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 Restoin-Roitfeld interviews Tom Ford for V Magazine

These shots were just slipped to frockwriter (and no doubt many other blogs, but at this stage we think it may be a first look). It's a preview of V Magazine's issue #69, a spread starring Julia Restoin-Roitfeld modelling Tom Ford's debut womenswear collection - described as "self portraits" so we have to assume she took the shots. And an excerpt from an interview conducted with Ford, by Restoin-Roitfeld, the face of Ford's Black Orchid fragrance campaign. This would have been in the pipeline for some time, but interesting that it falls hot on the heels of last Friday's abrupt resignation by Restoin-Roitfeld's mother, Carine Roitfeld, from Vogue Paris after a 10 year tenure. The official version is that Roitfeld wants to pursue "personal projects". In reality, however, noone leaves a position like that with several weeks notice. Few, if any, have voluntarily resigned from Vogue. There has been much speculation that Roitfeld was pushed by Condé Nast after problems vis-à-vis her ongoing consulting to fashion brands. Yes fashion editors (even in Australia) do paid work on outside ad campaigns and that's bad enough. It is verging on the ludicrous for an editor-in-chief to do so. There has also been speculation that the December issue of Vogue Paris, as edited by Ford, was poorly received by some Vogue advertisers and may have proven the final straw.