS DESIGNERS GOES TOO FAR: LINDSAY LOHAN IS HIRED AT UNGARO. LINDSAY LOHAN IS FIRED. FASHION VIDEOS MAKE A COMEBACK. BLOGGERS TAKE FRONT-ROW SEATS AT SHOWS. STAY TUNED...
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originals
While the essenc e of greatnes s in the fashion world
is based on the notion of originality, true originals—those who trail-blaze and go where no man or woman has gone before— are few and far between. FT has had the privilege of profiling scores of unique thinkers over the past two and a half decades, and each of these Originals has made us look at fashion, art, architecture, design and life in bold and inspiring new ways. I’ll never forget the late Alfred Eisenstaedt, the father of photojournalism, who was well into his 80s at the time, making his way through a blinding snowstorm in New York to meet me and my crew for our interview at the Time-Life Building in 1994. His passionate sense of professional commitment was such that he wouldn’t dare cancel, and indeed it is passion that ultimately defines these extraordinary individuals. Often in fashion circles, it’s a passion for fantasy that drives them, whether they’re dreaming up new worlds or simply turning themselves into mascots for new ways of thinking. Drag sensation RuPaul, who surfaced at the height
of the devastation that was AIDS, was emblematic of a kind of sexual and sensual experimentation that had started to be overtly celebrated by the mid ’90s, as pop idols, mega-designers and even movie and TV stars began coming out proudly, paving the way for people to begin being honest with themselves and the rest of society. The first time I met RuPaul was in the late ’80s, backstage at a Todd Oldham show. She was accompanied by a shy, lanky young man, who told me he was an avid fan of FT as he slipped me his business card. Kevyn Aucoin, then a contributing editor for Allure magazine, went on to become one of the greatest makeup artists of our time—a champion of gay rights and one of my most beloved “fashion” friends. Kevyn, who died in 2002 of a brain tumour, was famous for painting his subject’s faces while they were lying down, and one rainy night in the summer of ’97, he gave me a sensational makeover right in the middle of his Chelsea apartment floor. It was one of the best fashion moments of my career.—Jeanne
originals
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Douglas Cardinal
Ripple Effect Architects become “starchitects” when they elevate a building to the realm of art and make our spirits soar. Alberta’s own Douglas Cardinal is a member of this elite priesthood. While fellow Canuck Frank Gehry was slogging it out in the design trenches of LA, Cardinal—as elegant as Oscar de la Renta and as uncompromising as Maria Callas—had already found his voice stringing together bricks with gravity-defying twists and turns. His debut design, 1968’s St. Mary’s Church in Red Deer, Alta., busts out of the prairie soil like a ship full sail, but somehow it still manages to sway in unison with the land, a quality Cardinal attributed to his Métis and Blackfoot heritage. More hits followed, including the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Que., and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., two of many designs Cardinal puzzled out on the computer. One of the first architects in the world to use Computer Assisted Drafting and Design (CADD), Cardinal inspired Gehry and the entire industry to go digital.—Alison Garwood-Jones
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Vidal Sassoon
Cutting Edge The great modernist Vidal Sassoon understood the link between high design and hair. Before him, women went to the beauty parlor once a week and had their locks washed, teased and sprayed into giant nests (think Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray). Split ends and styling errors conveniently got lost in the volume or covered over with headbands. But Sassoon did away with the rollers and choking clouds of spray—a cultural shift as big as losing the corset. His arresting angled bob, made famous by actress Nancy Kwan, was minimalist, low-maintenance and as sleek as a plate-glass window in a Mies van der Rohe skyscraper. Swinging London took note, flooding Sassoon’s Mayfair salon. But Sassoon also went home with his clients; a clever marketer, he made sure they left with enough products to maintain their look. Shampoos and conditioners, with the iconic VS stamped on the bottle, began appearing in showers as women took over washing their own hair. On the grooming front, nothing so revolutionary exists today.—AGJ originals
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Horst
C’mon, Vogue The ideal woman of the 1930s was an outdoorsy, up-for-anything gal who could fly planes, ski down mountains and swan dive into Olympic-sized pools. A far more ruthless and terrifying creature, however, slithered onto the scene in a variety of erotically-charged guises created by German-born photographer Horst. Working for American, French and British Vogue from the 1930s until the early 1990s, Horst was a master of light and shadow who shot a parade of socialites, movie stars and artists (mostly female) against boiling skies, peering down on us through hooded lids. In between drags on their cigarettes, Horst’s women cracked open their corsets and kicked off their shoes, exposing breasts and lacquered toes, before reclining like Odalisques high on opium. They also performed in gender-bending top hats and capes, donned more lace than a Goya Duchess and emerged under shafts of raking light in skintight sheaths, hipbones leading the charge. Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich all live on as glamorous untouchables from Planet Horst.—AGJ
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Mary Quant
Young & Alive Mary Quant could have been awarded her OBE in 1966 solely for her invention of the mini-skirt, but her contribution and impact on fashion was by then even more significant and lasting. “I hated clothes the way they were,” she explained of what fashion was like in the ’50s when she was studying its design at Goldsmiths’ College. “I wanted clothes that were much more for life, much more for real people, much more for being young and alive in.” And that’s what she made. From the inauspicious beginnings of a wildly colourful pair of pyjamas—all she managed to finish in time for the 1955 opening of her King’s Road boutique, Bazaar—she went on to launch the Chelsea Look that helped create a fashion boom, and became the very image of Swinging London for a gloriously stylish decade before the hippies came along and ruined everything.—Jacob Richler
originals
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Courtesy of FashionTelevision Archives Bob Richardson
Sign of the Times Three decades before “heroin chic” hit the runways, Brooklynborn photographer Bob Richardson led the fashion industry away from catalogue-style shots of corn-fed models leaping in the breeze and dropped them into the decadent and tortured world of addiction and strained human relations. Marlo Thomas look-alikes lost bookings to poseurs sporting dirty underwear and floppy felt hats that could easily have been castoffs from Mick Jagger’s closet. While Vietnam and the drug culture raged on, Richardson was out there documenting a generation that fashion editor Joan Juliet Buck characterized as “crying in their room, feeling lonely, hoping for sex.” Typically, models are shown straddling one another, feeding each other drugs or looking away in a post-fight silence. Sadly, for Richardson, life and art were interchangeable. Well into his 50s, he had to be rescued from his demons by his son, photographer Terry Richardson.—AGJ 88 FT25 originals
RuPaul
You Go, Girl! There isn’t a woman on earth who can compete with RuPaul Andre Charles in the leg department. Over seven feet tall in stilettos, with the loping grace of a giraffe and more attitude than Miss Black America, this drag queen, actor, singer and author shimmied her way onto the club scene in the early 1990s belting out anthems like “It’s Raining Men” and her original MTV chart-topping hit, “Supermodel (You Better Work).” Her “love everyone” message was the first to take drag from the gay dance-club scene to daytime TV. “You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis and Kathie Lee,” she announced, hand planted squarely on hip, “I don’t care. Just call me!” Her sass and winning ways led to duets with Elton John, a popular Christmas album called Ho, Ho, Ho, a modeling contract with MAC and, most recently, RuPaul’s Drag Race.—AGJ
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Marc Newson
Living Design Anyone who has ever put their feet up and caught a jetlagged breath over a gin and tonic in the Qantas First Class lounge at Melbourne or Sydney has to have been impressed by designer Marc Newson’s capacity for detail. The spaces seem all of a piece and for good reason: Newson created nearly everything in sight, from the furniture to the table lamps to the cutlery. His biomorphic furnishings can be found in more accessible display nearby in museums like the MoMa in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but of late, his vehicles have proved to have even more appeal than his furniture. Sure, the $7,000 price tag for his Biomega MN01 represents a lot of cab fares, but the bicycle is moving art, its plastic frame cast in a single piece of unusual industrial elegance, and manufactured by Aston Martin, makers of Newson’s personal ride, an iconic DB4. And his Ford show car, the 021C, does what a show car is supposed to but seldom manages: it brings a fresh perspective to an exhaustively explored subject.—JR
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Courtesy of FashionTelevision Archives
“Nowadays, they can’t wait to get their clothing off.” —Lillian Bassman
Lillian Bassman
Real Women Women act differently around a female photographer: they stop competing with each other, fretting about their bodies and relax into their natural selves. Lillian Bassman, one of the few female photographers in the 20th century to rise to the top of the fashion heap, knew this and capitalized on it. The go-to girl for Chanel ad campaigns and Harper’s Bazaar editorials from 1950 to 1965, her classic duotones show women with balletic arms, swan necks and arresting hats laughing and leaning into conversations. The character of Betty Draper in Mad Men is portrayed as an avid magazine reader during the Bassman era and someone who understood all too well the pressure men apply to women’s body language. (“As long as men look at me that way, I’m earning my keep,” she told her friend Francine in Season One.) Bassman’s models thought about this a lot—a key component of the timelessness of her work.—AGJ
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Moshe Safdie
Building Blocks From across the water, or more often than not, looking down from the Champlain Bridge on the way into Montreal, Habitat ’67 looks like an odd cluster of Lego, a whimsical building assembled by a kid trying to stretch maximum height and footprint while working with a dearth of blocks. All the same, anyone who has visited in the wintertime and been obliged to make their way through snow gusts ripping mercilessly through the open passageways between the entranceway and the outlying apartments will have a good idea as to why this attention-grabbing, seemingly haphazard assembly of pre-fabricated concrete cubes never caught on elsewhere. Nonetheless, practical or not, it remains a captivating addition to that wonderful skyline more than 40 years on.—JR
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Kevyn Aucoin
Face Time Sharon Stone was said to have lost her breath when the news reached her: Kevyn Aucoin, makeup artist to the stars, was dead at 40. The man credited with finally fixing Julia Roberts’ eyebrows died in 2002 from painkillers he took by the fistful to dull the effects of a pituitary tumour. Tall, but never intimidating, Aucoin had a chair-side manner so genuine that celebs such as Céline, Cher, Audrey Hepburn and Gywneth Paltrow all called on him when they were feeling wobbly and unpretty. Sure, he was a master of the smoky eye and the nude lip, but his “life energy” was second to none. “You always have the answer within you, just do the work to find it.”—AGJ
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Peter Minshall
Jump Up! The world is about change, and nothing will ever change if we stand still, so jump up! That, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of Peter Minshall, the Trinidadian Carnival artist who turned what was once a rum-soaked street party in his hometown Port of Spain into an internationally renowned outdoor opera. Minshall’s giant puppets have swayed to the music in the opening ceremonies at three Olympic Games, one Miss Universe pageant and are the inspiration for Toronto’s Caribana, North America’s largest Caribbean festival. But there’s ample substance under “Masman” Minshall’s feathers and fluttering silks. His dancers throw their energy into symbolic battles of good and evil, acting out grand narratives on hate, selfishness and prejudice. It’s immense, intense and very baroque—and the vision of a man who calls himself a “mulatto spiritual freak,” no, wait, “an African, Indian, European, Chinese, Syrian mix-up.”—AGJ
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Alfred Eisenstaedt
Capturing the Moment The photography of Alfred Eisenstaedt is synonymous with Life magazine, for which he shot royalty, dictators and movie stars like Marilyn Monroe. But most remarkably, it is his 2,500 photo essays of the common man and the everyday moment that are worth a thousand words. Eisenstaedt’s career began in Germany, where, injured in WW1, he turned to photography first as a hobby. After falling under the influence of documentary filmmaker Erich Salomon, he embraced photojournalism, turning professional in 1929 before fleeing Nazi Germany for the United States in 1935. The next year, Eisenstaedt became one of the first photographers hired by Life, shot its second cover—and then 90 more.—JR originals
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Levi Strauss
Blue Note
Renzo Rosso
’Sup, Dude! Today’s cool kids are a sick, stupid, scruffy bunch of alpha geeks. No, it’s a compliment. For an old dude, Renzo Rosso, the 55-year old founder and chairman of Diesel apparel and accessories, is just as sick (insanely cool) and stupid (risk-taking) because he’s put them all on the payroll. Twenty-something singers, dancers and webmasters mope and flirt in his campaign ads and online videos, and make up the majority of his advisors at Diesel HQ in Molvena, Italy. By listening to the demographic he serves, Rosso’s 32-year-old company now outsells Levis in the “couture jeans” sector. As Rosso puts it, Diesel’s irreverent attitude is about “lifestyle first, and if you like that, you can buy the clothes—or not.” Buy we are, to the tune of $1.7 billion (USD) in 2009. Still, growth for growth’s sake isn’t enough. Consumers aren’t sheep, they’re individuals, says Rosso, insisting on mixing up the decor and merchandise in every Diesel store and scaling back the quantity of each item. “Less global, more individual,” he shouts through the halls. In this day and age, individuality means “hyper local” and that’s as sick as it gets.—AGJ
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Hipsters, boot-cut, wide-cut, patched, flared, distressed, skinny—is there any fashion staple more versatile than jeans? Like a trusted friend, they respect our mood swings, have us covered on our fat days, accompany us on our adventures as sex kittens and sit with us on the couch when we’re feeling like shut-ins. We pay a premium to have them expertly ripped and re-stitched and pair them up with diamonds and stilettos as if to say, “What the whoo” to their proletarian past. Jeans, after all, debuted on the firm backsides of sailors working the docks in Genoa, Italy (bleu de Gênes to the admiring French). Levi Strauss, a Bavarian-born dry-goods salesman, patented the trousers in 1873 as workwear for California gold miners—and probably would have balked to see women tinkering with his pants. Today, the standard of unfashion is right up there with the Little Black Dress on the list of wardrobe must-haves.—AGJ
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around the world
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image m aker s
Imagery makes the fashio n world go ’roun d. Often, it’s merely about surface visuals—creating memorable pictures that provoke and move us. Over the years, Fashion Television has not only celebrated some of the greatest photographers of our time, but also introduced our audience to myriad masterminds who’ve manipulated words or pictures or both in the media or the art world to create imagery that not only won hearts and minds, but helped incite revolutions in attitude. Then there were those inimitable creative talents who dreamed up seductive worlds we could aspire to, and in so doing,
became the self-appointed rulers of their own spectacular empires. Take Ralph Lauren, for example. When I finally got my first face-toface with the iconic American designer just before his Fall 2000 show, he traced his love of style back to the sixth grade. “I grew up in the Bronx,” he told me. “Not in this great social thing. My father was an artist, and life wasn’t that easy…. The love of style sometimes comes from wanting something you don’t have.” Tom Ford was another style visionary who innately understood
the power of imagery. The hot young Texan helped revive Gucci in the ’90s, sending it skyrocketing into the category of “must-have.” “Face it, we’re living in a violent society,” he told me in a suite at Chateau Marmont during fittings for his 1997 AIDS Project LA show. “That’s why we wear so much black.” Ford, who also talked to me about his aspirations to direct film way back then, had created a collection rife with dangerous garments: sleek black gowns were accompanied by shiny black belts intending for wrapping around necks and upper arms. It was
threatening, restricting, haunting. He christened his new look “tough chic.” “Aren’t you concerned this may be interpreted as a glamorization of violence?” I asked him. “No, because we’re looking at it with a 1997 eye. These images are beautiful to us now, not shocking. They’re simply mirroring reality.” I remember thinking at the time how Ford’s sharp intellect and keen eye would indeed be perfect for film. And judging by the success of A Single Man more than a dozen years later, I was right.—Jeanne
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Oliviero Toscani
Stirring the Pot Controversial artist or marketing genius? A lip lock between a priest and a nun, a bloody infant fresh from the womb and an AIDS victim surrounded by grieving relatives are just some of the extraordinary examples from Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani’s Benetton portfolio. Toscani acted as the clothier’s creative director between 1982 and 2000, during which time he launched some of the most shocking ad campaigns in history. One particular campaign, “We, On Death Row,” meant to draw attention to the controversy surrounding capital punishment by profiling 26 convicted murderers who had been sentenced to death. What does this all have to do with sweaters? Not much, since no Benetton garment ever played a starring role in any of Toscani’s ad campaigns. What his work did do was open a dialogue, imprinting Benetton’s logo onto the public consciousness in the process. —Christopher Turner
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Yousuf Karsh
Lion Tamer Gall, guts and greatness are the ingredients to a perfect portrait. In 1941, Yousuf Karsh had the audacity to snatch a cigar from Winston Churchill’s lips and capture the portrait that made him famous, launching his 60-year career. The Armenian-Canadian photographer was known particularly for his ability to snap his subjects during intimate and deeply personal moments. In his first book, Faces of Destiny, Karsh explained his artistic mission was to show people “both as they appeared to me and as they impressed themselves on their generation.” Many hail him as one of the greatest portrait photographers of his time. Even Churchill was a fan, saying “You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed.”—CT
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Contour by Getty Images George Lois
Cover to Cover George Lois boldly went where no men’s magazine had gone before, designing 92 controversial covers for Esquire from 1962 to 1972. During his years as art director, the former advertising agency guru, who launched many careers, Tommy Hilfiger among them, created some of the boldest covers ever to appear in print. Among the most notorious: Andy Warhol drowning in a can of Campbell’s soup; hands applying makeup to a sleeping Richard Nixon; boxing champion Floyd Patterson lying dead in the ring; heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston posed as a black Santa Claus; and, his most famous, Muhammad Ali with arrows piercing his body like Saint Sebastian. Lois’s groundbreaking work not only ensured magazine sales soared, it inspired a generation of editors and designers to think beyond the page.—CT
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Contour by Getty Images
Julius Shulman
House Proud
“I’m containing
Under a watchful eye, steel and glass became art, and function turned into beauty. Architectural photographer Julius Shulman documented the most important structures of our time, each frame a demonstration of his profound appreciation for the spaces he shot. His luminous imagery showed a striking representation of the way people lived their lives. His best known photograph, “Case Study House #22,” was of two women comfortably seated in the living area of architect Pierre Koenig’s Stahl house in the Hollywood Hills. It shows the women surrounded by floor-toceiling glass with a panoramic view of the city. The black-and-white snap is still considered the iconic representation of modern architecture in Los Angeles. Shulman transformed architectural photography and ultimately shaped the careers of the most influential architects of the 20th century.—CT
& controlling the visual experience.”
—Julius Shulman image makers
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Ralph Lauren
Polished Prep In 1967, a young Ralph Lauren loosened the knot of his career and quit his job at a tie company. That same year, he launched his own clothing label and suddenly, preppies had a uniform. The designer’s vision for Polo married a look of English aristocracy with an all-America vibe, creating a fantasy of a cinematic and privileged American life that appealed to shoppers around the world. Through the years, Polo experimented with new and trendy looks, but the Ralph Lauren brands have always maintained a strong focus on classic American clothing, and for four decades no other designer bested him. Lauren defined American fashion and become a brand ambassador for a lifestyle creating one of the most successful fashion businesses in the world. Who hasn’t worn a cotton sports shirt with that trademark polo player emblem? —CT
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Contour by Getty Images
“I am
Philippe Starck
Everyday Beauty
just a professiona l dreamer. I am a creator of fertile surprise.”
What do stylish boutique hotels and lemon squeezers have in common? Philippe Starck, a legend of modern design. The Parisian style guru credits his aircraft designer father as his first inspiration, and since his art directorship at Pierre Cardin in 1969, Starck has tackled every design project imaginable. Creating spectacular interiors for stylish hotels, restaurants and private apartments around the world, Starck has also found fame as a product designer of massproduced consumer goods that are both elegant and functional: lamps, chairs, toothbrushes, clocks, motorcycles, kettles and even pasta. A long-legged lemon squeezer is arguably his most successful, signature piece. Starck’s modernart approach to rethinking everyday objects has made him one of the most prolific and zestful designers in the world.—CT
—Philippe Starck
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Annie Leibovitz
Frame by Frame Annie Leibovitz and iconic photographs go together like Brad and Angelina—just two of the many cultural icons she’s caught with her camera. Starting her career with Rolling Stone magazine in 1970, Leibovitz moved to Vanity Fair by the early ’80s, producing countless celebrity images and continuously praised for her unique and personal approach. Nowadays, she is almost as famous as the celebrities she snaps. She has photographed everyone from Mick Jagger to the Queen of England, and is responsible for such cultural touchstones as a naked John Lennon next to a fully clothed Yoko (taken just five hours before his death), Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub of milk, and Demi Moore naked and pregnant. Lasting cultural impact, and then some.—CT
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Saul Bass
New Brand New Academy Award-winning filmmaker Saul Bass (above far right) became an undisputed legend in Hollywood when he changed the art of film by reinventing movie titles by using animated openings. While he established himself within the film industry, working with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, Bass was also commissioned for commercial design work developing logos for large companies. He was personally responsible for creating some of the most iconic American corporate logos in history including AT&T, Quaker, United Way—even Kleenex.—CT image makers
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Tom Ford
Long, Tall Texan This winsome designer joined Gucci in 1990 and quickly overhauled the once-stuffy brand, leaving his indelible stamp on it. His aggressive marketing style for both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent became standard industry procedure in no time. The controversial ad campaigns, the party-paparazzi lifestyle, the searing models, the soaring profits—are all part and parcel of someone who is used to making headlines while pulling the strings behind the scenes at the same time. Since parting ways with the Gucci Group in 2004, he has continued to make headlines with hit film A Single Man, new fragrances and his own menswear line. One of the most powerful men in the history of fashion, Ford continues to influence and alter the industry like no other.—CT
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“I love to build things. I love to create things. I love to make things I love to express myself through products.” —Tom Ford
Some automakers start with a sheet of metal. We start with the stroke of a brush.
Forget horsepower for 5.0 seconds. Performance is as much an experience as it is a statistic. Inspired by the force of a rising wave, the revolutionary VVEL engine in every Infiniti G37 Sedan, Coupe and Convertible is crafted to accelerate effortlessly. Minimal effort. Maximum output. This is inspired performance. This is the way of Infiniti.
Like a stroll in the woods. The fluctuating, natural breeze sifting through the ventilation system of the brilliant all-new Infiniti M was crafted to replicate the experience of being in a forest. Among the trees. The wind. And your thoughts, of course. Enjoy your walk. This is inspired performance. This is the way of Infiniti.
Seeing is believing. The world’s first Around View™ Monitor provides a virtual bird’s eye 360° view of your environment. When parking, the central dashboard display offers a full view of other cars and objects by processing images from four cameras positioned around the exterior of every Infiniti EX, FX and QX. It makes parking virtually stress-free. Exactly the way it should be. This is inspired performance. This is the way of Infiniti.
The available Around ViewTM Monitor is a parking aid and cannot completely eliminate blind spots or warn of moving objects. Always check your surroundings before moving the vehicle.
The way of Infiniti We begin with a full sheet of paper. A list of sensations we intend to create. From tranquility to invincibility. We look to nature for inspiration. And to the skills of Japanese craftsman for creation. We seek the most beautiful shapes, the most luxurious textures, the most dynamic forces. All to build a deeper sensory connection between car and driver. A more moving experience. This is inspired performance. This is the way of Infiniti.
Visit infiniti.ca or see a retailer near you to learn more. 速 The INFINITI names, logos, product names, feature names, and slogans are trademark owned by or licensed to Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., and/or its North American subsidiaries.
Jean-Paul Goude
Hot Shot Jean-Paul Goude made his muse look more than good naked. The photographer’s most memorable work is a 1978 photograph featuring Grace Jones holding a microphone in an insane pose while nearly naked. The fashion illustrator and successful commercial director is responsible for hundreds of memorable images and imaginative campaigns for brands including Chanel, Kodak and Perrier. Born in France to an Irish-American mother and a French father, the eccentric photographer and artist created some of the more memorable commercial images of our time.—CT
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Ivan Karp
For Art’s Sake Without Ivan Karp there might not have been an Andy Warhol. The art enthusiast was the first gallery representative to take an interest in the works of the young, unknown artist. Born in New York, Karp was instrumental in launching the careers of many American artists who challenged and changed the world of art. After logging years as an art critic for Village Voice in the mid-’50s, he soon became an artist scout for Castelli Gallery and eventually opened his own gallery, OK Harris in the heart of SoHo in 1969. He was at the forefront of the New York art scene, and throughout his career played a fundamental role in discovering not only Warhol, but also Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein, bringing us us hyper-realist paintings and ushering in the pop-art movement.—CT
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Above all, it’s been the fashion world’s colourful players
e cce ntrics who have kept us so charmed and intrigued over the years. With such an eclectic and constantly evolving cast of characters, we knew we’d always be able to create entertaining television. Of course, some of those we’ve featured have been a tad “larger than life” than others. And a precious handful have kept us particularly riveted with their unabashed sartorial expression. Essentially, by their mode of wild and joyful dressing, they turned themselves into works of visual art, and our cameras could never get enough. We profiled the late London club kid and costume designer extraordinaire Leigh Bowery back in 1987, interviewing him in the comfort of his unassuming apartment. I vividly remember him telling me to close my eyes at one point, just before he emerged from his bedroom. I actually screamed out loud when I opened them a few seconds later, to find the sweet Leigh dressed as a giant teapot. The late great Isabella Blow was a constant source of awe for us. I once ran into the talented stylist and muse to some of the U.K.’s most cutting-edge designers at a Givenchy show, shortly after Alexander McQueen had taken the reigns of the House. In between sips of champagne, she bemoaned the fact that artistry in fashion was on its last legs. “The vultures are killing fashion, you know,” she said candidly. “Commercialism is totally sucking the romance out of design. All they care about at the end of the day is selling, and you can’t create great clothing with that mindset. I think I’m going to give it all up and open an art gallery in New York. Things have just gotten too commercial.” A few years later, a very depressed Isabella tragically took her own life. Some say that she felt the fashion world had let her down. She’ll forever be remembered by the extraordinary colour she brought to the scene, her uncanny ability to detect great talent, and her unparalleled passion for nurturing it.—Jeanne
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Anna Piaggi
Amuse Thyself! To dismiss Anna Piaggi as a member of the blue-rinse set would be to miss the point: her smurf tinted, kiss-curl ’do and matching eyeliner are the kind of trademark that can only be pulled off by a visionary whose fashion fantasies have fueled the famed DP, or doppie pagine of Italian Vogue. Notorious for her candy-coloured canes and show-stopping headgear (which occasionally forces her backstage during the runway presentations), Piaggi is fluent in six languages and her personal collection of clothing includes some 2,865 dresses, along with 265 pairs of shoes. Her late husband, photographer Alfa Castaldi, once revealed that the pair travelled from Milan to Paris by train in order to accommodate Piaggi’s 10 trunks of clothes. Naturally, such eccentricity is not limited to fashion: Piaggi writes only on a bright-red Olivetti manual typewriter and according to London’s V&A museum, for which she pulled together 13 unforgettable ensembles for a 2006 exhibition, her favourite number is 13. As her pal Karl Lagerfeld said of her, “she’s not pretty, she’s worse.” —Karen von Hahn 132 FT25 eccentrics
Talent Scout She reputedly cleaned her desk with Chanel No. 5. The late, great Isabella Blow made her mark on the fashion world by appearing in surreal, outlandish hats designed by her favourite milliner, Philip Treacy, to resemble such whimsy as flying saucers, lobsters, crocodile’s teeth and ships. According to the legendary fashion editor and stylist, hats are “a cheaper and less painful form of plastic surgery.” And yet to many, who saw Blow as a contemporary Diana Vreeland, her real contribution was the discovery of photographer Juergen Teller, models Sophie Dahl and Stella Tennant, and, along with Treacy, designers Hussein Chalayan, Julien Macdonald and the late Alexander McQueen. So bold and clear was her fashion vision that the morning after seeing McQueen’s student debut at Central St Martins, Blow bought the entire collection (which reputedly was delivered to her London flat that afternoon in black trash bags) for £5,000. A wit who said at the time of her newest discovery, the curvaceous Dahl, “I do just love breasts, they’re so old-fashioned,” the ever-haute “Issy” (to her friends), was never caught without either perfect screen-siren lips or a bone-dry clever comeback.—KVH
Contour by Getty Images
Contour by Getty Images
Isabella Blow
Daphne Guinness
Heir Divine Iconically skunk-haired like a real-life Cruella de Vil, Daphne Guinness, daughter of the 3rd Baron Moyne, grew up, in her words, “in an artists’ colony near Barcelona with Salvador Dali.” A mother of three, whose ex, Spyros Niarchos, son of Greek shipping magnate Stavros, set her up with a cool 20-million pound divorce settlement, the Guinness brewery heiress is no stranger to couture: like her grandmother Diana Mitford Mosley, she was dressed for her wedding by Givenchy. But this society girl likes to mix it up a bit, being obsessed with feathers and armour, and rarely seen without platform heels worthy of a professional dominatrix. Guinness, who was named the face of the NARS Fall/Winter 2010 campaign, is currently a stylist, muse and director, with a perfume for Commes des Garçons and a film for The Times’ T magazine under her tiny-waist belt. She recently made the papers when she bought up all of her late friend Isabella Blow’s clothing from Christie’s before it went to auction.—KVH
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Courtesy of FashionTelevision Archives
“If clothes are going Leigh Bowery
Art As Armour
to mean anything, they’ve got to threate n or
chall enge.” —Leigh Bowery 134 FT25 eccentrics
At six-foot-three and weighing in at a far-from-featherweight 235 pounds, Leigh Bowery was an unlikely fashion icon. And yet the performance artist, a key figure in the London underground club scene who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1994, used his extreme outsider quality as inspiration for an artform centred around self-expression through fashion. An early Matthew Barney meets Lady Gaga, Bowery wore increasingly bizarre yet conceptually brilliant get-ups, many of which employed stretch fabrics, often exaggerating his bulk to intimidating effect. Dancing too close one night in London to Mick Jagger, the Stones frontman reputedly told him to “Fuck off, freak!” Bowery is reported to have replied, “Fuck off, fossil!” Uncomfortable with his reflection since his fattish and reclusive childhood, Bowery used “extreme fashion” as both his art and his armour, emerging as a design consultant to Rifat Ozbek, a model for the British painter Lucian Freud and a bold-face luminary in queer culture. As Boy George said of his club contemporary, “the rest of us used drag to hide our blemishes and defects. He made them the focal point of his art.”—KVH
Fearless ness is a common theme in the world of art, FASHION & design.
mav eric ks
Going against the grain and being outspoken is risky business, but essential for those who yearn to make their mark. We’ve featured a multitude of mavericks on our show over the years, some who only made temporary waves in popular culture, and those legends who managed to make a more lasting impression. I had the honour of not only meeting the incomparable cosmetics queen Estée Lauder, who revolutionized the beauty industry, but actually getting a makeup application from her. She visited a Toronto department store in 1986 for the launch of her new fragrance, Beautiful. We got along like a house on fire, and I lapped up all her sage beauty advice (like a true lady always wears hosiery and powder on her nose). Before I knew it, she had the rouge out, applying it to my pale cheeks like the seasoned pro she was. I dare say the result had me looking a tad clown chic, but hey—how many people can lay claim to having a legend like Estée Lauder give them a makeover?
It’s always intriguing to hear about how some of these forward thinkers arrived at their particular ways of seeing the world. I’ll never forget my first meeting with genius architect Frank Gehry. He told me about his boyhood, growing up in Toronto, the child of Polish immigrants, and how he was always fascinated by the big fish that his parents would buy at the market and keep in the bathtub until it was time to make that Friday night Jewish delicacy, gefilte fish. Evidently, Gehry soon began to think “outside the bathtub,” since it’s the imagery of those fish that he claims still informs his designs all these years later. The fish story really resonates with me: The only “temporary” pets I ever had growing up were the big carp my parents also kept in our bathtub until they met their weekly gefilte fish fate.—Jeanne
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Estée Lauder
Beauty Queen Estée Lauder not only lived the American dream, she sold it by the bottle. Lots of bottles, in fact. In 2004, the year of her death at age 97, her namesake company posted global sales of over $5.7 billion. But the queen of beauty’s beginnings were far more humble. Born to Jewish-immigrant parents in Queens, New York, young Josephine Esther Mentzer (Estée was her nickname) would help her chemist uncle develop and peddle face creams to salons and hotels. Her first true commercial success came in 1953 with the debut of her iconic Youth Dew bath oil. The timing was perfect: American women were ready to buy their own perfume, and Lauder knew it. Thanks to clever marketing smarts (she invented “gift with purchase”), highly-trained salespeople and quality formulas, Lauder took hold of the purchasing power of a new American woman and didn’t let go.—Ricky Zayshley
“She said, ‘I think I got a proposal last night due to your perfume. He kept kissing me and telling me I smelled so good.’” —Estée Lauder
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Richard Avedon
True Grit From 1979 to 1984, Richard Avedon spent his summers photographing people at rodeos, truck stops, slaughterhouses and oil fields. The results—which would become his iconic travelling exhibition and book, In the American West—were a stark contrast to the glamorous fashion images he was famous for. But they weren’t all that different. Whether Avedon was shooting Veruschka for the cover of Vogue or a world-weary cowboy, he had an uncanny ability to find the grit in beauty and the beauty in grit. His unflinching look at the American West received criticism for glamorizing stereotypes, but a closer look at the quality of composition and attention to detail reveals a deep respect usually paid to the famous or powerful. He once said, “I’ve photographed just about everyone in the world. But what I hope to do is photograph accomplishment, not celebrity, and help define the difference once again.”—RZ mavericks
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Eileen Ford
Talk of the Catwalk Eileen Ford never shied away from saying what she really thought. But for decades, her brash critiques—too fat, too thin, needs a nose job, bad skin—were a necessary step for anyone wishing to become a Ford model. Her roster, which included Suzy Parker, Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Brooke Shields and Christy Turlington (to name a few), defined—and cashed in on—the all-American girl. And while the look might have been freshly scrubbed, the industry was not. When several of her models left to join John Casablancas’ new Elite Model Management in the late ’70s, Ford sent the offenders bibles with all references to Judas highlighted in red. The Ford Agency negotiated Lauren Hutton’s bigticket exclusive contract with Revlon in 1974, an industry first, and in doing so set the stage for the supermodel craze that was to follow.—RZ 142 FT25 mavericks
Frank Gehry
Art & Soul When Frank Gehry completed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the world fell in love. It was a masterpiece. Architect Philip Johnson went so far as to say it was “one of the most innovative buildings of the 20th century.” Reminiscent of a ship run aground, the sweeping titanium, glass and limestone structure was like nothing the world had ever seen before. And it made Gehry an international star, inspiring a new era of showmanship (and one-upmanship) from his contemporaries. Ironically, Toronto, the city of Gehry’s childhood, would not boast his work until he redesigned the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2008. The building would bear similarities to his other designs, but also display a sense of tenderness. Gehry remarked that he hoped the gallery’s centrepiece—the sculptural Douglas fir staircase—would beckon visitors and be a place where people would fall in love. His way of paying it forward, perhaps?—RZ mavericks
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Lauren Hutton
The Smart Blonde “You,” Diana Vreeland said to the young Lauren Hutton in 1965 upon seeing her for the first time, “you have quite a presence.” Hutton replied, “So do you, ma’am.” The next day, the gap-toothed girl was off on her first Vogue assignment with Richard Avedon. In an attempt to loosen up the inexperienced model, the legendary photographer asked her to jump around like the swamp creatures she imitated while playing as a child, growing up in Florida. Hutton obliged, and for the duration of her career, she has leaped from project to project with boundless energy and a reputation for being a smart blonde. After signing an exclusive modeling contract with Revlon in 1974, an industry-first, she set her sights on movie and television stardom. At age 49, she returned to the runway to walk for Calvin Klein. Then in 2005, at 61, Hutton posed nude for Big Magazine, proving that true beauty could command quite the presence at any age.—RZ
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“It’s either dea th or architecture— simple as that.” —Philip Johnson
Philip Johnson
Glass Act Chances are, prior to 1949, the people of New Canaan, Connecticut—or the rest of America, for that matter—were not accustomed to seeing Modernist design among their sprawling Dutch Colonial and Greek Revival homes. Philip Johnson changed that with his iconic Glass House. With its sleek lines and transparent walls, the home was a calling card to the nation: Architect for Hire. And it worked. Johnson’s self-coined International Style was irresistible to the big-business building boom of post-war America, and for the next six decades, he took the position of the godfather of American architecture. While some of his designs were hits, like his glorious Four Seasons restaurant at the Seagram Building, others were misses. However, Johnson’s notoriety wasn’t measured by technical abilities alone, but rather by his sheer force within the industry and his ability to push the envelope. Johnson’s abundance of wealth, wit and wisdom gave a face to the movement and changed the landscape of urban America.—RZ mavericks
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Alexander Liberman
Serious Art Alexander Liberman (in the crowd, above right) racked up a huge list of accomplishments during his 32-year tenure as the editorial director of Condé Nast, but he only wanted one thing—to be taken seriously for the photography, painting and sculpture he created at his weekend home in Connecticut. The elegant man, who helped launch the careers of Diana Vreeland, Grace Mirabella, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton and William Klein, certainly took himself seriously: “In a curious way, I felt myself superior to everybody I was dealing with and to everything I was doing, because I felt that I was an artist.” Critics tended to disagree, suggesting the gloss and glamour of the magazine world got the best of him. Recognition for his art would come in small doses during his lifetime, but it is Liberman’s drive to prove that magazines were serious art forms in their own right that gets the well-deserved recognition.—RZ 148 FT25 mavericks
A ALLY MADE THEM AND RING UN I T I N G T H E M . F I N D E MO M EN T S AT P A N D O R A . NE T O R AT YOUR LOCAL P A N D O R A STORE.
5 3 0A T . O p ‚ p ! L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D
trouble makers & provocateur s
Walking on the edg e is de rigueur for those independent thinkers who want to make a little noise. And breaking the rules is often a way of life. When controversy is never feared but almost welcomed, you can bet the perpetrator will ruffle feathers and inevitably make for great television. We’ve had a grand time celebrating a diverse range of controversial personalities on FT, and many have left indelible marks on the pop culture landscape. Naomi Campbell, one of the most
successful and revered (and feared) supermodels of our time, always struck me as far more sensitive and vulnerable than her wildcat ways would indicate. When I interviewed her over lunch at New York’s Royalton Hotel in 1996, she admitted that growing a thick skin was something that was imperative if one wanted to stay on top. The beauty confessed that she’s really much more sane than people think. “Sometimes I pretend to act crazier than I
really am…,” she shared. “I’m very together I just sometimes appear not to be so, because it gets me out of things I don’t want to do.” If there’s one thing the late Alexander McQueen was adamant about doing it was getting attention. In 1996, for his American debut, he tried to grab New York media attention by showing at an abandoned synagogue in Brooklyn. The scene outside was bedlam as hundreds of guests pushed and shoved their
way into the small venue. The doors were locked before many of the important editors—including Anna Wintour—got in. It was interpreted as poor organization, or brilliant strategy, depending on who you talked to. The only thing for certain was that everybody was talking about Alexander McQueen. It’s about manipulating the media,” the designer told me a few days later. “People are bored, they want excitement. So I’m giving it to ’em.”—Jeanne
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Naomi Campbell
Hothouse Flower Part of “The Trinity” with models Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell remains one of the most beautiful women in the world—ageless, lit from within, scrappy. And all precociousness aside, there is just no questioning her stature in the fashion industry as one of the most recognized and busy models of her generation. Lest we forget, she was the first black model on the cover of Vogue Paris (1988). Using her fame to raise piles of money for charity, Campbell works closely with Nelson Mandela and others to benefit sub-Sahara Africa. In 2005, she helped create Fashion for Relief, raising over $1-million for victims of Hurricane Katrina. When the earthquake devastated Haiti, Campbell swung into action and organized 140 designers to participate in Fashion for Relief Haiti in February 2010. No, not just another pretty face.—Joanne Latimer
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Courtesy of FashionTelevision Archives
PETA
Creature Kindness “I’d rather go nude than wear fur,” purred Christy Turlington, nude in an advertisement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). They got our attention. PETA’s eye-popping approach to raising public awareness is legendary. Who could miss a naked Alicia Silverstone promoting vegetarianism? Or Cloris Leachman dressed in nothing but cabbage leaves? PETA has been crusading for animal rights since 1980, exposing cruel farming practices, animal testing and pet abuse. But their shock tactic against fur—throwing red paint on fur-clad models—was an all-out declaration of war on the fashion industry. Victoria Beckham was taken to task in 2009 for her limitless collection of leather handbags and outfits. Ditto for Jessica Simpson, among others. Some call PETA heroes, some consider them a nuisance, at best. Vegetarians like Alec Baldwin, Casey Affleck (vegan), Bryan Adams, Pamela Anderson and Stella McCartney are believers, lending their star power to win over hearts and minds. We’re listening.—JL troublemakers&provocateurs
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Linda Evangelista
Karma Chameleon Linda Evangelista captured the ethos of supermodel stardom in one phrase: “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” That quote in Vogue from 1990 went viral, confirming everyone’s suspicion that the new supermodels were getting paid as much as hockey players. Just two years earlier, Evangelista shocked the modelling world by chopping her locks into a boy-like bob—possibly a careerending stunt—then promptly scoring covers on the American, French, British and Italian editions of Vogue. Karl Lagerfeld referred to her famous haircut as “the day she was born.” Since then, the Canadian supermodel and mom has been known as The Chameleon for her ever-changing haircuts and colour. Although models typically have a short shelf life, Evangelista (b. 1965) has defied all expectations for career longevity. She did the Prada campaign in Fall 2008, and this September, she makes her debut as the new face for a rebranded Talbots.—JL
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“For the fashionistas that knew me, I was Janice the Wild Child.” Janice Dickinson
Full Disclosure
—Janice Dickinson
There was a time when models in America had to look like Grace Kelly if they wanted to get any work. Janice Dickinson changed all that. Originally rejected by the top modelling agencies, Dickinson was considered “too ethnic,” with parents of Belorussian and Polish descent. So, she set off for Paris where her exotic looks were welcome, then returned in 1978 to seek revenge. She was one of the 20 models at Ford to defect to Elite during the so-called “model wars,” while partying at Studio 54, and dating Warren Beatty and Sylvester Stallone, among others. The self-proclaimed first supermodel segued into a television career on reality shows like America’s Next Top Model. Between feuds with Tyra Banks and shoutouts about plastic surgery, Dickinson refuses to grow old and retire gracefully. Why would she?—JL
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Mark Kostabi
Faking It Is he a huckster or a post-Warholian hero? New York artist Mark Kostabi attracts equal amounts of envy and scorn from the art world, where he dares to enjoy himself and make wads of money. Critics point to his factory-like studio and cry foul, if not fraud. Kostabi hires other artists to think up paintings. He then hires more assistants to paint them, before adding his signature and selling them for between $5,000 and $80,000. In a zany piece of performance art, Kostabi hosts a cable TV show where guests name his paintings for cash prizes. Here’s the rub: the contestants are famous art intellectuals. His shameless self-promotion made him king of the punk-era East Village scene, but some critics find his work empty, cold and unskilled. That hasn’t stopped fans like Bill Gates, Axl Rose, Norman Lear and Debbie Harry from gobbling up his bright and slick paintings. Tellingly, his work is also at MoMA and the Guggenheim. If he’s a con artist, he’s fooling the right people.—JL
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Richard Blackwell
Fashion Policeman He was the decider. Since 1960, when Mr. Blackwell started publishing his annual list of the 10 worst-dressed women, he found fame by skewering the glitterati with straightforward insults (he likened Diana Ross to a "Martian meter maid") and high camp. Nobody was safe. He once asked if Queen Elizabeth was “the palace Christmas tree, or just a royal clown?” This self-appointed arbiter of taste wasn’t always a catty fashion commentator. He started as an actor and Hollywood agent, then spent two decades designing clothes for The House of Blackwell, his own fashion label, for stars like Jayne Mansfield and Nancy Reagan. But his true calling was to gleefully chronicle each year's fashion flops. Just ask Cher, a frequent target, along with Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Victoria Beckham (“Someone should talk to her about the addiction to spray tanning”) and Amy Winehouse. He died in 2008, too early to pass studied comment on Lady Gaga. —JL
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“All they are Charles Kernaghan
Working-Class Hero It’s easy to misunderstand Charles Kernaghan, Director of the National Labor Committee in New York. He isn’t against globalization, he just wants it to be equitable. As a globetrotting crusader against sweatshops, Kernaghan is best known for making Kathy Lee Gifford cry in 1996 when he revealed child-labour abuses in factories producing her line of clothing for Wal-Mart. Teenage girls in Honduras were working 13-hour shifts, under armed guard, for 31 cents per hour. Ouch. “That shirt on your back has blood on it,” he states frequently, knowing the value of a good sound bite. Taking on companies like Nike, Reebok, Disney, JC Penny and Gap, he became the apparel industry’s conscience—and its scourge. Kernaghan’s exposés keep factory owners and brands both nervous and honest. It’s hard work and Kernaghan has been known to sift through dumpsters to salvage damning corporate memos. His efforts are rewarded every time we ask about labour practices or pay a bit more for fair-trade goods.—JL
asking for is a
tiny bit of human rights & dignity.” —Charles Kernaghan
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Allen B. Schwartz
Copy Cat Along with Zara and H&M, Allen B. Schwartz was one of the first to, um, re-interpret couture labels for the masses. If a designer gown is $10,000, you can buy an A.B.S by Allen Schwartz for just $300, in more sizes and colours. “It’s all speed,” he often says, unabashedly. His sizing is a tad more generous, so he isn’t working solely for the Size 0 club. Witness his highly accessible line for J.C. Penney. Schwartz’s reputation as “the master of the trend”—a brilliant, preemptive moniker surely created by his own people—earns him appearances on Entertainment Tonight, CNN, The Today Show, Oprah and, of course, Fashion Television. You can find him at the Oscars, too, where he does some of his best research eyeballing the nominees’ dresses.—JL troublemakers&provocateurs
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Dana Thomas
Stripped Bare There was a time when luxury brands were beyond reproach, revered for their fine materials and craftsmanship. Prestige was embedded. Then came Dana Thomas, with her clear-eyed assessment of how luxury labels are cheaping out. Her New York Times best-selling book, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (Penguin, 2007) is the anti-Shopaholic. Thomas took her experience as a Paris-based fashion reporter and re-examined what it meant to own a Prada backpack or Louis Vuitton luggage. Not much, she concluded, now that globalization had changed the game. With luxury brands targeting the middle market, especially single female executives with money to burn, the vendors could no longer satisfy demand without sacrificing quality. Luxury once represented a rarefied world of artisans serving the elite, but now it stands for mass marketing, outsourcing and assembly lines making goods bound for the mall. Pity.—JL
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“The goal is to get noticed.” Calvin Klein
Spin Master It was 1979. The craze for designer jeans was taking over North America, where denim kingpin Calvin Klein pushed his success to the forefront with a risqué campaign. “Wanna know what comes between me and my Calvin’s? Nothing,” said a smouldering, 14-year-old Brooke Shields. This outraged moral crusaders and child pornography watchdogs. Klein pressed on, building a multi-million-dollar brand on minimalist design and sexually evocative ads for his line of denim, his perfumes (enter Kate Moss) and underwear (thanks Marky Mark!). In his 1995 campaign for Calvin Klein Jeans, images of young models in provocative poses again caused an outcry. Eventually the ads were yanked, after an intervention from President Bill Clinton and the Catholic League, but sales soared. Klein sold his company in 2002, but the brand continues to be a lightning rod. Just last year, Calvin Klein mounted a billboard in New York of a semi-nude threesome cavorting in jeans. Was it edgy marketing or soft porn? You decide.—JL
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Jeff Koons
Babes in Toyland When asked about his fame versus his artistic significance, Jeff Koons answered with a straight face: “I’m really not interested in the idea of fame for fame’s sake.” Come again? Koons, the neo-pop master of self-promotion, can’t be serious. Art critics are sharply divided on Koon’s intentions and merit, but there’s no mistaking his success. His giant reproductions of banal objects—think balloon dogs, chocolate hearts, silver rabbits— are the ultimate expression of kitsch. Yet, they fetch up to USD $5.6-million at auction. Sculptures and posters of Koons having sex with then-wife, porn star Cicciolina, were controversial, but bought. Koons insists there is no hidden meaning in his work aside from the visceral experience of viewing them. Some detractors say there’s no meaning whatsoever. Perhaps the sculptures are fronts for the real artwork, Koons himself—the smiling impresario, single dad, television personality, cameo actor and employer of over 120 studio assistants. Charges of obscenity and banality certainly haven’t hurt this former commodities broker’s stock.—JL
“I find that ideas transmitted through the genitalia
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—Jeff Koons
Will Alsop
Suspended Disbelief Thank you, Will Alsop for kickstarting an architectural revival. Soon after Alsop’s whimsical Sharp Centre for Design opened at the Ontario College of Art & Design in 2004, Toronto was treated to museum expansions by A-list architects Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry. Alsop is showered with both praise and blame for the Sharp Centre because of its avant-garde design. Commonly called “the table,” it’s an elevated slab on 12 colourful stilts. Its likeness to a crossword puzzle is widely noted, but so is its playfulness. Alsop’s zany style earns him a measure of disdain among his more staid colleagues. This Stirling prize-winner from Britain is the darling of Toronto, where he opened an office to handle his new commissions. Known for smoking Cohiba Robusto cigars and sipping whisky at the Park Hyatt rooftop lounge, Alsop doesn’t apologize for liking life and pushing boundaries. Design-wise, he let the genie out of the bottle—and Toronto never looked better.—JL
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Kate Moss
Wafer Thin Who can keep up with the antics of supermodel Kate Moss? When she isn’t dating drug-addled rock stars, she’s fending off accusations of her own substance abuse. This millionaire single mom knows what it’s like to be criticized—and she doesn’t give a toss. Moss had a hard time breaking into modeling in the late 1980s, when glamazons like Cindy Crawford dominated the runways. But Calvin Klein changed all that when he hired the London-born Moss and sparked a trend for more waif-like models. So began “heroin chic.” Moss’s world was rocked by a cocaine scandal in 2005, but her career bounced back to earn her USD $9 million in 2007. Despite the seemingly self-destructive nature of her old romance with Pete Doherty, Moss ignores all social censure and does whatever she bloody-well pleases. Press on!—JL
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Vanessa Beecroft
Eyes Wide Shut They’re not about sex. Despite all the nudity, artist Vanessa Beecroft’s performances using po-faced women are surprising for their utter lack of lust. Mostly, they’re about Beecroft’s troubled relationship with her own body image and her history with bulimia. Then there’s the thorny issue of voyeurism: is she exploiting women or making a daring feminist statement? The Los Angeles-based Beecroft, who was born in Italy and attended art schools in Milan and Genoa, became a cause célèbre for showing viewers exactly how hard it is to be a woman, constantly on display and assessed. Not everyone wants to know. High-brow art critics see the nudity as “unchallenging” and nervous sponsors pulled her work from the Terminal 5 show in 2004 at JFK airport. But Beecroft’s work continues to raise eyebrows and attract celebrities like Kanye West, who produced the video of her 2009 show. Nude or not, Beecroft will be on the art scene for some time to come.—JL troublemakers&provocateurs
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Coutesy of FashionTelevision Archives Alexander McQueen
Showmanship Rules Alexander McQueen pushed himself to the limits of creativity and theatricality, saying, “Fashion is like a big bubble, and sometimes, I feel like popping it.” Even at age 16 his defiant tendencies were evident when, while working as a tailor on Savile Row, he stitched an obscenity into the lining of a jacket for Prince Charles. McQueen’s high-concept clothes displayed the best elements of British tailoring, French couture workmanship and Italian finishing, but his runway shows were pure Hollywood. One, entitled “Highland Rape,” saw ragged and abused-looking models whimper across the catwalk. Another featured a life-sized hologram of Kate Moss. “At the end of the day, it’s got to be fun, exciting and thought-provoking,” he said. “That’s what fashion’s about, for me anyway.” —Ricky Zayshley
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Vivienne Westwood
Priestess of Punk The only address that mattered in punk-era London was 430 King’s Road. That was ground zero, the shop were iconoclast designer Vivienne Westwood togged out punks and Teddy Boys in fashions inspired by the underworld of bikers and fetishists. Belligerence was in the air—and printed across Westwood’s graphic T-shirts. Regular clients included the Sex Pistols, who were managed by Westwood’s live-in partner, Malcolm McLaren. Although the union with McLaren didn’t last, Westwood maintained her position as one of fashion’s most unconventional Grande Dames, literally. “I think it’s quite subversive to do beautiful things when everyone is doing conforming two-dimentional clothes,” she said. Westwood, 69, still telegraphs trends and influences younger designers, with her puffy skirts and bespoke style. Batty? Sure. Wiley? Dead on.—JL
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“I’m an Dov Charney
Bawdy Business Keep your hands where we can see them, Dov. The 41-year-old founder and CEO of American Apparel is notoriously uninhibited. Montreal-born Dov Charney isn’t above diddling himself in front of journalists, strutting through the office in his undies and using foul language in the office (Even the c-word). It’s the kind of behaviour that encourages sexual harassment lawsuits, as well as parodies on Saturday Night Live. Say what you will about the fashion industry’s lewd bad boy, but there’s no denying Charney’s accomplishments: American Apparel is one of the largest clothing manufacturers in the U.S.A., with production based in Los Angeles, not China, and staffed by 3,500-plus workers earning over minimum wage. Let’s not forget the ubiquitous retail stores and controversial advertising campaigns. Likened to porn, the amateur models aren’t Photoshopped to perfection, which only increases their vulnerability. American Apparel went public in 2006, selling for $374 million, but Charney remains at the helm— lawyers in tow.—JL
educate d hustler, thick and thin.”
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—Dov Charney
Peter Beard
Party Animal His iconic self-portrait says it all: Peter Beard lying inside the mouth of a 15-foot African crocodile, feverishly writing in his diary. The crocodile was dead and that was his point. As a wildlife photographer, diarist, artist and conservationist, Beard has spent a lifetime lobbying to save Africa’s crocodiles and elephants—despite getting gored and nearly flattened by the latter. But Beard devotes equal and opposite energy amusing himself. At 72, he is still the rakish playboy burning through his trust fund and club hopping with U2. Turning his back on his Yale education, Beard became a swashbuckling adventurer who dated actresses (Candice Bergen), discovered models (Iman), married supermodels (Cheryl Tiegs), feuded with New York mavens (Eileen Ford) and partied with rock stars (Mick Jagger). Andy Warhol was his friend. Francis Bacon painted him over 30 times. Salvador Dalí painted directly on his nut-brown skin. While Beard upsets do-gooders with his controversial views on famine relief, he still sets the standard for safari chic and rugged simplicity.—JL
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Spencer Tunick
Strip Tease Prudes need not apply. That could be the credo for Spencer Tunick, the brash New York photographer and eco activist. Since 1992, he has been upending conventions of modesty—and challenging public decency laws—by herding naked volunteers into places like the Sydney Opera House, Grand Central Station in New York and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Art snobs take pot shots at Tunick, calling him a one-trick pony, yet Tunick, 43, has the power to attract up to 18,000 volunteers per installation. That’s some trick. He also draws attention to issues like climate change by holding his photo shoots on retreating glaciers and in withering French vineyards. To protest the genocide in Rwanda, he photographed a pile of nude bodies outside the U.N. building in 1994. This year, for the first time, he covered nudes with black paint to evoke the BP oil spill. Whether it’s a sexy gimmick or earnest protest art, Tunick’s paintings are hauntingly beautiful.—JL troublemakers&provocateurs
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Helmut Newton
King of Kink Lurid, pornographic, exploitative— the accusations came fast and thick. But nobody looked away. In the 1970s, Helmut Newton’s fashion photography caused a scandal because of its fetishistic and sometimes sadomasochistic subtext. His iconic photos for Vogue have a menacing edge, featuring semi-nude women surrounded by luxury and carnality. What was he getting at? Newton famously claimed to be working without an agenda, except to flout conventions of good taste. He did this with a prop kit full of kinky accessories and a stable of Amazon-like models. Soon, celebrities also lined up to be photographed. Then publishers and museums came calling. His first book, Sumo, broke records for limited-edition art books at 66 lbs. and $15,000 per copy. The so-called King of Kink may have been the scourge of feminists in the 1970s, but his style is now ubiquitous in music videos, advertising campaigns and fashion magazines. Long live the king.—JL
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Terry Richardson
Naughty by Nature Terry Richardson can’t resist stripping down naked and jumping in front of his own camera, and he expects nothing less from his models. But behind his geeky glasses, receding hairline, handlebar mustache and unadulterated exhibitionism lies a talent who manages to be provocative in an era where shock value seems to have nowhere left to go. Possibly the most surprising aspect of Richardson’s career, though, is his mainstream appeal. When he’s not snapping seedy pictures of himself having sex with young models, he’s working for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W and GQ, or shooting campaigns for clients such as Tom Ford, Sisley, Gucci and Chloé. Celebrities are also drawn to his bad-boy persona—Lindsay Lohan, Jay Z, Daniel Day Lewis and President Obama have all posed (clothed) for the photographer. Richardson is often quoted as saying he would never ask anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. Judging by his body of work, he’s a pretty open-minded guy.—RZ troublemakers&provocateurs
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Rankin
Bit of Cheek Nobody was more surprised when Rankin was chosen to photograph Queen Elizabeth II for her Golden Jubilee than Rankin himself. The Glasgow-born man, who rose to fame as the co-founder of the cult magazine Dazed & Confused and the publisher of Another Magazine, had built a reputation for being able to pierce through the public personas of his subjects. His saucy-yet-intimate portraits of Madonna, Blur, Kylie Minogue and Kate Moss helped define British pop culture in the ’90s. But Elizabeth II was different. “The Queen is a closed book,” he told the Scotland on Sunday newspaper in 2002. “I decided to make the portrait all about surface, make it completely aesthetic.” The result reveals more about the figurehead than Rankin gives it credit for. It casts the Queen as a sort of punk-era hero grinning calmly in front of an over-sized British flag—a cheeky nod from the man whose out-of the-box style continues to entice and surprise us all.—RZ
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Courtesy of Elle Muliarchyk
Elle Muliarchyk
Quick Change Artist She has been kicked out of some of the fanciest boutiques in the world. Of course, she is a highly conspicuous character. Standing six feet tall, striking Belarus-born former model Elle Muliarchyk— who was discovered in a SoHo café by Patrick Demarchelier—doesn’t exactly go unnoticed. So when she began photographing herself wearing expensive garments and wielding outrageous props in the change rooms of luxury retailers without permission, she got all kinds of attention—good and bad. The resulting images were like a visual adrenaline rush, capturing a sense of narcissism that has come to be the young photographer’s trademark. But Muliarchyk’s guerilla-style take on fashion was also borne out of revenge. In 2006, she told The New York Times Magazine: “I think it goes back to being a model. All day you’re prodded, posed and styled to fit other people’s visions. When I’m in a change room, I’m taking back control.” Thankfully, she has only been arrested once.—RZ
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The new fragrance for women
de sig ners
While we never made it our s ole mission to expos e
all those mystifying names behind the labels, it’s the fashion designers who’ve been the mainstays of Fashion Television, and at the heart and soul of it all. And while some may beg to differ, in our eyes, the cream of the crop were always true artists. Their crystal-clear vision, inspired aesthetic, passion for perfection, desire to communicate and downright tenacity all made the world a more beautiful place, and provided fascinating fodder for us to explore. Sometimes, these designers would be unlikely characters. Who could have guessed, the first time we met Marc Jacobs, in 1986 at a Toronto garment factory—an adorable, personable kid with hair down to his elbows, eager to show us his small collection of knitwear— that this bright designer would be heralded by Vogue 14 years later as The Prince of Cool? Jacobs went on to not only rule the runways of New York and conquer Paris with his work for Louis Vuitton, he also helped define our sensibility of what makes fashion truly modern. Also in 1986, I had the privilege of interviewing Gianni Versace at his new palazzo in the centre of Milan. The crew and I were charmed to discover this gentle, soft-spoken man exuding such a quiet and casual elegance—so far from the bold flamboyance associated with his label. I’d borrowed an outfit from the Versace boutique earlier in the day to wear for the interview, and Versace complimented me on how it looked. He asked where I got it, and I told him I’d borrowed it from his shop. “Did you meet my sister Donatella there? She does all the accessories, sunglasses, shows. She’s really fantastic. You must meet her. You should interview her too,” he said proudly. It was clear Versace adored his younger sister and was eager to promote her. When he was murdered in 1997 and Donatella took over the House, I knew it was exactly what he would have wanted. Most monumentally, we had the opportunity not only to meet so many legends at the height of their careers, but also witness their grand, sentimental exits. In 2001, six months before Yves Saint Laurent announced his retirement and
staged a grand swan-song retrospective of his work, I attended YSL’s last full couture collection at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris. “I’m afraid Yves Saint Laurent is the last one to think about elegant women,” Pierre Bergé, the designer’s long-time business partner and former lover, told me. “Now things are different… Life has changed. Maybe in a way, it’s more modern, and easier… I don’t want to argue with that. Everybody has a right to design clothes the way they feel. But for Saint Laurent, who loves and respects women and their bodies, it’s very difficult to understand the feel of today.” Bergé went on to explain that creativity, not marketing, always came first for Saint Laurent. And because of that, he was at odds with the way the fashion world now functioned. At the end of that show, Saint Laurent hinted at his impending departure. He told me, “The work is very, very hard for me now. I’m beginning to be old, and I must think about retirement.” I was saddened to think of the inevitability of losing this brilliant gentle giant from the very arena he’d helped define. But perhaps the most poignant and memorable departure from this elaborate world of fashion was staged by the inimitable Valentino for the master’s 45th anniversary in July, 2007—just three months before he announced his retirement. After the official opening of his retrospective exhibition in Rome, Valentino and his long-time partner Giancarlo Giammetti pulled out all the stops and hosted a surreal outdoor dinner party at the historic Temple of Venus, on a mammoth terrazzo facing the Colosseum. Eight hundred guests were treated to a sumptuous buffet and countless glasses of champagne. Just past midnight, beautiful aerial artists clad in flowing Valentino gowns sailed through the night sky to the strains of opera, the performance culminating in a seemingly endless display of fireworks. This was overthe-top beauty at its spectacular best, a dream only Valentino could have masterminded. The scene left many of us speechless, yet reminded us all why we stay in a business that at times can seem so tough, heartless and shallow.—Jeanne designers
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Contour by Getty Images Prada
Less is More Miuccia Prada keeps us guessing, using unusual fabrics in combinations that keep even the savviest of fashion experts in awe. One season it’s shiny silk tunics, tiny bloomers and turbans, and the next, furry wool skirts, cardigans and footless knee socks. Prada’s background is equally diverse. The former communist followed a Ph.D in Political Science with five years in mime school before taking over the family business in 1978. She then revolutionized the luxury leather company. In 1985, when fashion was all about flash, Prada introduced a simple black nylon handbag that became a sensation. And then, in a sea of frills and neon, Prada made another fashion splash with her minimal, almost austere clothing. Although her collections are unpredictable, each season since that first has retained a simple Prada spirit— clean lines, unique textiles and a little something unexpected. —Vanessa Grant
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Jean Paul Gaultier
Darling Rascal Grandson of a Parisian psychic, Jean Paul Gaultier has a penchant for the outlandish. He’s known as “enfant terrible” of the fashion world for his mischievous antics both on the runway and off. He once sent live turkeys to critical fashion editors, and most recently, he invited burlesque star Dita Von Teese to perform a striptease at his couture presentation. The designer doesn’t assign gender to clothing, famously dressing male models in skirts, tutus and even corsets. As a real enfant, Gaultier was fascinated by the glitzy costumes of the Folies Bergère showgirls, which started a lifelong passion for cinched waists. Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Lady Gaga are fans. His cat? Not so much: in an interview with the Telegraph he said, “Do you know that cats can’t wear corsets? Not at all! They just fall over. I know, because I tried!”—VG
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Christopher Bailey
Check Mate Defender of the trademark tan, black and red check, Burberry chief creative director Christopher Bailey puts pretty English roses and stylish dandies in cool clothes that reflect their heritage. The former Gucci designer rescued the label and its signature check from becoming the uniform of chavs: teenage delinquents and tacky wannabe football wives. While the pattern rarely makes a runway appearance, Burberry’s tradition turns up in Bailey’s modern interpretations of classic British style. “I want to explore what it means to be British,” said Bailey when he first took the helm in 2001. Britishness, he has said, is not about clichés like a red bus or postbox, but the clash of formal society with rebelliousness and innovation, a concept Bailey obviously understands. How else could he reinvent the trench coat season after season?—VG
174 FT25 designers
Contour by Getty Images
Oscar de la Renta
Fifth Avenue Tropics The name Oscar de la Renta may conjure images of a socialite of a certain age, but the truth is that a well-tailored, ladylike dress is ageless. What makes de la Renta gowns so appealing, especially in spring, is his use of colour. He injects his collections with the flavour of his native Dominican Republic; exotic florals and vivid shades adding a hint of attitude to his almost modest silhouettes. And the women who wear his designs, whether socialite or starlet, know that fabric is carefully chosen, and structure specifically created to hide a multitude of sins and flatter just about any body. “I have always felt my role as a designer is to do the very best I can for a woman to make her look her best,” de la Renta has said. “Fashion is only fashion once a woman puts it on.”—VG
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Giorgio Armani
Red Carpet Connoisseur Giorgio Armani is one of few designers just as renowned for menswear as he is womenswear. He dresses Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney on the red carpet, but his first famous client was Richard Gere, who wore sleek Armani suits in American Gigolo. Fast-forward to 2008, when Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne stepped out in Armani duds in The Dark Knight. Born in 1934 in Northern Italy, Armani quit medical school during his second year, because he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. He took a job dressing department-store windows in Milan and thus began his $5 billion fashion empire. The Armani aesthetic—whether worn by a superhero or red-carpet starlet—is sexy yet laid-back. “My philosophy has always been to help women and men feel comfortable and confident through the clothes that they wear, rather than to create decoration for the sake of it.”—VG
176 FT25 designers
Courtesy of Chanel
Karl Lagerfeld
Mischief Maker Chanel and Fendi creative director Karl Lagerfeld has gone from a quiet, if slightly eccentric, designer to a full-on phenomenon. He’s a photographer, filmmaker and troublemaker, no stranger to courting controversy. One has to wonder if he’s serious when he refers to his sunglasses as “my burka,” admits that he admires pornoraphy or says that it’s only fat, chip-eating mothers who object to skinny models. Lest we forget that until the early 2000s, he was constantly waving a Chinese fan in front of his pudgy face. The German designer’s motivation for his 92-pound weight loss? Wanting to fit into Hedi Slimane’s trim black suits for Dior Homme. The 77-year-old has since made nice with curvy girls, but he’s certainly not slowing down. Considering he didn’t become famous until 50 and has since added a namesake label to his portfolio, it’s safe to expect many more years of amusing Lagerfeld hijinks.—VG
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Yves Saint Laurent
Pushing Boundaries “Fashions fade. Style is eternal.” This, ironically, from a designer whose clothes have stood the test of time. Known as the world’s best couturier, Yves Saint Laurent created the iconic Le Smoking tuxedo in 1966, forever changing women’s formalwear options. He made staples of the safari jacket and the sexy sheer blouse—quite a controversial look in 1968. Saint Laurent was precocious. At 17, he beat Karl Lagerfeld in a fashion competition and was hired at Dior. At 21, he took the helm of the famous fashion house. He started his own company at 25 and began making boundarypushing clothes that made him a legend. Thigh-high leather boots, beatnik black and pop-art prints allowed women to incorporate a little fantasy into their wardrobe. And as his one-time companion and business partner said, “Chanel gave women freedom. Yves Saint Laurent gave them power.”—VG
178 FT25 designers
Valentino
Empire State of Mind Valentino Garavani may have created the white dress Jacqueline Kennedy wore when she became Jackie O., but his most memorable dresses are in red— a particularly vivid red that has become his signature. The ultratanned Italian legend is one of the richest men in Rome—along with his business partner Giancarlo Giammetti. He has homes all over the world: a palazzo in Rome, chalet in Gstaad, chateau in France, apartment in New York, mansion in London and, of course, a 152-foot yacht. His clothing is just as opulent. Intricate beading, delicate lace, hand embroidery and ruffle upon ruffle characterize Valentino’s work. Called the last emperor of fashion, Valentino is friend to royalty—both genuine and of the silver screen, including Queen Paola of Belgium, Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn. His 2007 retirement broke hearts. Valentino’s reasoning: “I would like to leave the party when it is still full.—VG
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John Galliano
Captain Fantastic John Galliano lives in a fantasy world. He creates beautiful Russian princesses who prance haughtily in swingy, wired skirts, modern geishas who wear hot pink New Look skirt suits and a bouquet of strutting blossoms. Galliano’s fondness for glamour and extravagance immediately attracted buyers to his early collections but his lack of a secure financial backer almost left the young designer in rags. Luckily, the owner of LVMH came calling when he hired Galliano to design for Givenchy, and two years later, for Dior. Galliano, who runs six miles along the Seine each day, is a showman and his own runway strut rivals those of his models. In 2009, the Gibraltar native was given the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honour, officially becoming French fashion’s knight in shining armour—a look, of course that has also graced the Galliano runway.—VG
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Michael Kors
This Charming Man Michael Kors may be best known by the masses for his often catty criticism as judge on Project Runway—but his clothes are made only to flatter. While his own critics have questioned Kors’ consistently practical collections, the following for what fans call “no-brainer chic” has never waned. Born Karl Anderson Jr., Kors was a kiddie model and appeared in commercials for Lucky Charms cereal. He was five when his mother remarried and let him choose a new first name to go with his stepfather’s last name. At 19, Kors made a name for himself again, designing a collection for Lothar’s in New York. His womenswear collection was soon carried at upscale department stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Since then, he has added fragrances, shoes, accessories and two bridge lines to his growing namesake empire— something he should probably thank his mother for, because Karl Anderson Jr. just doesn’t sound as chic.—VG
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Gianni & Donatella Versace
Miami Heat That Gianni Versace’s former Miami mansion is now a private party club seems only fitting; the family is famously well connected. Gianni turned models into celebrities. The late designer’s deep pockets transformed Naomi, Cindy, Linda and Christy into supermodels, and a decade later, Donatella used her A-list celeb friends as models, Madonna among them. The label’s over-the-top glamour also made fans of Elton John, Princess Diana and Jennifer Lopez—remember that bellybutton-baring Versace “Jungle Dress” at the Grammys? That appearance helped make Donatella a celebrity herself. She was spoofed on Saturday Night Live, interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel and immortalized on E! True Hollywood Story. But the designer has never let her own celebrity status go to her head. “In Italian there is an expression,” she has said: “We don’t sleep on the fame.”—VG
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Marc Jacobs
Prince of Cool Marc Jacobs is offbeat. Unlike most designers who want to make women look chic and elegant, Jacobs aims for just a touch of the gauche. He has said that he sees beauty in the imperfect and awkward. Unfortunately, the fashion world wasn’t quite ready for his quirky aesthetic at first. In 1992, Jacobs’s infamous grunge collection for Perry Ellis got him fired. Company execs couldn’t see who would buy $1,200 thrift-storeinspired dresses and slouchy lumberjack shirts in $300-a-yard silk. Five years later, French luxury label Louis Vuitton took a chance on Jacobs. He designed the house’s first ready-to-wear collection and kept the look strictly high street. In the years following, though, Jacobs has continued his love affair with awkwardness for his own youthful label and for sophisticated Vuitton. “It's quite nice to see that I didn't have to change who I was to reach two very different types of people.”—VG designers
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Contour by Getty Images Azzedine Alaia
The King of Cling
Betsey Johnson
The Eclectic Johnson’s over-the-top exuberance provides that little whimsy, that slice of life, eccentric but essential—cartwheels and all.—DW
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Alaia’s study of the human body way back in art school led to his form-fitting wizardry and the invention of the stretch miniskirt. —DW
Donna Karan
The Queen of Seventh Avenue Karan came to define modern basic black, with collection after collection of versatile—and comfortable—clothing for the chic working women who lapped it all up.—DW
Bill Blass
Mr. Right With a huge talent for laid-back luxury, Blass earned seven Coty awards, clients such as Nancy Reagan and Barbara Walters, and this most apt nickname.—DW
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Stella McCartney
The BFF Cheeky, sexy, sharp. All three outline the spirit of McCartney and her leather-free world of famous friends and adoring clients. Upbeat, uncomplicated and just plain nice.—DW
Roberto Cavalli
The Wild Man Signature animal prints, sabletrimmed linings, yachts and helicopters—the Cavalli world is full of luxury with a little dash of party glam to make things interesting.—DW
Steven Sprouse
The Graffiti Artist The designer, photographer and artist was also a pioneer, mixing uptown sensibilities with downtown glamour, and hitting it just right.—DW
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Viktor and Rolf
The Showmen Images projected onto clothing, models wearing their own scaffolding and lights, one model with layers of dresses piled on top of her = Full-on high-concept. —DW
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Dsquared
The Patriots The Caten twins win big for wearing their Canadian hearts on their sleeves, often quite literally, and with unequaled international panache.—DW
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Isaac Mizrahi
The Multi-tasker Designer, business man, costumer, comic book creator, narrator, TV personality, filmmaker, jazz singer, Jeopardy contestant…—DW
Hussein Chalayan
The Mechanic Coffee tables that convert into skirts, jackets for Björk, laser LED dresses—the essense of Chalayan can often be more about blueprints than sketches.—DW
Geoffrey Beene
The Paradox This craftsman was in the same good company as some of the greatest French couturiers, but also a modernist who eschewed those very same traditional practices. —DW
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Christian Lacroix
The Historian Drawing from different centuries, different fabrics, different cultures and “costumes,” Lacroix weaves a unique tale of folk and fashion, turning history on its head.—DW
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canadian success st orie s We’re proud that FashionTelevision has become one of this country’s most stylish exports. And we know first-hand just what it has taken to become that. When you’re Canadian, you often succeed on the world stage because of it, and in spite of it. Sometimes, it takes a little longer for your voice to be heard. You have to be passionate and tenacious, fearless and audacious. Often, you have to be a little better than all the rest, work harder, fight smarter and be more diplomatic. The world hasn’t traditionally looked to Canada for its fashion leads. Yet this beautiful, enigmatic country of ours has managed to produce some of the global fashion industry’s most dynamic players. From those two Mississauga kids, Dean and Dan Caten, who charmed us right out in front of our Queen Street West building in the mid ’80s and went on to take Milan by storm, to Linda Evangelista, the shy girl from St. Catharines, Ont., who defined the modern supermodel with her looks, power and chutzpah, Canada’s international fashion elite are in a class of their own—cool, savvy, revered and celebrated. FT has joyously covered our Canadian icons over the years alongside the other global greats— never gratuitously, but because they were trailblazers, putting this country on the map in bold and fashionable new ways, inspiring us all with their unbridled creativity, fierce pride and refreshing sense of honesty and humility. Oh Canada! Our future has only just begun. —Jeanne
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Courtesy of Fluevog Inc. Roots
True North
Well-Heeled “Distinctive” barely describes the soul of a pair of John Fluevog shoes. From the early days of selling a warehouse full of vintage footwear, to designing bridal shoes in New York, Fluevog has continued to take his designs to new levels, finding international fans in the process: Robert Altman, Madonna, Kim Gordon and Perry Farrell to name just a few. News from the Fluevog camp has hemp Veggie Vogs turning the heads of the vegan set, no leather or animal-based adhesives involved. —Doug Wallace
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Courtesy of Roots Canada
John Fluevog
Chances are you remember exactly how cool those Roots sweatshirts were when they first came out. This quintessential Canadian brand still manages to ooze cool, as well as canoeing, campgrounds and, of course, Canadiana. With leather goods, athletic wear, yoga wear, accessories and also home furnishings, Roots, built from the ground up by entrepreneurs Michael Budman and Don Green in 1973, is now miles away from that engaging negative-heel shoe that started things off.—DW
Sonja Bata
Curious Curator A Swiss-born architecture student when she met and married a young Czechoslovakian shoe manufacturer, Sonja Bata fled war-torn Europe for Canada, and set out to help her husband build what would eventually become a global footwear empire. Along the way, Bata became intensely interested in the culture of footwear, and how different regions and changing lifestyles affected their shape and design. Her collection of shoes from many cultures and periods eventually became Toronto’s very unique Bata Shoe Museum, which now houses more than 10,000 pairs of shoes. —DW
MAC
Courtesy of MAC
Social Makeup Founded by Frank Toskan and Frank Angelo in 1984, MAC cosmetics are a staple in makeup kits around the world, not just in those of makeup artists for which the line was originally created, but in everyone’s. Generous social initiatives, such as cruelty-free ingredients, a Back to MAC recycling program, MAC Helping Kids and the MAC AIDS Fund relay the immense karma that has become synonymous with this brand.—DW canadiansuccess stories
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—Aldo Bensadoun
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Courtesy of Aldo
“I listen to our customers more carefully than I listen to anyone.”
Aldo Bensadoun
Sole Man In 1972, when fashionable young women in Montreal were raiding the racks at Le Château for flared jeans, Biba-inspired billowing crepe dresses and giant-collared leisure suits, they flocked to the Aldo concession stand in the store’s shoe corner to complete the look, trying on the latest “glam” rock boots, cork wedges and wooden platforms made by Aldo Bensadoun, a Moroccan-born son of a French shoe merchant. Armed with a business degree from McGill, Bensadoun saw Montreal’s (and Canada’s) funky potential long before we did, creating knock-offs of the latest streets styles from London, Paris, Milan, New York and Tokyo at prices every student and secretary could afford. He opened his first store on Sainte-Catherine Street in Montreal in 1978, but waited for Toronto to drop its uptight attitude before setting up shop there. Three decades later, Aldo stores are all over Toronto and in 45 countries around the world.—Alison Garwood-Jones
Joe Mimran
Getting Fresh In 1957, Esther Mimran, a couturier who designed eveningwear for Casablanca’s elite, stepped off a train with her husband, Eli, and their two sons, Saul and Joe, to start life afresh in Toronto. Growing up to the sound of Esther’s whirring sewing machine, the Mimran boys were arguably the only preteens in Hogtown who ran around in scaled-down replicas of Sean Connery’s James Bond suits. But destiny would have to wait. While Saul went off to became a concert promoter, Joe worked as an accountant until his sartorial gene kicked in. In the late ’70s, the brothers teamed up to open their first boutique and hired 31-year-old Alfred Sung to design a collection of elegant business suits for the era’s new class of working women. The Sung clothes, then stores, were an instant hit, but Joe, Saul and Sung didn’t stop there, creating Club Monaco in 1985. This chain of mid-priced togs spun off into the lifestyle and housewares favourite, Caban. The Mimrans sold the whole shebang to Ralph Lauren in 1999 in a deal worth nearly $90 million (USD). By 2006, Mimran was back with Joe Fresh, a “cheap chic” line of clothing and beauty products available at Loblaws nationwide.—AGJ
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Daria Werbowy
Bold Face She has modelled for some of the best in the business—Lancôme, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Pepe Jeans, Roberto Cavalli, Gucci, Hermès, Valentino, David Yurman, Missoni, Versace, Louis Vuitton and Chanel. And while Daria Werbowy had a rocky start, later only giving modelling a few last shots to help pay for art school, the willowy Mississauga gal holds the record for opening and closing the most fashion shows in one season (12), and was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2008.—DW
Coco Rocha
Dancing Queen Discovered at an Irish dancing competition, British Columbia’s Coco Rocha was part of that gaggle of new models on the now-famous May 2007 cover of Vogue. She has since also graced the covers of W, Harper’s Bazaar, i-D, Dazed & Confused, Numéro, Flare and FASHION, and walked the runways of Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Christian Lacroix and Louis Vuitton. Rocha managed to get the full attention of the fashion press by Irish dancing down Jean Paul Gaultier’s Highlands-inspired show in 2007. Go with what you know.—DW
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Courtesy of Yabu Pushelberg
The Weston Family
Global Style
Yabu Pushelberg
New Environs
Courtesy of The Bay
Since meeting in design school at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada’s premier interior design team of George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg has been imprinting a unique brand of modernity on the world. A Platinum Circle Award, a James Beard Foundation Award for outstanding restaurant design, induction into the Interior Design magazine Hall of Fame, the list goes on. With dozens of projects in motion around the world at any given time—smart hotels, chic restaurants, big-name retail outlets—they just keep hitting it out of the park.—DW
With Holt Renfrew in Canada, Brown Thomas in Ireland and Selfridges throughout the U.K., the Weston family’s fashion roots are deep. These upscale department stores set a distinct sartorial tone in their cities, vibrant and energetic, reflecting a finely tuned global business acumen that enjoys enormous commercial success. Case in point: profits of Selfridges have doubled since 2003 when the family purchased the retail chain. The Westons combine their boardroom smarts with a charitable heart, making time for myriad organizations benefitting Canadian education, land conservation, research and art. —DW
Bonnie Brooks
Winning Formula Fearless, fresh attitude, fashionable. After helping luxury Hong Kong retailer Lane Crawford win the coveted International Retailer of the Year Award, Bonnie Brooks came back to Canada to become President and CEO of Hudson’s Bay Co., the first woman to do so. How Canadian is that? This retail veteran from London, Ont., whose resumé includes stints at Holt Renfrew and Flare magazine, is well on the way to successfully rejuvenating a national institution, dressing it better than all her bearded predecessors combined. —DW canadiansuccess stories
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faces
Skin deep?
Per haps. Hard work? DEF INITELY.
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Don’t let anyone ever tell you models don’t earn their keep. Over the years, the dizzying world of fashion modelling has seen its stars come and go, some burning brighter and longer than others, all reflecting the mood of the moment, the trend, that LOOK. These It Girls represent the changing face of fashion from boyish to curvaceous—and everything in between.—Kate Rae
CINDY CRAWFORD
CHERYL TIEGS
Contour by Getty Images Fresh-faced and bright-eyed, applepie models like Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford brought their unthreatening, wide smiles to magazines, posters and catalogues. Likeable, relatable and friendly, their safe, uncomplicated beauty made them hugely popular.—KR
CYBIL SHEPPERD
CHRISTY TURLINGTON
The Girls Next Door
OMAHYRA MOTA
ERIN O’CONNOR
Blurring the line between masculine and feminine, models like Agyness Deyn, Kristen McMenamy, Omahyra Mota and Erin O’Connor have proven that beauty doesn’t have to mean girly— and that a woman’s boyish good looks can be pretty entrancing.—KR
KRISTEN MCMENAMY
AGYNESS DEYN
The Androgynes
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STACEY MCKENZIE
ÉVE SALVAIL LAUREN HUTTON
The Unconventionals Lauren Hutton and her gap showed the world that imperfection can be perfect, and the trend never let up. They may not ever win a small-town beauty contest, but the slightly-odd but incredibly beguiling faces of girls like Ève Salvail and Stacey McKenzie captured huge fans—and made us question what beauty really is.—KR
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JAIME KING TWIGGY IRINA
The Waifs
KATE MOSS
Wide-eyed, flat-chested and slim-hipped, Twiggy heralded the arrival of the waif in ’60s London. Kate Moss, Jaime King and Irina—all pale skin, glazed raccoon eyes and razor sharp bones—brought about an edgier version of the trend.—KR
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LARA STONE
DARIA WERBOWY SOPHIE DAHL 204 FT25 faces
While it’s often decidedly un-fashionlike for models to actually have breasts, some, like the voluptuous Sophie Dahl, thankfully veer from the fashion dictum of “flat’s where it’s at.” Gisele Bündchen, Claudia Schiffer, Daria Werbowy, Tyra Banks, Lara Stone—all Victoria’s Secret models at one time or another— are living proof that buxom bombshells can still rule.—KR
GISELE BUNDCHEN
CLAUDIA SCHIFFER
TYRA BANKS
The Bombshells
COCO ROCHA
NAOMI CAMPBELL
ALEK WEK GISELE BUNDCHEN
The Do-Gooders LYDIA HEARST
This pack of models seem determined to erase the descriptors “shallow” and “self-absorbed” from the modelling handbook. Check out Gisele as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program, Alek Wek’s work in Sudan, Lydia Hearst helping out Operation Smile and Coco Rocha’s involvement with the Children’s Aid Society. Even bad-girl Naomi Campbell raised funds for Haiti.—KR
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LADY GAGA
SEAN COMBS AVRIL LAVIGNE
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE 206 FT25 faces
GWEN STEFANI
It’s impossible to extricate the influence of musicians on the world of fashion—Gwen Stefani, Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, among them. (And let’s not forget Sean Combs and Justin Timberlake.) Madonna had women everywhere bedecked in lace, Courtney Love had us all sporting baby-doll dresses, Avril inspired tweens to raid their dads’ closets and Lady Gaga reminds us all that sometimes fashion is meant to be admired and observed, and not necessarily adopted. And the list of model-singers just gets longer: Karen Elson, Carla Bruni, Mila Jovovich, Karen Mulder, among them.—KR
MADONNA
BEYONCÉ
CARLA BRUNI
COURTNEY LOVE
Music and Fashion
MILA JOVOVICH
Models-Slash-Actors
ELLEN DEGENERES
GWYNETH PALTROW
CAMERON DIAZ
Actors-Slash-Models Cashing in on their familiar and trusted faces, cosmetics companies are using celebrities to front their lines. While Ellen DeGeneres, Uma Thurman and Gwyneth Paltrow lend their names and faces to big-name brands, models can breathe easy: reports indicate that most designers would rather work with a professional model than a potentially temperamental actor.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;KR
ANGELINA JOLIE
UMA THURMAN
SHALOM HARLOW
Contour by Getty Images
Does pretty on the page translate to talented on the screen? It stands to reason that audiences would want to see their favourite beautiful faces made even larger, which is why Angelina Jolie, Cameron Diaz, Mila Jovovich and Shalom Harlow all became household names when they leapt from the glossy pages of magazines onto the silver screen.â&#x20AC;&#x201D;KR
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High Drama Just as one icon bids farewell, another is born. And just as the essence of style is hard to pin down, so is the next route it will take. Stay tuned for the next 25 years.
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Valentino courtesy of FashionTelevision Archives
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