Tom Ford's Return

Early Sunday night Freja had the tremendous honor and privilege of modeling in arguably the most significant show held in New York this season. Tom Ford made his much anticipated return to womenswear by debuting a small collection to a select group of guests. The list of women enlisted to model in the show is amazing and diverse by usual fashion standards: Caroline Murphy, Daria, Natalia, and Karen to name a few of the established models. Abbey, Liu, and Joan to name a few of the newer faces. Julianne Moore, Beyonce and Rita Wilson to name some celebrities. Notice how these women represent a good range of age, race and body types. Quite a departure from the usual demographics of your typical fashion presentation/show.

Apparently, photographs won't be released until January. And only one photographer, Terry Richardson, was allowed to take pictures during the event (I'll hold my tongue here). Tom Ford himself introduced each model and the piece she was wearing. All who participated were women who "inspired him." To give you an idea of how big this event was, Beyonce decided to forgo the VMA's in order to model for Ford. Can you say, whoa.

What a special event for Freja to be a part of. And maybe not that surprising considering she is the current face of Tom Ford Eyewear. Ford is most definitely known for his glamorous femininity, so it makes me happy to know that Freja isn't considered to be too masculine/edgy/tomboyish/androgynous/insert whatever other adjective that's commonly used to describer her here. I always thought that if Ford had still been designing when Freja first started modeling, she would have been perfect for the image he was projecting and he would have definitely used her. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, New York is going incredibly well for Freja. She's averaging only one show per day, but she's making that show count. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the week and the rest of the cities bring. If things continue on...I think Freja will be on pace to match or even break her tally of openings and closings from last season.

Hello New York

Freja's first show of the season and first show in New York was Rag & Bone, where she did the honors of opening. Guess she's making up for missing the show last season due to illness or something of that nature.

Rag & Bone recently debuted a short documentary film directed by R. J. Cutler (of The September Issue fame) about their F/W 10.11 show held last February. In the film you can clearly see Freja's showcard on their model board, meaning she was most definitely slated to walk.

And all of the other models shown in the above screen cap definitely walked the show. But as we already established from the Hexa by Kuho behind the scenes videos, Freja was out sick. What's past is past, but it's always nice to know what really happened. There are so many unpredictable factors that sometimes it just feels good to be able to get a hold of one old mystery. :)

Anyway, Freja is definitely on the runways of NY but this time she's also out celebrating on its streets. She made an appearance last night at Karl's Chanel dinner feting the re-opening of the Chanel Soho Boutique, just like I hoped she would. Wearing her usual all-black ensemble, Freja looked a bit out of place among the other models who were dressed up in their very best dresses. But hey, would you expect anything else from Freja? Gotta hand it to her....she's consistent and loyal when it comes to her sartorial choices. An old interview she did comes to my mind, where she said that as a young girl she only wore one outfit consisting of Wrangler jeans and white tees. I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. ;)

New York is well on it's way so enjoy the shows! And have a great Fashion's Night Out!

Image Credits: vogue.it, style.it

Candids and Spy Cams

Candid pictures of Freja at fashion events are few and far between, so I just had to post this one I came across in the September 2009 issue of Interview Magazine. It was taken by Derek Blasberg back in July when Freja was in Venice for the Chanel Cruise collection. We saw another picture from the after party, but this one features Lara in addition to Freja and Heidi.

(Full page)

(Cropped version)

Talk about deadly stares...if looks could kill, these would definitely do the job. :)

And speaking of Chanel, you have to watch this video from the SS10 collection. Freja isn't in it, but it's the most interesting and entertaining 4 minutes I've seen in a long time. They put a hidden camera in the hair of model Nastya Karzan, and through this you get to see what it's like to be backstage amid all the craziness. I just love the contrast between the discombobulated flurry of activity behind the runway and then the organized composure of the crowd in front of the runway. Two very different sides to the same coin right?

I also love how small everything seems from Nastya's perspective. This is such a great idea that I'm surprised we haven't seen it done sooner. Leave it to Karl...no matter how bizarre he seems sometimes, he always manages to push the boundaries.

Black is the new.......black

During this past week, on October 20th to be exact, Freja made a rare appearance at the opening party for Mobile Art: CHANEL Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid held in NY's Central Park. Dressed in black from head to toe and accompanied by friend and fellow model Catherine McNeil, Freja is the epitome of androgynous chic. Both models look great and I can't help but wonder if they coordinated their outfits considering the matching blazers and all black motif. However, Freja stands out for her attention to detail. Check out the hardware flourishes on her blazer, echoed by the detail on her boots. Bonus points for the sexy, mussed up hair. Factor in the smile and dimple in the first picture and she is just perfection!

Freja usually doesn't attend events and parties like this, so her appearance intrigues me. Maybe she's there just to support Karl. Or maybe Karl asked her to come because he has something else in store for her (*cough*campaign*cough*). I can only dream. Maybe she's a lover of contemporary art, and if so, she's definitely a girl after my own heart. Maybe she just showed up for the Hercules and Love Affair performance. The following excerpt from blackbookmag.com would lead me to believe the last reason is most likely, as we all know Freja has a love of music:

Then there was Zaha Hadid in metallic leggings, plus Zac Posen and a slew of stunning models (of which Freja Beha was by far the closest to the stage, and seemingly most stoked for the show). The performance flirted with the raucous but leaned more towards refined. It was Chanel after all.

Nevertheless, this rare sighting tells us that Freja was in NY this past week. Was she in town just for this particular event? Did she have a job shoot? Does she live in NY now? Who knows? I always thought she lived in Copenhagen because she said she bought an apartment there in one of her FTV backstage interviews. But that interview was from an old season. It seems like she has been popping up in NY quite a bit recently. Just some food for thought.