In her British Vogue cover interview and fashion shoot, Bella is styled by IB Kamara in chain-mail from Etro and Balmain and embellished tulle from Dolce & Gabbana. Her silk crepe cover dress is Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.
High jewelry comes from Chopard — for whom Bella is a global ambassador. Earrings and super bangles are from Alexis Bittar.
Clearly, Bella Hadid and photographer Steven Meisel [IG] have excellent chemistry.
British Vogue’s IG descriptor of Bella also resonates. Bella Hadid “gives a riveting glimpse into her complex inner self.”
It’s an indisputable fact that a peculiarity of constitution or temperament surrounds the process of interviewing Bella Hadid. She is an idiosyncratic human being, which is not a negative comment.
Journalist Giles Hattersley is superb in how he handled Bella. In one moment of the interview, Bella really stepped in it with Anne — who still can’t believe how Hadid played right into the hands of the Trump Administration trying to get rid of women in high places.
I beg her mother Yolanda not to let Bella go to Washington with her controversial views, as she suggested she wanted to do.
Zara celebrates its 50th year in business, putting Steven Meisel [IG] behind the lens, capturing fashion’s top models in a celebration of creativity, longevity and love for fashion.
Jason Duzansky acts as creative director on the campaign, with styling by Karl Templer./ Hair by Guido Palau; makeup by Pat McGrath
The 50-models ensemble is also featured on a special-edition tee that benefits the Women’s Earth Alliance [link]. The 128-piece collection created around the celebration features monochromatic wardrobe essentials with a lot of black which is obvious in the imagery. See the Zara 50th anniversary collection online.
AOC has done some homework on this 50 Years of Zara post, which is now subdivided into two parts: Part 1 here, focused on the models and their archives on AOC.
Part 2 focused on Zara’s new store design and product strategy. It also features other ZARA X MEISEL COLLABORATIONS.
The new Miu Miu [IG] 2025 Leathergood Campaign, starring Gigi Hadid in its initial release, immortalizes both the brand’s emblematic matelassé now presented in soft suede across the Wander and Arcadie handbags and the women who hold it in their hands. The color hues are delicious: chocolate, mustard, pistachio and fuchsia.
Technical execution by Steven Meisel [IG] creates timeless imagery inspired by classic high-society portraiture of the 20th century. Styling by Lotta Volkova; creative direction by Edward Quarmby.
Designer Marc Jacobs introduced his hotter-than-Hades campaign for his new fragrance ‘Decadence’ in fall 2015. AOC discovered it last week as part of our Pre-2020 Post Renewal project at AOC.
Absolutely one of the most sensual models in history, Adriana Lima torches the campaign video, with moves that might seem a bit ‘forced’ today. But Lima is hotter than Hades under the creative talents of Steven Meisel. This video is a reminder of just how much fashion world has turned down the volume.
As much as AOC loves Louis Vuitton [IG], their ad campaigns can be ho-hum. The Spring 2025 campaign, shot by Steven Meisel [IG] with Louis Vuitton ambassadors Blackpink’s Lisa and actor Ronan Saoirse, is indeed worthy of fashion’s largest, omnipotent luxury brand.
Few luxury houses are associated with an illustrious name like The Fondation Louis Vuitton, the prominent art museum and cultural center located in Paris in the Bois de Boulogne.
Placing two gifted women artists like Lisa and Ronan, who are also Nicolas Ghesquière muses, in the presence of French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso’s artwork for a campaign shot by one of the world’s most celebrated fashion photographers Steven Meisel is a truly definitive statement for the Louis Vuitton Spring 2025 campaign.
American Vogue’s [IG] December 2024 issue is guest-edited by Marc Jacobs [IG], who turned to his close friend and former protegé Kaia Gerber [IG] as his Marc Jacobs cover girl. Photographer Steven Meisel [IG] captures Gerber, who has spread her career-girl self with unassuming but very wide wings into what Iowa calls a West Coast/East Coat elitist, snob-fest for pseudo intellectuals. For the record, Kaia Gerber is not that person.
A simple example of Gerber’s search of life’s opportunities was her appearance in the i-D Spring 2020 Icons Issue, interviewed by ‘Slave Play’ playwright and now good friend Jeremy O. Harris.
In a six-degrees-of-separation moment, Gerber notes in her Library Science book club interview below of Will Arbery that he is a friend of Jeremy O. Harris, whose ‘Slave Play’ production took London’s West End theatre culture by the throat in the second half of 2024.
Dana Spiotta’s interview ends on a high note, an evening at legendary The Chelsea hotel, with a Library Science [Kaia’s book club] event. One of Gerber’s favorite books is ‘Just Kids’, Patti Smith’s memoir of New York in the early ’70s.
This night the supermodel, actor, activist, and thoughtful human being was hosting readings by authors connected to the legendary Chelsea. One was Alexandra Auder, author of the memoir ‘Don't Call Me Home’.
Paris Fashion Week took a moment last week to toast Zara’s [IG] high-praise-worthy collaboration with designer Stefano Pilati [IG]
Announced officially in this old-school ad campaign with supermodel Gisele Bundchen and Pilati, lensed by Steven Meisel [IG], the hotly-anticipated Zara collection drops on October 3, 2024.
The fusion of Pilati’s forward-thinking design sensibilities and Gisele’s timeless elegance results in pieces that are both sophisticated and wearable. At the heart of the collection are structured blazers, emphasizing sharp, clean lines that are both powerful and feminine.
Top model Vivienne Rohner in styled by Marie-Amelie Sauve in ‘Con Total Transparencia’, with its emphasis on sensual skin revelation with sheer laces and fishnet effects from Chanel, Chloé, Louis Vuitton, Rabanne and more. Photographer Steven Meisel [IG] adds more high fashion to his Vogue Italia [IG] September 2024 60th anniversary celebration. / Hair by Guido Palau; makeup by Pat McGrath
When the National Portrait Gallery, London, reopened in June 2023 following a three-year redevelopment closure, its first exhibition ‘Yevonde: Life and Colour’ centered on British photographer Yevonde Middleton [1893-1975]. The art event, which focused on the sixty-year career of a paradigm-breaking woman photographer, was sponsored by The CHANEL Culture Fund.
With the release of its new 2024 Leathergoods Campaign, Miu Miu [IG] is also inspired by the British photographer Yevonde Middleton.
An ode to color, to femininity, to fashion and to feminism, Miu Miu celebrates its signature matelassé in images by photographer legend Steven Meisel with art direction by Edward Quarmby. Starring Gigi Hadid as a modern reflection of the Miu Miu persona styled by Lotta Volkova, the images focus on the Wander and Arcadie bags. / Makeup by Pat McGrath; hair by Guido Palau
Showstudio calls them “Steven Meisel’s Supermodel Sirens”, five women “dripping in crystals.” Top models Abby Champion, Fei Fei Sun, Imaan Hammam, Irina Shayk and Karlie Kloss join forces in the new S/S 2024 Swarovski [IG] campaign inspired by Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
In ancient Roman mythology, Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, emerged from the sea fully grown and adorned with exquisite jewelry. The myth tells of Venus being born from the foam created when the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his severed genitals into the sea. This act led to the sea producing the goddess of love and desire.
Zara [IG] drops its Studio Collection twice a year, with today’s Spring 2024 drop called Rêveries.
Real-world models include Fei Fei Sun, Nyawurh Chuol, rising model Rosalieke Fuchs and Vivienne Rohner. Are they pondering Betty Friedan’s life-changing book ‘The Feminine Mystique’ [1963] — but are not quite ready to tackle the deeply philosophical and life-unsettling Simone de Bouveoir treatise ‘The Second Sex’ [1949]?
Steven Meisel [IG] shoots the quartet in rich, mid-century midtones, sheerish blouses, cardigans and pencil skirts, complemented by interior furniture in sensual hues and slowly-increasing sunlight.
Designers Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana work with art director Fabien Baron and stylist Karl Templer to create a Spring-Summer 2024 campaign rich with high-class swagger, penetrating eye confidence, and an attitude that says “judge me at your own risk — because I will take you down.”
With Steven Meisel [IG] on photography, the images will have these ingredients because Meisel often plays high-low with his human subjects. As a result, there are layers of meaning and interpretation that seep out of the images and into our own minds. They are created to be mildly disruptive, another characteristic that makes them interesting and one that Meisel understands deeply.
What AOC loves about Dolce & Gabbana is that their garden is an Italian garden in the same way Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli are Italian gardens. But they are planting different crops growing in different parts of Italy and Sicily and Sardinia — from Rome to Milan to Florence and Venice.
Zara Studio [IG] channels Tom-Ford style, high-voltage glamour in a new Fall-Winter 2023 campaign with plenty of elegance and sex appeal.
We have well-executed model twinning from Angelina Kendall, Annemary Aderibigbe, Awar Odhiang, Ida Heiner and Nyawuhr Chuol and Sacha Quenby. / Hair by Guido Palau; makeup by Pat McGrath
Photographer Steven Meisel [IG] captures the black riches, sophisticated, night-scene fashion styled by Karl Templer with creative direction by Fabien Baron.
Reading about Sofia Coppola’s young-girl life, we learn just how much time the entire Francis Ford Coppola family spent away from their home in California’s Napa Valley.
Coppola is styled by Karl Templer in an abundance of Chanel Haute Couture in images by Steven Meisel [IG]. Additional luxury names include Dries Van Noten, Hermes, Prada, Schiaparelli and more. Spectacular jewelry is from Cartier.
Priscilla Presley is the focus of the younger Coppola’s new film Priscilla, in theaters November 3.
Millions of women can relate to the director’s reflection about her own young woman’s life. Pining for a young man who wasn’t interested in her, Coppola says she can relate to Priscilla’s short-term lack of need to develop her own self-identity because it was so much easier to be the girlfriend of some guy and assume his identity.
What a superb new ValentinoFall/Winter 2023 Black Tie campaign! It soars sky high in creativity and self-assurance with Kaia Gerber playing a role that defines the very concept of je ne sais quoi.
Kaia’s acting lessons are having huge impact on her self-expression in the last year.
Pierpaolo Piccioli’s vision of luxury for rebellious rule-breaking, smarty-pants fashion lovers with unbridled confidence and positive spirit is unmatched.
Gerber is boss as she struts around Huntington, Long Island’s Oheka Castle. Even the fact that the film is shot in New York and not Europe is a rebellious gesture that succeeds.
There’s so much going on in this film, and yet it does not feel overdone. We don’t lose our way because a confident clarity rules this audacious, beautiful, inspiring Fall 2023 Valentino Black Tie campaign.
Luxury fashion house FENDI merges high fashion with whimsical elements, presenting the Astrology Summer 2023 Beachwear Capsule Collection with a Mediterranean luxury flavor.
Artistic Director Fendi womenswear and couture Kim Jones chooses top model Irina Shayk to showcase the new capsule. Steven MeiselIG] — who has a full dance card this season — is behind the lens, creating a retro, 1960s travel poster vibe.
Luxury brand Louis Vuitton continues its summer getaway mood, moving from Friday’s post of Gisele Bundchen headlining Louis Vuitton luggage’s “Horizons Never End” campaign to this new Louis Vuitton azure blues fashion and bags focus with the “LV By the Pool Collection”.
Photographer Steven Meisel captures a saucy campaign spirit that only comes through with the video. Much of the collection is inspired by Azulejos tiles in tones of blue that also evoke open skies and ocean depths. These tiles are prevalent in Spanish and Portuguese architecture in cities like Lisbon.
LV by the Pool dropped into the Village of East Hampton, NY at 1 Main Street +1.631.561.0075, with ready-to-wear, leather goods and accessories for women and men and home accessories.
Supermodel Gigi Hadid fronts a new campaign breaking Thursday for Miu Miu’s matelassé in two styles — the already-iconic Wander, and the newly-debuted Arcadie — lensed by Steven Meisel. [The photographer now has a very quiet Official IG page posting older images.]
For the first time — after taking a huge leap on Lyst’s hottest brands list in 2022, over their mini skirt — Miu Miu has the second place position. Mothership Prada has the top slot in first quarter 2023, after replacing Gucci in fourth quarter 2022.
The Wander [pouch] and the newly debuted Arcadie [rectangle] style in the signature matelassé series offer great promise to become new “pillars” of the Miu Miu bag category, following the iconic history of Miu Miu’s Pocket.
Florence Pugh, the talented English actress known for her roles in ‘Midsommar’, ‘Little Women’, and ‘A Good Person’, is the new face of luxury Italian fashion brand Valentino. The 27-year-old actor stars in a new campaign lensed by Steven Meisel called "An Encyclopaedia Of Feelings.”
Pugh showcases a range of emotions while posing with Valentino Garavani Rockstud23 bag, styled by Joe McKenna.
Piccioli chose Pugh as the new Valentino DI.VA (DI.fferent VA.lues) ambassador because of her authenticity, vulnerability, and fearless self-expression both on and off-camera. This collaboration is about sharing values and standing for the same things, rather than just focusing on aesthetics or numbers of social media followers.
Bella Hadid greets longer days and brilliant sun as the face of Louis Vuitton 2023 sunglasses campaign, joined by Taiwanese singer, musician and actor Ouyang Nana.
Carine Roitfeld styles the campaign with Bella and Ouyang in images by Steven Meisel. / Hair by Guido Palau; makeup by Pat McGrath