Tom and Rick

-Thanks to two anonymous commentators in this post, I was able to track down some new (to me at least) images of Freja taken by photographer Tom Munro. If anyone has any idea what project they are for, please enlighten us. To my knowledge this is the only time they have worked together and the shots appear to be test shots of some sort:

The thing that confuses me is that they were taken at a time during Freja's career when she wouldn't need to take any test shots. I'd place the images circa 2008 judging by the short hair. But they were categorized under "Beauty" on Tom's agency's site so maybe they were for a campaign somewhere....maybe in Asia? I'm just generally confused because I haven't seen the images until now, and if they were for some kind of campaign I think they would have been more well known.

Sorry for being so ignorant about these images, their origin and their purpose. I normally try not to post about something I can't fully credit and explain, but these shots are so interesting and quite unique in Freja's oeuvre that I just wanted to share. If you look at them long enough they're also quite freaky, and that only adds to their mystery.

-We know Freja is a fan of Rick Owens because she's sports one of his leather jackets in nearly every street style shot, but now it seems like Rick is a fan of Freja's too. Her face is decorating the front of one of his jersey t-shirts.

If any of you huge fans out there have an extra $200 lying around, feel free to knock yourself out. Sorry but I think my $200 will be better off being put towards acquiring anything from this collection. In particular, this complete look. A girl can dream right? I'm sure $200 would get me half of the belt.....

Anyway, not only are designers naming their designs after Freja, they're also putting her on their designs. I guess you know you've made it as a model when you can truly fill a closet with items bearing your name and face. Do you think Freja gets anything in return for her face being used like that? Maybe free leather jackets for life? If so, then I'll gladly lend my visage to Rick anytime.

Image Credits: managementartists.com, luisaviaroma.com via tFS member Psylocke

A Change in Perception

Something hit me yesterday when I noticed that Freja didn't re-book Rick Owens or Gareth Pugh this season. There's a change a foot and I think it's in the way people are perceiving her look. I get an overall sense that she's being styled more femininely this season when compared to the past 2-3 seasons. Does anyone else feel it too? And her first time appearance at shows like Anna Sui and Oscar de la Renta, and re-appearance at shows like Carolina Herrera seem to confirm my suspicions. Couple this with her absence at two of the most tough and androgynous shows and the notion is nearly inarguable. All of this is too much for coincidence.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled because I've talked about wanting this femininity to return numerous times. People forget that when Freja started out she wasn't all tough, broody and dressed in head to toe black. She was playful, full of levity and rocking some of the best feminine looks on the catwalks. It's nice to see that the industry is finally rediscovering this side of her after a few seasons of relegating her to the de rigueur androgynous model role.

But I have to wonder what caused this change in perception? It couldn't just be the hair, right? I refuse to believe that something as important as a model's image hinges on something as fleeting as the length of her hair. (Hmmm....but this is fashion after all--an industry based entirely on outward appearance.) Perhaps it's partly attributable to Meisel? When I think back to Freja's career over the past few seasons, these are the only two differences I detect that make this season different from the other ones. Anyway, just something interesting that I wanted to point out. Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

Rick Owens and Zombies

The two kind of seem to go hand in hand, no? But here I'm only putting them together arbitrarily for the sake of this post.

First of all, Freja is in Shanghai for the Chanel show. Can't you just hear the collective screams of girlish glee emanating from China? We only have a couple of backstage shots so far:

Interesting to note that Freja is sporting a real Rick Owens leather jacket now. The one she previously wore was done in the Rick Owens style, but it wasn't actually one. It could have been this Vince jacket, but I'm not sure. The differences are subtle but palpable once you see them side by side. I know a lot of people were getting their jackets confused, but Rick ones are very distinctive...at least to me.

I feel like every time we see Freja she's wearing something new but of course in black. Typical of her to change up her style yet simultaneously keep it the same. :) It's that balance that she seems to strike so well in her modeling, her personality and even in her street wear.

Secondly, if you've ever wanted to see what Zombie Freja would look like, check out the previews from Fashematic's new zine, Fashematical:

They took her Lanvin SS10 appearance as inspiration. According to the site, the zine is "a collection of illustrations reinterpreting the stars of the catwalk as part of either a horde of zombies or an army of robots, hell-bent on taking planet Earth for themselves."

I love when it when people can see the fun in fashion. After all, we can't all be serious all the time (That's something that I know I can be guilty of with my long, musing posts about Freja's place in the industry). I wonder how Freja would feel about her zombie rendering? Personally I find it cool and kind of flattering.

Anyway, after a little drought of news, it seems Freja is back in full force.

Image Credits: net-a-porter, saks, women.sohu.com, fashematics, style.it

Unusually Conventional, Conventionally Unusual

So I picked up the latest issue of Bon magazine, mostly so I could have this stunning Sara Blomqvist editorial. As I was flipping through the rest of the issue, an interview with Rick Owens caught my eye. I love designers interviews because I like getting informational nuggets about their inspiration, design process, and casting process especially. Much to my delight there was a whole bit about Rick's casting for shows and his views on the beauty of models working today.

What kind of models do you like for a show?
I have a casting director. And...casting directors sometimes have priorities that aren't mine. The fashion people will notice if you are using what are considered the best models in the business. And if you try doing anything too tricky with the models, it starts putting you into a territory of being like a young designer.
But I'm very happy usually. Because, I mean, among those people there are very wonderful, fantastic girls. And if you notice, I don't use girls that are that unusual. I use the same girls that Prada uses, that all of these people use. I just take all their make up off. Because I like to see just the skull. Cause they are like alien creatures already. When you see them without the make up and without the clothes and everything, or when I put them in my clothes, they are like these wonderful insects. They are just incredible. So I don't really have any complaints about them. I just take the make up off and turn them into Rick Owens girls.

You use a lot of models from the agency Supreme. Paul Rowland, the founder of the agency, describes their edgy, unconventional beauty as "intelligent". He means that you have to be smart to appreciate it. Do you agree?
Well, I think...The fashion world that we are working in is an extreme fashion world. We can't use conventional beauty because it has been done, and done, and done. It's impossible to be interested in conventional beauty when you reach the very sophisticated level of aesthetics that high fashion is. So you have to look for something else. And that's what's happened. We've created a beauty that's a little...It has to be inaccessible in order for it to be interesting. This is about creating a dream; it's about moving forward and experimenting and exploring. So yeah, in that context these girls have to be unusual, they have to be esoteric, they have to be exotic, they have to be special. And that moves beyond conventional beauty. So, you know, there's a place for conventional beauty, but high fashion is not it.

This part excerpted above was accompanied by the following picture of Freja...

...which got me to thinking. Where does Freja fit into this scheme of esoteric vs. conventional beauty? I've posited before that she's one of the few models who can so effortlessly navigate the extremes: high fashion/mass market, masculinity/femininity, and classic/contemporary. My initial thought was that she can do the same in this case; she can be either conventionally beautiful or unusually exquisite depending on the occasion and needs of her employer. However, after some careful thought I think that instead of embodying both qualities, Freja defines the aesthetic paradigm shift Rick talks about in the above quotes.

We have moved on from the conventional to the unusual; so much so that the unusual can seem like the conventional ironically enough. What I mean is that the parameters of beauty within the fashion industry have shifted so that the old notions of classic and conventional beauty are nearly obsolete. Like Rick said, they still have their place within our world but just not in high fashion.

Freja is hugely popular and widely considered to be one of the more naturally gorgeous models out there. Yet she is an unusual beauty. She has a very pronounced cupid's bow, strong and hard jawline, sharp nose and lots of visible tattoos. Set her in the 1950s and she would not be anyone's standard of beauty by any means. But in our modern times, she is conventional enough that brands like Gap and H&M have used her in campaigns that must appeal to the largest swath of people possible. She is a living, breathing, moving example of the fashion industry moving forward, pushing boundaries, experimenting and redefining the ways we measure beauty.

And so, when the unusual becomes the conventional, we start to see an emerging beauty that's more extreme that what we knew before. The recent proliferation of models like like Meghan Collision, Jaime Bochert, Ranya Mordanova, and the existence and mission statement of Supreme demonstrate this. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before we move even further to the left in terms of beauty (like we have started to do with Lindsey Wixson). Or perhaps, like fashion is oft to do, we will move cyclically back to old standards and norms. Regardless of what happens, I think Freja will always have a place because for once she's treading firmly in the middle of two extremes.