Lara Stone rocks it out with Myles Crosby and Steven Klein for Calvin Klein Jeans FW1213

The US might be in the grips of a record heatwave but the Fall/Winter campaigns keep on rolling out. Today, American sportswear icon Calvin Klein unveils five new campaigns for the upcoming winter season. Here is a first look at the Calvin Klein Jeans campaign that was shot by Steven Klein and stars world number one model, Lara Stone - the face of Calvin Klein for the past two years - alongside American Myles Crosby, in his second season with the company. All the campaigns were shot in New York under the creative direction of CRK, Calvin Klein Inc's in-house ad agency, in tandem with consultant creative director Fabien Baron. Go the metallics.  

Bulgari's lion queen

How does Italian jeweller Bulgari top campaigns starring naked Julianne Moore alongside a sulphur-crested cockatoo and the next season, some adorable lion cubs? With a campaign for the company's brand new Mon Jasmin Noir fragrance starring another naked American actor, Kirsten Dunst, opposite... a full-grown lion. Behold what frockwriter understands is an exclusive preview of Bulgari's Mon Jasmin Noir campaign that is being released later today. It was shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott at Villa Balbianello in the exquisite Lake Como region just outside of Milan. Working alongside lion cubs is one thing, but even with the behind-the-scenes imagery (below), we're not convinced that Dunst happily nestled snugly against a real lion and/or that Mert + Marcus managed to get both it and Dunst to 'love the camera' at the same moment - and that's it's not a Photoshop mashup. Then again, Dunst is an old hand with big cats. Some movie sites list her as the voice of young Nala in Disney's 1994 animated feature The Lion King (IMDB has Nikete Calame voicing the role). The following year, she co-starred in Jumanji, opposite Robin Williams and some scary - albeit computer-generated - lions. 

Portmans takes Abbey Lee Kershaw back to her roots, taps Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and Louise Roe to boot

While frockwriter noted that Abbey Lee Kershaw had signed on as the autumn/winter 2011 face of Australian high street chain Portmans, we haven’t touched the story in the interim because well, images of the Nicole Bentley-shot campaign have pretty much been everywhere since its January 27th launch. But here’s something that caught our attention: a sneak peek at Portmans' secret second winter shoot that Kershaw has just done in New York, this time with a US team headed up by photographer Matt Jones. Same stylist, however, Harpers Bazaar Australia fashion editor Christine Centenera (which just goes to show that it’s not only in Paris where salaried magazine staff moonlight as stylists on the campaigns of advertisers). And miraculously, Kershaw is rocking her original long-haired coiffure in these images: mousey blonde, with pastel highlights and bangs. A Portmans rep assures us that this is merely a wig and that Kershaw - who, as we first reported, is ditching New York Fashion Week to appear with her boyfriend’s band Our Mountain at its three London gigs next week - still has a platinum bob. Perhaps Portmans figured Kershaw’s platinum locks would blend into all the snow in and around the Meat Packing District location? 

Julia Nobis gets dark for Jac + Jack Autumn/Winter 2011

This time last year, not many people had heard of Julia Nobis. That was until her international runway debut at no less than Calvin Klein put her well and truly on the fashion map. In the intervening twelve months, the 18 year-old Sydneysider with the cool, Meryl Streep beauty has been quietly building an impressive body of work that has embraced runway turns for many other equally big names, campaigns for Proenza Schouler and Burberry Black and lookbooks for Prada and Alexander Wang. The current advertising face of Australian fast fashion brand Marcs, Nobis has just added a little luxury to her Oz portfolio. Photographed by Stephen Ward, here is a first look at Nobis in the Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign of Jac Hunt’s and Lisa 'Jack' Dempsey’s Sydney-based luxury knitwear label Jac + Jack. 

Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer 2011 by Juergen Teller - the campaign

We've seen a preview of Marc by Marc Jacobs' Spring/Summer 2011 advertising imagery, lensed by Juergen Teller. But now, on his website, Jacobs has just unveiled much more of the campaign. It stars Latvian Ginta Lapina, Serbian Australian Andrej Pejic and, it now emerges, a third model: androgynous Dutchman Jaco van den Hoven, the only brunette amongst the three. Shot in Marrakech just before Christmas, the campaign illustrates Pejic's unique versatility: he's not just the dude in the dress, but can also rock the sexy surfer boy look in straight menswear.

Trench coat glamour mafia: Andrej Pejic and Karolina Kurkova for Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2011

A matter of days after Andrej Pejic strutted Jean Paul Gaultier's Autumn/Winter 2011/20112 menswear runway in Paris as both a man - and a woman - and twenty-four hours before the designer's feverishly-anticipated haute couture womenswear show, Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 campaign images starring Pejic and Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova have finally landed. With the designer himself joining Twitter to excitedly unveil them. Shot by high profile photographic duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, the campaign consists of two black and white images of Pejic and Kurkova, both in fishnet stockings and wearing matching trench coats from the Spring/Summer 2011 womens collection (as first revealed by Kurkova just before Christmas in a Tweet from the set). In one shot, they are kissing. Who's the prettier of the two though?

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.

When Abbey met Tom

Shots of Australian supermodel Abbey Lee Kershaw in Tom Ford's new eyewear campaign are all over the net. But who knew she was also in his first womenswear campaign? Behold a supersite billboard of Kershaw not just in a sequined sheath from Ford's debut womenswear collection, but locked in a staged passionate embrace with Ford himself, that has just gone up in Beverly Hills, California, coincidentally a few days ahead of the 2011 Golden Globes. According to Kershaw's US agent, Next, it's part of the womenswear campaign. More images to come presumably. Kershaw was among the very select cast of Ford's intimate runway presentation at New York Fashion Week in September last year.

Lawrence of architectura: Emma Balfour tones it down for David Lawrence Autumn/Winter 2011

Adelaide-born Emma Balfour was a very big modelling name in the 1990s. Launching her career at approximately the same time as Kate Moss, Balfour helped co-pioneer modelling's 1990s "waif" trend - which helped shunt the more statuesque 1980s supermodels off their pedestal. Kate Moss went on to become a much bigger name and her career has continued unabated. After taking time off to have children and move back to Australia from London, Balfour pretty much disappeared from the fashion radar. That was until September 2008, when she attempted a career relaunch on the runways of New York Fashion Week, booked for two top ticket shows: Alexander Wang and Marc Jacobs. In the two year interim Balfour, now 41, has been clocking up a steady stream of work, including numerous advertising campaigns that girls half her age - and of course their agents - would love to be booking. In Australia, she has fronted campaigns for Willow and Mimco. Here is an exclusive preview of her latest gig: the Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign of Australian fashion chain David Lawrence. 

Andrej Pejic and Ginta Lapina rock the casbah for Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer 2011

trisiantomike via TFS

So Marc Jacobs went the guess-the-gender route for his Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer 2011 advertising campaign? That was the theory, following the news that he had cast androgynous Australian model Andrej Pejic opposite lookalike Latvian Ginta Lapina. Judging by this first look at the campaign that was recently shot by Juergen Teller in Marrakech, as just scanned from Teen Vogue’s February 2011 issue (and which is an exact match with some out-takes from the shoot that were posted by Pejic on Facebook) Pejic looks more like a cute Australian surfer boy. More shots to come.

Andrej Pejic nabs Marc by Marc Jacobs to boot

armin morbach for tush via fashion gone rogue

 
Ah the Andrej Pejic story. There's just no end to the updates. So after mesmerising the Paris Spring/Summer 2011 mens runways in June, booking editorials with, among others, Vogue Paris and Vogue Italia, not to mention Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 ad campaign, WWD reported an hour ago in Monday's Fashion Scoops column (here) that Pejic has just shot the Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 campaign (confirming previous reports on frockwriter that he had booked a second campaign). Last week Pejic debuted at No 40 on models.com's Top 50 Male Models. Notes MDC: "Andrej, in a few short months has become the face of a new sort of male beauty, the kind that sparks comments, controversies and intense scrutiny... look for Andrej's stock to rise even higher in 2011". You can count on it.

Portmans signs Abbey Lee Kershaw

david jones SS1011 backstage/frockwriter

How nervous are Australian retailers about the imminent arrival of Zara early next year? Wetting their pants, some might surmise, given the news that Australian mid market fashion chain Portmans has just signed homegrown modelling superstar Abbey Lee Kershaw as its autumn/winter 2011 campaign face. As revealed by frockwriter yesterday, Kershaw was recently involved in a cycling accident, injuries from which may have precluded her involvement with Chanel's big Pre Fall 2011 runway presentation in Paris on Tuesday. Kershaw is, after all, one of Chanel's advertising faces this season. Nevertheless, she has just arrived downunder and according to our sources, will shoot the Portmans campaign in Sydney next week with Nicole Bentley. The campaign is due to roll out from January 31st through until May and we hear Kershaw will bank at least six figures for the job, minimum A$120,000. This is a large sum for a single season Australian campaign. 

Andrej Pejic: Shooting Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 campaign with Karolina Kurkova, rattling rednecks from Sydney to Serbia

karolina kurkova's facebook

Overnight Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova published a shot of herself and a Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2011 campaign co-star on Facebook and the cat is out of the bag and all over the net. Australia’s Andrej Pejic is also in the campaign. That’s the second big international SS11 campaign booked by Pejic to which frockwriter referred in our post on Tuesday. It is unclear at this stage if the JPG campaign features any other models beyond Kurkova and Pejic. But both do look to be wearing similar pleated trench coats – which were prominently featured in Gaultier’s SS11 womenswear show in Paris in October. The garment does not, however, appear anywhere in Gaultier’s mens SS11 collection, which was shown in Paris in June and which, as you may recall, Pejic in fact walked. What conclusion can we draw from this? That, unless Kurkova posted a staged teaser shot, Pejic may well be modelling womenswear in this campaign. Stop the press. 

Young guns: Thom Kerr shoots Codie Young in Elliot Ward-Fear

Last month Frockwriter mentioned that young Sydney fashion designer Elliot Ward-Fear was about to shoot an Autumn/Winter branding campaign with the upwardly mobile Sunshine Coast model Codie Young. Well here is an exclusive preview of that collaboration, which was shot last week in Brisbane. It was lensed by Thom Kerr, styled by Sarah Babcock, with hair by Shaun Casey, makeup by Becca Gilmartin and graphics courtesy Lekkur Studio. Just a reminder, again, that 22 year-old Ward-Fear only graduated from TAFE NSW's Fashion Design Studio last year and has yet to sell to a single stockist. Although privately he has sold a number of pairs of the 18cm microsuede booties that prompted three models to stumble in the group TAFE show at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May this year (note Ward-Fear has upped his own ankle-breaker ante with a pair of 45cm shoes for AW11, see below). And gifted one pair, together with a spectacular spiked Lucite necklace, to blogstar Bryanboy, who has been getting a lot of mileage out of both. 

Andrej Pejic, campaign trailblazer

thomas lohr for i-D via TFS

Long time, no Andrej Pejic post. Australia's most successful new model, of either gender, has been building up such a body of editorial work since first emerging on the Paris menswear runways in June, it has been difficult keeping up. We clocked, of course, his three Vogue coups - notably the Vogue Paris and Vogue Italia spreads, shot with Mert + Marcus and Steven Meisel, respectively. And it seems Pejic's blue chip editorials - which all capitalised on his distinctive androgynous look, a look that some have suggested is at the vanguard of a new "femimen" trend - have not gone unnoticed by other fashion heavyweights. Frockwriter can reveal that Pejic recently flew to north Africa to shoot an advertising campaign for a major international fashion brand. We can't disclose the name, unfortunately, just that it co-stars top (female) Latvian model Ginta Lapina. With the right styling, 21 year-old Lapina could be a dead ringer for 19 year-old Pejic, who is of course half Serbian and half Croatian. It sounds like the brand, which produces both mens and womens collections, may be planning a mix-and-match, guess-the-gender concept. But that won't be Pejic's only Spring/Summer 2011 campaign. After returning to Australia on Saturday to commence work with some local publications, Pejic has suddenly been obliged to up stumps after being booked for another ad campaign - this time for a major European fashion brand. He leaves tomorrow for New York to shoot that with a well-known photographic duo. Pejic will then return to Australia to spend Christmas with his family, before leaving for Europe in early January, ahead of the Fall/Winter 2011/2012 menswear season in Milan and Paris.   

Behind-the-scenes at the Wish Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign shoot with Iekeliene Stange

Yesterday frockwriter mentioned that Australian fashion label Wish had nabbed Dutch supermod Iekeliene Stange for its Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign, to be shot by Australian photographer Sonny Vandevelde. Here is a sneak peek at the campaign shoot which is underway in New York right now, evidently making the most of the city's iconic Brooklyn Bridge. Stange, we understand, may be heading downunder at some stage in the not-too-distant future to promote the campaign. 

Iekeliene Stange makes a Wish

sonny vandevelde

A number of major modelling names have emerged from the Netherlands. They don't get much bigger than bombshells Lara Stone and Doutzen Kroes, for instance. Few have been as edgy, however, as Iekeliene Stange. Known for her killer cheekbones and elfin chic, Stange has worked with the world's biggest fashion names, most recently appearing on Christian Dior's Fall/Winter 2010/2011 haute couture runway in Paris. Right now, she is in New York to shoot the Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign for Australian fashion label Wish with Australian photographer Sonny Vandevelde. The duo will start work early tomorrow morning in and around the quaint, cobblestone alleyways of Brooklyn's Vinegar Hill district. That's Stange, above, leaving the Tribeca Grand Hotel earlier in the day. The hotel's second exhibition of Sonny's backstage images - many featuring Stange, his muse - is still in fact hanging. Great get for Wish. Frockwriter hears the company nabbed Stange ahead of another, much bigger, Australian outfit that was also trying to book her for its Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign. 

Cash for comments: The fashion blogosphere's liquid bonanza

stella mccartney for target australia launch, sydney, october 1st/little black book

They are literally throwing money at bloggers at the moment in Australia. Not in the traditional advertising sense, whereby a marketer pays to take out clearly-delineated advertising space in your publication. In fact it’s almost impossible to find many, if any, bloggers who are earning a living out of legitimate display advertising. No, affiliate marketing (pay per click or pay per buy) and sponsored, advertorial posts are the way of the world right now (although not on frockwriter, just to clarify once again). Westfield is currently recruiting a blogger for a 12-month, $100,000 contract. One of the finalists is 19 years old. That’s an extraordinary salary for a teenager. We mentioned the recent Target Stella McCartney launch for which six bloggers (pictured above, details below) were flown to Sydney and paid to write approved copy. 

Cut copy: MJ Bale's cartoon campaign a dead ringer for P Johnson's

p johnson SS0910

So yesterday frockwriter posted an exclusive preview of a new ad campaign by new Australian luxury menswear label MJ Bale, which was launched in late 2009 by cashed-up Herringbone co-founder Matt Jensen. The idea for the campaign was a bunch of images of a model in the MJ Bale collection – with cartoon faces, hands and feet superimposed over the model. The cartoons were courtesy Sydney graffiti artist Jumbo. Fantastic idea. Only problem: Patrick Johnson says it's his. Who is Johnson? A London-trained Sydney tailor who has been in business for three years and who launched his first campaign this time last year: a series of images of a model in his collection, with cartoon faces, hands and feet superimposed over the originals. Here is a selection, above and below (which remain on Johnson's website). The creative collaborator in Johnson's case was Sydney artist Tristan Ceddia and Johnson reports it took the duo six months to nail the concept. The MJ Bale images were supplied to frockwriter in good faith and unfortunately we were not familiar with Johnson’s brand or campaign prior to a large volume of hostile comments from his supporters this morning. Others claim the real pioneer of the photo/cartoon/fashion mashup is yet another Australian artist, Ashley Wood, who created some earlier illustrations for Diesel's spinoff streetwear brand 55DSL. To be fair to Johnson here, it's not just the general photo/cartoon idea that was picked up by MJ Bale, but the exact look of Johnson's campaign.   

Cartoon connection: MJ Bale's Jumbo Spring 2010 campaign

The fashion/art collaboration concept is nothing new. Dali and Schiaparelli, anyone? Far more recent collaborations have included Marc Jacobs with Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami, Prada with illustrator James Jean and Stella McCartney with iconic Disney character Bambi. Now comes MJ Bale’s turn with Sydney artist (Andy) Jumbo. Here is an exclusive preview of the luxury Australian menswear brand’s Spring/Summer 2010/2011 campaign – which is fronted by a cast of cartoon models. Launched in late 2009, MJ Bale is the brainchild of Herringbone co-founder and wool scion, Matt Jensen. After the launch of the recent Orri Henrisson campaign, the ad creative for the Australian menswear sector is starting to look a little fresher than some of the efforts in the womenswear sector. UPDATE 07/10: Another Sydney menswear designer, Patrick Johnson, says he came up with the idea first.