Chloe Sevigny covers Candy as Terry Richardson

screen cap/luis venegas's vimeo

Candy, the world’s “first transversal style magazine”, frocked up model Luke Worrall and actor James Franco as women for the covers of its first and second issues. For its just-launched third issue, Candy has transformed actor Chloe Sevigny into a drag king – and in fact, in character as photographer Terry Richardson, with his trademark flannel shirt, glasses, sideburns and thumbs up. Having shot both the Worrall and Franco covers, presumably Richardson shot this one as well. Sevigny has more than a passing interest in the subject of transsexuality. She earned an Academy Award nomination as Lana Tisdel, the girlfriend of murdered transgender man Brandon Teena, in Kimberley Pierce’s 1999 film Boy’s Don’t Cry. She voiced the role of Andy Warhol’s male-to-female superstar Candy Darling in James Rasin’s 2010 documentary Beautiful Darling. And she recently shot a British television series called Hit & Miss, in which she plays a transgender Irish assassin. She also has some commonality with the controversial Richardson. Sevigny is in a minority of mainstream actors to have engaged in an unsimulated sex act in a film – Vincent Gallo’s 2003 Brown Bunny, in which she performed fellatio on co-star Gallo. Richardson has pushed the boundaries of pornography like no other in fashion - coming under fire for the alleged exploitation and degradation of some of his models in the process - and his personal work features a high volume of imagery of himself engaging in unsimulated sexual acts. Sevigny copped a lot of flak herself over Brown Bunny. So, lots to chat about during the cover shoot.

Gemma Ward impresses the critics and a new artist mate

the sunday telegraph

As a teenager Gemma Ward conquered the fashion world. Now 23, she is slowly making her mark in the film business, with her fourth film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, due for release on May 20th. But how does she shape up as a theatre performer? Not too shabbily, according to reviews of her stage debut in The Perth Theatre Compay’s production of The Ugly One, which premiered on March 22nd. “Ward does well on her stage debut and, to her credit, is better as the 73-year-old reconstructed cougar Fanny than as Lette's younger wife” says The West Australian’s David Zampatti; “It's impossible to ignore her international celebrity as a beauty but, while this perhaps adds an unintended extra layer to Von Mayenburg's text, it does it no harm”.

Death of a Hollywood icon

richard avedon

RIP Elizabeth Taylor.

"I'm obsessed with models" - Melissa George

Since departing these shores in the mid 1990s, following a three year stint playing Angel Brooks on Australian soap Home & Away, Melissa George has established herself as a queen of the US small screen. Notwithstanding a few features, notably Dark City, Mulholland Drive, The Amityville Horror and 30 Days of Night, George’s CV is replete with a score of American tv movies and series, including Roar, Murder Call, LA Confidential, Friends, Charmed, Alias, In Treatment and Grey’s Anatomy. Her latest small screen effort: Australian production The Slap, whose current filming schedule downunder facilitated her participation in last week’s L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival as the event’s official ambassador. Frockwriter caught up with George on Friday night – four years after we chatted to her backstage at New York Fashion Week. This time, she demonstrated that she is as much of an ambassador for the Argentinian fashion industry, as she is for its Australian equivalent, and offered a fascinating theory to explain the sudden proliferation of top Australian models - or at least those hailing from her native Perth. 

Sophie Lowe, Krew Boylan and co get down to basics for Marcs

Australian sportswear brand Marcs might have cool new Australian model Julia Nobis as its current advertising face, but when the company was looking for talent to embody its new ‘ICONS’ campaign, it opted for non professional models. Not that they’re exactly ordinary mortals (top to bottom): actors Sophie Lowe and Krew Boylan, Dank Street Depot chef Jared Ingersoll, meditation guru Gary Gorrow (brother of Ksubi co-founder George Gorrow), artist Tanya Linney and snowboarder Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin - who became Australia’s first snowboard champion on Tuesday after winning the snowboard cross world championship in La Molina, Spain. Shot by Stephen Ward, the campaign showcases six Marcs classics that have been in the Sydney brand’s repertoire since it was founded in 1979 by the late Mark Keighery: mens’ and womens’ V-neck T-shirts and button-down shirts, a mens’ round-neck T and a womens’ shirtwaister. Oz ski blogger Lorraine Lock had a preview of Pullin yesterday on Snow Blind, but here is a first look at the complete campaign and a video.