Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Exposed

So I was looking at the latest VMan #20 preview shots of Freja and Christian Brylle, and one thing stuck out to me. I guess the 1-2-3 punch of these images, the style.com video, and the Vogue Italia images have put nudity at the forefront of my mind, so I couldn't help but to notice a trend here with Freja's work. An inordinate amount of her recent editorials have featured prominent boobage (or lack thereof....however you want to consider it). Basically, I feel like I've been seeing topless Freja A LOT lately, and way more than usual. I'm not sure if this is actually the case, or if it's one of those things that just seems more prevalent the second you're acutely aware of it. You know how that goes; someone mentions pumpkin ravioli to you for the first time, and suddenly everywhere you go you see pumpkin ravioli on every menu, on every food program, in every magazine. What do you call this phenomenon? The sudden proliferation of otherwise unknown concepts? The sudden realization of dormant ideas?




Anyway, I digress. Back to the boobs. I decided to do some good old fashion counting and break it down by the numbers. Here is my not so scientific method. I broke the year into two segments: January through June, and July through December. Then I counted how many times Freja appeared topless/exposed her breasts in editorials that fell within those respective months. Simple as that. I didn't count covers or reprints, and I counted the June/July issue of VP twice. This gives us the Freja exposure rate:

January - June: 3 out of 19 (15.79% exposure rate)

vs.

July - December: 8 out of 18 (44.44% exposure rate)

So I wasn't being crazy and just imagining things. Freja has been more exposed recently. In the first half of the year, we only had Vogue-a-Porter, Purple Naked, and In Grande Stile. In the second half of the year we had Winter Before Winter, Modern Love, Poetics of Body, Rolling Stone Hot List, La Geisha, Temps Libre, Venus in Furs, and Patti + Robert. Notably, the last five editorials came within the past three months. That high level of concentration suggests we've reached the nudity critical mass.

As for the significance of my findings, I really have no idea of their potential significance or reverberations for the scientific...er, I mean fashion community. Perhaps nudity is a trend that comes and goes just like all other trends in fashion: plaid shirts, biker jackets, clogs, camel coats, nudity. Perhaps Vogue Paris is behind all of this, as Freja's exposure rate did increase in tandem with her appearance rate in VP's pages. And we all know how VP loves a good measure of breast. We may never know the exact cause, but the effects are more measurable in terms of fan reaction. Speaking only for myself as a fan, I find all of this nudity to be tiring. But then again, I get tired of things pretty quickly. (I have no idea how I've been able to run this blog for so long. It's literally a miracle.) Heck, give me Freja in three feminine editorials in a row and I'll be calling for the androgyny faster than you can say "tomboy with 16 tattoos." Freja has great range and I would just like to see it utilized more.

I hope you know this post was written with tongue firmly in cheek. I thought it would be pretty obvious, but with the internet you never know. Sometimes you have to spell out things like sarcasm and jest because they don't come across very well in blog form. So......s-a-r-c-a-s-m and j-e-s-t. There, that should make it pretty clear so don't be sending me hate mail about how I'm biased against nudity or something. Because I'm most certainly not. But I am looking forward to seeing Freja model some clothes for once. :)

Image Credits: designscene.net

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are very funny! No disclaimer necessary!;)

Stupendous Tremendous said...

i mentioned this toplessness as a comment in one your recent posts, and was one of the reasons why i wasnt entirely sold on the new Italian Vogue cover/story, because not only have i seen sooooo much nudity in fashion lately (i thought fashion was about clothes and style...), i felt like Freja gets so many topless jobs and i guess i feel almost abit protective of her, like people are taking advantage of her 'androgyny' and small chest/ 'boyishness', and it just feels lazy. not on her part, because it's work for her, but for photographers, stylists etc. surely they could do MORE?

yantomycin said...

HAHAHAHA....love your post...its so funny and informative as usual. But i agree with u tho, too many good thing can be a bad thing. I hope that make sense.

tatiana said...

freja looks better with clothes on. seriously, she looks too thin.

Annika said...

Hahhaaha Rrose, too good. And I agree, we know she has incredible range! A shame to see the same thing over and over. Though I do like this editorial. She's a perfect Patti Smith.

Anonymous said...

^ x2.

I mean we all love her thin, lean body, and I know she was always skinny even when she started in the industry.

But in the last few seasons it's just a bit much, and her body doesn't look healthy anymore. You notice it in her face, too.

It's sad, because you know her body "is capable" to gain a few pounds. Just remember the SS09 shows, a pretty big difference. Especially in the Hope Show in Stockholm. http://forums.thefashionspot.com/f52/freja-beha-erichsen-march-2005-january-2009-a-23414-951.html#post4669296

Maybe you should make an entry in your blog about this with your opinion....

Mona Lisa Overdrive said...

I thought this was no longer a taboo subject in our society? Generation Y has a very progressive outlook on female nudity and so to me this is a non issue. The fact that nudity still elicits, in some segments of our society, a sort of juvenile mockery with puritanical undertones tells me that we still have a long way to go. Humans should not be ashamed of their sexuality. Society would be better served if people refrained from drawing unnecessary attention to this in the form of satirical criticism.

What stood out the most in this editorial was not Freja's breasts, but Christian Brylle's amateur photography. These photos are good but they bear the mark of someone who is not adept at capturing the spirit of a scene. Everything from the blocking, styling, framing, and posing seems off. It comes across as contrived.

Stupendous Tremendous said...

Mona Lisa Overdrive, thats a very interesting and valid point you make. however i think personally, my problem is that generally i spend a meal's money on a fashion/style magazine, that yes, lasts forever, or as long as i want it, but at the same time, i dont see as much of it as i'd like. i find it quite disappointing coming from an industry which revolves around clothes and how wonderful they can be.

Stupendous Tremendous said...

Mona Lisa Overdrive, thats a very interesting and valid point you make. however i think personally, my problem is that generally i spend a meal's money on a fashion/style magazine, that yes, lasts forever, or as long as i want it, but at the same time, i dont see as much of it as i'd like. i find it quite disappointing coming from an industry which revolves around clothes and how wonderful they can be.

Rrose Sélavy said...

@ MLO: Relax....just trying to have some fun. Geez. I get panned when I'm serious, panned when I'm not. The whole point was to show the random trend of more nudity in Freja's work. Didn't want people to think I was being a prude, thus the "juvenile mockery" as you so called it. But I guess even if I literally spell things out, people will always find a reason to criticize....oh well!

Mona Lisa Overdrive said...

@Rrose: You know I love you rose. I don't mean to be overtly critical all the time, but I like to enrich the topic at hand by bringing a different perspective. Never do I mean to hurt or to be contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian. Your blog in an inspiration to me in words you cannot describe. I've really enjoyed reading your prose and greatly admire the way in which you approach your craft with such wit and intellect.(^_^) *Hugs*

balletomane3 said...

As a hetero man, it is no surprise that I like some nudity in fashion magazines. I hope for it even. I was pretty thrilled to find nudes of Lara Stone even up to as recently as the newish Industrie fashion magazine.

Nudity shows up in many of the fashion magazines these days. Russh, Paris Vogue, V, etc. I sometimes wonder if this is because of websites such as met-art dot com where many of the worlds most beautiful women show up all nude / all of the time. Who knows?

So, I was also thrilled to see Freja completely nude. Actually, I was surprised to see how much was exposed. But I liked it.

However, I will say that I love fashion magazines because of the fashion and the amazing creativity of the photo shoots. They are like stepping into another magical world sort of like the visually gorgeous and recent Alice in Wonderland movie.

Fashion magazines dress the female figure in a way that is much more interesting than looking through a boring Playboy or Penthouse magazine. And guy magazines such as Maxim with their lingerie photo shoots of all of the major movie / music stars are also dull and unimaginative.

I think that Freja still has more photos of her in clothes than semi-nude or fully nude.