Carine Roitfeld has made no secret of the fact that she's working on her own magazine. Last month she confirmed that her magazine will be released twice a year and will drop in September but not much has been said about who will be involved or how the magazine will look or what the editorial direction will be. Saying that Marie-Amerlie Sauve has been confirmed as being on board but beyond that, nobody else has been confirmed.
What we do know is that the rumours we reported last month about the magazine's publisher was correct. The media group that owns V magazine, V Man and Visionaire will publish Roitfeld's publication and as a result, it will based based in New York, which makes sense sense Roitfeld's pregnant daughter is based in the city.
You wouldn't be alone if you have noticed the year on year increase in the price of magazines but none quite compare to the latest issue of Visionaire. Guest-edited by Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, the next issue of the magazine comes in at a whopping $495.
Price aside, the latest issue is a treat. Catholic-borm Tisci chose religion as theme and mamaged to persuade Carine Roitfeld appear in a shoot lensed by Karl Lagerfeld and Giovanna Battaglia was brought on board to style a shoot with Tisci's former assistant, Lea T. 'If you don’t believe that fashion is a religious sect unto itself—and a fast-growing one at that—well, maybe you should pray a little harder,' the press release reads. 'Need you be reminded that today’s most awe-inspiring transfigurations are achieved by supermodels, not saints?'
“To be honest, I never say never. I think being an editor in chief of a magazine is a huge, huge job. In order to do that, all the other parts of my job would have to be pushed aside. I can’t imagine doing that in the near future. If I did do that, it would be a hybrid of a few magazines like W, Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, Love, V, Visionaire. I think it would incorporate a lot of art and high fashion and interviews with interesting people. It would definitely be oversized! With beautiful images and great photography. But that’s a huge, huge job.
Visionaire, the ever beautifully created fashion and art bible have created a tribute to the late Alexander McQueen, fittingly entitled 'Spirit'. Nick Knight, Lady Gaga, Steven Klein and Mario Testino have all contributed to the limited edition book, which features images inspired by McQueen, all printed on paper embedded with wildflower seeds that if planted, watered and given sun would blossom.
"Visionaire first featured the designs of Lee Alexander McQueen in 1996 and since that time, he has been a continuous inspiration and a presence in Visionaire," the magazine's founders Stephen Gan, Cecilia Dean and James Kaliardos explained, "McQueen's special commissions are among our most treasured contributions. His daring and challenging ideas of fashion have consistently excited and provoked us."
It seems that McQueen must have felt a similar respect for the thrice-yearly Visionaire, as he had approached them long before his untimely death. "In 2003, McQueen came to our SoHo office and gallery to discuss collaborating on an issue of Visionaire - an issue that never came to be. This is our tribute to him." The Spirit edition of Visionaire can be bought in Alexander McQueen boutiques, Colette and on the Visionaire website.
Alexandra Shulman of British Vogue once called for 'healthier' models. Her prayers have been answered in the form of plus-size supermodel of the moment Crystal Renn - and her curvy figure and gorgeous bone structure. Since last fashion-week season, Renn has been causing a storm in the industry by defying everything it has ever 'stood' for, proving that models of all shapes and sizes should be allowed to share a piece of the action.
With all her success since she stopped starving herself to be a 'straight-sized' clothes horse, one can hardly believe how far she has come. In an interview with the Eric Wilson of the New York Times yesterday, Renn candidly bares all about life at the start of her career. Reading from her book, Hungry, Wilson shares an excerpt showing the realities of the industry: "By 2002, when she moved to New York at age 15, she weighted 95 pounds and had lost more than 42% of her body weight. On her first day in the city, she landed a shoot for Seventeen."
The faces behind Paris' Le Baron nightclub + a new Russian fashion initiative (Cycles and Seasons) + music by Mark Ronson = very well dressed debauchery. Former mag editor Anna Dyulgerova brought the party scene to an abandoned Moscow mansion, jazzed up with disco balls and at least one dance-off.
