If There's A Chance She'll Break, She's Gonna Smash It To Pieces

Hi pretty people! Please accept my deepest apologies for being absent lately, university can be a witch of a different letter. I advise you all to rethink that extremely snarky email you write to a teaching assistant that falsely accuses you of plagiarizing yourself. Though hilarious in its witticisms and wordplay, it may not come off as endearing to some individuals.

This is a roundabout way of telling you that I will be addressing my inbox of praise, marriage proposals, and vicious spam over the holidays with sugar, spice, and/or bitchy delights. Happy farking Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

More importantly, these last couple of weeks have been oddly eventful for Freja, with the announcement of three campaigns and a couple other odds and ends. First up was an appearance in V Magazine's model issue (aka #74, Winter 2011). She was shot by Terry Richardson for the spread, and then cropped into the shot by means of photo shop. Not the most artistic of endeavours, but they put her beside Daria, which is almost too much gorgeous northern starry-ness to handle at once.

We also have a collection of the photos Terry took of Freja for this shoot, courtesy of the man's insistence on documenting every moment he spends with anybody awesome, which is just about everybody he spends moments with. Say what you want about his morals and ethics, but that's one thing that we can be thankful for. (Dear Lady Gaga, I hope you can see how very hard I am trying here. Like really trying.)

Yeah, so that happened, and the Europeans were like "yeh yeh yeh...", and the Americans were like "Gaga, pass the cranberry sauce," and then everyone was like "FREJA HAS BREAST CANCER! THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!". And I, sitting at my computer reading emails in a place that looks a lot like Sweden, just with snow, decided that Freja fans had officially won the Non Sequitur of the Century Award, narrowly beating out everything Jo Thornley has ever said. I mean seriously you guys, what the fuck.

All of this was spurred on by what should have been like really happy news, being the reveal of paparazzi photos of Freja and Arizona Muse in matching Chloe dresses somewhere in California, which was later identified as a shoot for the French fashion house's spring 2012 campaign. But you know, it was an honest mistake by worried fans, so don't worry about this time too much. Just keep in mind that the moment you believe one rumour, the less likely you are to see the next one coming on the horizon.

The moral of this story is that Freja has armpits and a Chloe campaign, not mammogram scars.

So getting back to important business, what do we think about Freja bagging Chloe? Any Sigrid fans totally pissed off? While I commiserate with my second favorite Frenchie, I'm pleased that Freja has gotten another Chloe campaign: she's always been able to carry off the minimalist 70s look rather charmingly.

Finally, we also learned that Freja will be starring in the S/S 2012 campaign for HUGO by Hugo Boss! All that has been released thus far is a solitary photo of her playing at 30 seconds with Sean O'Pry, but there will surely be more along shortly with the German fashion darlings being so promotionally driven.

Well, that's it for now, but I'm sure I'll be back with more news in a mo... If you're feeling  particularly bored between this and the next post, you can play "I spy with my bionic eye something referring to Melanie C" with this post. In the meantime, I hope you all have an excellent Christmakah/Ramadan/Kawanza/Festivus/etc!

Peace, love (actually), and floating,
Gill Ford

P.S.: Hats off to Atlantic Canada for being an excellent Christmas destination. City of Lakes for the win!

Photos courtesy of models.com, terrysdiary, and tFS user Bigmax


* "Think About It" is the lead single from Melanie C's fifth studio album, The Sea, just released the past September. Written and recorded in Copenhagen, it probs would have been even more successful if she released the remixed version (a la "I Turn To You"), but we love the Katy Perry-esque track anyway. The Sea has been quite well received by critics, and is probably one of her better records to date. You should buy it. Not just because it's great, but because Mel is an absolute sweetheart, and we were BFFs at a German airport once in 2007. Sometimes, I'm jealous of me too.

Freja by Hedi

It's no secret that a lot of Freja's recent work seems lackluster to me. This editorial is really no different. I don't love, I don't hate it, I just.....see it. One thing I am thrilled about is that Freja finally got the chance to work with Hedi Slimane. But maybe finding out that he shot this before I actually saw the final product was setting me up for disappointment. I was hoping the editorial would turn out to be something more like Hedi's Girls, but instead we got Freja half naked in a weird looking, blond wig.

Temps libre
Vogue Paris November 2010
Ph: Hedi Slimane
Styling: Carine Roitfeld

If you haven't noticed by now, I have a tendency to let very small, aesthetic features on the surface determine my like or dislike for an editorial. For all the analysis and serious thought I profess to do on this blog, I can be quite shallow. One of the main reasons I hate "Think Punk"? The hair. One of the main reasons I don't really like this editorial? The hair. (Though I will say that Freja's posing here is pretty exquisite and beautiful.) This shallowness is not something I'm proud of, but at least I recognize it and I'm not afraid to admit it. After all (and maybe we don't like to admit it) shallowness is a characteristic pervasive throughout all of fashion....and perhaps it's also a characteristic that largely defines it.

It's probably not very fair of me to compare this to Hedi's Girls, because that editorial signifies so much for me. It was one of the earlier ones that really affected me and made me see the beauty of the human body and made me take fashion photography seriously. It basically sealed the deal in regards to my love for fashion and models like Daria and Raquel. I was following fashion before it, but after it I was really following fashion.

Anyway, I was talking with a friend about my recent apathy and she made some really good points that I'm going to sum up here. Let me make this clear: I don't like that I feel so apathetic and I don't want to feel this way. Freja is my favorite model and I've been running this blog for two years now. Apathy is not a good thing to feel if you're in my position. After expressing these worries, this is what my friend had to say, in a nutshell. Back when Freja wasn't working so much, each editorial that she had felt so special and amazing because they were so few and far between. I loved and appreciated them so much because I was just happy to see new work from her. But this year Freja has been working a ton, and it's hard to keep up that level of excitement and wonder when she's putting out new work practically every week. To be honest, it gets downright exhausting, and everything starts to blend into each other because there's just so much of it.

I feel like such a little punk complaining about all the work Freja gets....lol. It's like the so-called plight of the rich; complaining about problems only rich people have, while the majority of the population is just getting by. I'm sure Snejana fans would love it if she had even 1/8 of the amount of work Freja is getting right now....hehehe. Any model would be lucky to have the career that Freja has, and any fan would be over the moon if their favorite model was as successful as Freja is. But perhaps it's just human nature to never be satisfied, even if things are going your way 100%. Or maybe it's just my nature? I don't know. If anyone else has similar feelings please do speak up.

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Also, in case you didn't know Freja has another editorial in this issue of Vogue Paris. But in lieu of posting the ed and promoting the photographer, I'm going to leave you with this instead. (Be sure to click and enlarge the image so you can read the text.)

If this controversy is enough of a cultural zeitgeist that people who draw comics recognize and incorporate it, that's definitely saying something. The fashion industry should be utterly ashamed. People completely unrelated to and outside the industry feel the need to address this issue, while everyone within continues to ignore it. Yeah, that's bullshit. This is just one of the many things I hate about fashion, in addition to it's failure to deal with questions of racism on the runway, eating disorders in it's models, and the legal age limits of its newfaces. I also hate that despite all of this, I still follow fashion and can't seem to stop. Makes me feel so guilty and complicit to horrible things I would not put up with in other arenas of life. :( If you want to see the editorial, you can find it on tFS.

Image Credits: scans by tFS member Valentine27, ontd via racked.com

Beliefs vs. Fashion

The Untold Crime
Vogue Nippon August 2010
Ph: Terry Richardson
Styling: George Cortina

It's taken me a long time to write about this editorial, mainly because I didn't know how to approach it. Sure the styling is great, Freja looks beautiful and overall the story is aesthetically pleasing, but it's shot by Terry Richardson. How can I reconcile my dislike for him with the fact that I'm essentially promoting his work every time I post it on this blog? And yet, I can't ignore his work with Freja because lately it's become a big part of her career (much to my dismay). Her last two editorials have been shot by Terry, and since she seems to be a new Vogue Paris "it" girl, you can bet that a lot more of her future work will be shot by Terry as well. As a blog that purports to be about Freja's work and her place within the industry, I can't ignore this aspect of it as much as I want to.

But hey, doesn't one of life's greatest lessons teach us that ignoring problems won't make them go away? So despite my extremely conflicted feelings I'm going to address this editorial and why I think it's existence is so problematic and so emblematic of the negative aspects of the fashion industry today. Now before you harp on me for being overly sensitive, prudish, extremist or whatever else you want to call me, you should know a few things about what I believe:

-The work that someone produces (no matter how good) should never be used to justify his harmful actions. I don't believe in compartmentalizing or creating a separation between the two because that can lead to a very slippery slope. Let me put it another way--would you excuse a priest who has sexually molested a boy just because of the work he does in his church? In this case would you ever create that separation? So even if I like how this editorial looks, I feel that to concede to it would essentially be to condone Terry.

-There is already an inherent power imbalance in the photographer/subject relationship made all the more worse by those who think they can sexually coerce others in the name of their "art." Our apologetic society, when faced with these issues of sexual impropriety, tends to blame the victims instead of force the perpetrators to take responsibility for their actions.

-Basic human rights and values should take precedence over all else, pretty editorials and fashion products included. Nothing can justify the degradation and exploitation of another human being. And as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, but it's not worth basic human dignity and decency.

-Just because something is commonly done among a group of people doesn't make it right. Nor does it give us the right to apathetically accept their actions as the status quo. If people throughout history had thrown up their hands in defeat whenever they were faced with rampant injustice, the world would be a much different place. I've heard so many times that Terry isn't the only photographer with a questionable work approach. But you know what? He's the most obvious and prominent offender with plenty of accusations stacking up against him and a body of work that shows it. If nothing can be done about him then the fashion industry is facing bigger problems than declining sales figures and pinched bottom lines.

I'm well aware that I'm not in any position of authority here. I exist outside the fashion industry and this blog exists on the very periphery of the fashion landscape. Most of the time I feel very guilty and hypocritical for consuming as much fashion as I do. I don't even know how many people are actually going to read this whole post. Maybe a handful of you if I'm lucky? My attempts to keep this issue from disappearing seem futile, but I would feel even worse if I didn't even try to say something about how disappointed I am that Terry continues to work for high profile clients despite everything that has transpired. Way to go fashion! Way to have a backbone and stand up in solidarity with the women you profess to love and empower! Oh wait....

To top it all off, it seems like Terry has toned down his aesthetic in order to appease the situation. This editorial (and also the last one he shot for W magazine) is decidedly less provocative than the work he was doing prior to the accusations. Hmmmm....I do believe this is intentional. In the same vein of him taking down certain pictures from his blog immediately after the clamor over his scandal erupted, I can't help but think that Terry is toning down his work to placate naysayers. And sadly, it seems to be working. After all, his work is back in the pages of W Magazine after a long hiatus, and general consensus about this editorial seems to be positive. It's as if everyone has already forgotten that the scandal even happened.

Well I'm not ready to forgive and forget just because Terry took some good pictures. But it's so disheartening to realize that nothing will ever be done, and that he will continue on without suffering any consequences. Instead of facing the issue and taking action, the industry at large (minus bloggers) has ignored allegations against Terry. In fact, it feels like they've rewarded him in a way. His work is showing up again in a mainstream publication that he's been banned from for many years (Stefano Tonchi, if this is the direction you're going to take W magazine in, I wish you would have just stayed at T.) And his fashion friends have been doing damage control by coming out and making statements to the effect that he isn't a bad guy. Now people have stopped talking about the issue as well. If we aren't the ones to make a big deal out of this and if we can't even create a sustained dialogue, then there's no reason for magazines and designers to stop working with Terry. There's no reason for anyone to make him face the consequences of his actions because no one is holding him accountable.

When I'm faced with inevitabilities like this I begin to understand why so many people eschew fashion because to them it seems superficial, petty and harmful. We turn our heads and pretend problems don't exist, just so collections and magazine issues get released on time. Underage models? Sweatshop labor? Sexual abuse? Unhealthy body expectations? All of those things are swept under the rug. At most they're posted about on blogs and treated like a water cooler topic among fans, but nothing is ever really done. These problems are pervasive and so deeply entrenched into the very fabric of what makes fashion, fashion.

And it's pretty evident to me why serious discourse around these social and political issues is nearly non-existent. The majority of fashion followers don't want to infuse this seriousness into something they regard as an indulgence and an escape. Either that, or they're just too afraid to speak up, too jaded to care, or just too enthralled with the glamorous side of things (like I once was) to even see the grit underneath. I can also understand that no one wants to bite the hand that feeds them. If I worked in the industry and my paycheck came from fashion, would I think differently about all of this? Would I stop trying to make this an issue? I would really like to think not and say that nothing could cause me to compromise my beliefs. But I guess you never really know until you're actually put in that situation.

Anyway, I know that this post isn't what most of you want to see or read on a Freja blog. But sometimes there are just more pressing matters at hand than how our favorite model looks in her newest editorial. I hope you understand. And for the sake of fashion's future, I really hope with all my heart that something will be done about Terry eventually. But I'm not holding my breath.

Image Credits: scans by tFS member MAGstyle

The Birds

Tom Ford Eyewear F/W 10.11
Ph: Tom Ford
Other Models: Nicholas Hoult

Now that the full campaign has been released, you can see why Ford went with a model like Freja this season. The eccentric, yet gorgeous qualities of her face perfectly mirror the dichotomy contained within the campaign images. There's a dialogue (and maybe even struggle) between maliciousness and absurd camp. The ravens are clearly meant to be a threatening element. Anyone who has seen Hitchcock's The Birds can attest to that.

Yet the facial expressions of both Freja and Nicholas betray, and even embrace the menacing aspect of their surroundings. "Why yes, birds are about to peck my body but I'll just act like they're nothing more than some harmless butterflies. And look! I'm even going to kiss one. Nevermind that another one just tried to eat my nipple."

Freja is just the type of model to carry this off. She's gorgeous no doubt (as 5 years in the industry and countless campaigns and eyewear ads can attest), but she's also quirky enough that she's not just another boring, beautiful face. There's an intelligence in her look that some people often write off because they just can't comprehend it. Or maybe they've only ever known Freja as the androgynous, tomboy model so they can't look past thair narrow way of thinking. Yet, all of the work she's done for the past year or so has countered that old image of herself, and some people still won't see her as anything more than the androgynous one. Sigh. I guess that's the power of having a unique image while all your peers kind of blend into one big blond hair, blue eyed Eastern European mass. But I digress...

The campaign aesthetic is a bit unexpected, but overall the images still retain some of the glamor we've come to associated with Ford's name. Chalk it up to the styling and dark, moody nature of the setting. All of this sure makes for one memorable campaign. I have a feeling that people are either going to love this or hate it, but one thing they won't feel is apathy. You have to love that about Tom Ford and his campaigns, for they always push boundaries. And in the cautiously recovering economic climate, isn't that a good thing? Isn't passion the one thing that all designers are trying to ignite in their customer base and the general public?

Image Credits: tomford.com, thepassionatemoviegoer.blogspot.com, best-horror-movies.com

Follow Up

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Chalk it up to a holiday weekend here in the states, lack of new Freja news, and the fact that I think I've been a bit paralyzed by the attention my post on Terry Richardson has received. Since I know most people visiting this blog are here for the Freja news, I really thought my thoughts on the whole scandal would slip by relatively unnoticed. Not to mention this blog only occupies a very, very tiny corner of the internet and the fashion consciousness. Though it didn't matter to me because I just wanted to get it all off my chest and I'm glad I did. I was furious then and I still am now, but I'm so happy that I'm not alone in my feelings. Far from it actually. Reading the comments on that post is both extremely illuminating and encouraging. So thank you to everyone for your insights and willingness to speak out and be heard. (If you feel strongly about this issue at all, I definitely recommend that you read those comments. You won't be disappointed.)

All of this has shown me that people are still really uncomfortable with the fact that Terry continues to work for major fashion publications without suffering any consequences for his actions. So hopefully we can take our discomfort and disgust and turn it into positive actions and results. With such well known, far-reaching bloggers like Jenna at Jezebel and Tavi continuing in their unrelenting and inspiring ways, and places like models.com and Racked NY willing to highlight the blogging debate, I'm hopeful that we can enact some change.

If you ever feel strongly about an issue, take a chance, be honest and express yourself. You never know who's reading your words. The internet is so powerful (and scary) that way. Anyway, regular Freja posts will return soon. We have new ad campaigns to look forward to (Chanel, Max Mara and Balencaiga) and Paris Haute Couture shows happening July 5th through the 8th. It's been pretty quiet recently, but I'm hoping that it's just because it's the start of the slow summer season.

Musings on a Scandal

I debated on whether or not to even blog about this, but it's something that I do want to address. I love fashion a lot, but that doesn't make me blind to the negative aspects of it. The sexual exploitation and power imbalance that can define the relationship of photographer to subject, with the whole scandal around Terry Richardson being the most recent and high-profile example, cause a lot of conflict for me. How can an industry that purports to celebrate the female form and allow women to express their creativity and individuality also allow a man like Terry Richardson to continue working?

The exploitation maybe isn't as obvious the higher up you go in the modeling world, but that doesn't mean it's nonexistent at other levels, and to go on pretending that it is does no service to anyone. I've held my tongue before but this time I want to make my feelings known.

Collection Privee
Vogue Paris June/July 2010
Ph: Terry Richardson
Styling: Carine Roitfeld
Other Models: Lara Stone

This editorial is lazy, flat and trite with a recycled aesthetic to boot. Was there any effort put into this at all? Because it sure doesn't look like there was. And to even have Lara and Freja mimic Terry's personal trademarks (thumbs up, aviators, wide grin) is absolutely distasteful in my opinion. To be honest, I'm just really disgusted. Not because of what the images look like, but because of who's behind them. For this is a case where I can't separate my feelings out and even attempt to look at this editorial objectively. For me, the scandal and subsequent inaction that has been taken towards Terry have left a very bad taste in my mouth. (How can there be no consequences for his actions? Why are women like Anna, Carine and DvF still working with him? What message is this sending to other photographers and models? What message is this sending to young teens?) From now on, the way I regard any of Terry's work will always be negatively colored. Freja's presence in this editorial isn't even a little bit of a saving grace. In fact, I really hate that she's working with Terry a lot more now than she ever was before. She appears to be such a strong individual that it's disheartening to see her working with such a weak one. And to see her even purposely taking on his persona (like in the 9th picture) is just a slap in the face.

And all the people coming to Terry's defense and making up excuses for his behavior just show me how easy it is to turn a blind eye to the truth when it's beneficial to your own self. It shows me how easy it is to maintain the comfortable status quo instead of enacting change. It shows me how hard and risky it is to actually have the courage to speak out against disgusting actions performed by people in positions of power; for inevitably the judgment, scrutiny and blame will unjustly fall back on the victims. It also makes me realize that the job I do in my day to day life, and the industry that I work in are still as needed as ever in the world today. Perhaps even more so because many people now operate under the assumption that everything and everyone is equal, and that we live in a post-modernist, post-racialist, post-feminist, post-whatever other "ist" you can think of world. Well, clearly we don't.....complacency can be a dangerous thing.

I think Tavi said it best and better than I ever could, and no I'm definitely not afraid to admit when a 14(?) year old is more eloquent than I am. You can agree or disagree, you can tell me I'm overreacting, you can call me a typical American prude (even though I'm not objecting to sexualized photography or nudity, just the impetus behind it), you can say whatever you want to say but nothing can change the way I feel about Terry and consequently, his work.

Nevertheless, I do feel guilty for indulging in fashion as a whole when I know that this Terry situation isn't the first, nor is it an isolated, case. After all, aren't I being complicit simply due to the fact that I consume these images? I do feel like a huge hypocritical ass sometimes, but at least I can recognize and admit that. That's something, right? And maybe I'm no better for merely acknowledging it and then moving on and really doing nothing about it. But that's a battle I'll continue to have with myself (rather than attempt to further play out so poorly on this blog). So this will probably be the last time I do a post about Terry's work with Freja, assuming that they work together again. And for the time being I'll just try to focus on all the good that comes from fashion, but I'll still make sure that I'm at least aware of all the bad.

If you've read this all, thank you for indulging me.....I'll step down from my soapbox now.

Image Credits: Scanned by tFS member Valentine27