New Fashion, Design, Jewelry Stories and Campaigns @ AOC
/ Anne Enke
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AOC Pre-2020 Curated Archives
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Brand News
Will Chanel Coco Beach 2024 Calm Waters Get Choppy? | Karolina Kurkova News: Will She Walk Revived Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show? Do We Care? | Conspicuous Luxury Consumption in China Challenged by Growing Income Inequality | Sarah Richardson Launches ‘Beyond Noise’ Biannual | Bottega Veneta Summer Solstice 2024 Campaign
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W Magazine China’s [IG] June 2024 icon issue shares a fantastic fashion story featuring the ‘Margiela Artisanal’ 2024 couture collection starring model He Cong lensed by Zhong Lin. W also makes high-impact points in their commentary about creativity.
Creative Directors Examined
For the second time this week, my own brain has been interrupted externally with the reinforcement of thoughts already playing out here on AOC.
In preparing this W Magazine China fashion story over the course of two months, six sets of haute couture fashion traveled across the seas. The magazine “exclusively” documented this fashion moment, along with its fascinating behind-the-scenes story.
Luxury brand Chanel [IG] delivers a fresh and modern summer Coco Beach 2024 campaign starring Danish model Olivia Vinten lensed by Cass Bird [IG].
At Chanel, Let the Good Times Roll
Chanel is riding high off a 16 percent revenue increase in annual sales over 2023. Price increases alone drove up sales by around 9 percent, according to BoF.
Chanel CFO Philippe Blondiaux praised Virginie Viard’s contributions to Chanel’s major growth in his BoF interview. Days later, the artistic director was escorted out the door.
With Viard seeming out-of-touch with the world at large at times, and given Coco Chanel’s own delicate political history in Europe, AOC is on the record saying we’re watching the brand like a hawk. We continue to write today from that updated perspective.
Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova is now a Ford model in New York.
AOC backtracked to pick up Kurkova’s Miami-based fashion story for Harper’s Bazaar Turkey’s December 2023 issue. AOC has now learned that the supermodel and husband since 2009 Archie Drury are selling their home on Fisher’s Island in Miami for about $7M. The about 2500 sq ft property was put on the market in May.
The former Victoria’s Secret Angel [named in 2005] Kurkova appeared in nine VS fashion shows between 2000 and 2010, and wore her Fantasy Diamond Bra in 2002.
Top model He Cong graces the pages of Marie Claire China’s [IG] June 2024 issue. The Hunan-region beauty is styled by Austin Feng in red-inspired, fashion elegance lensed by Zhong Lin [IG].
China’s Monitoring of Flaunting Money on Social Media
This month [May 2024], China’s new ‘Clear and Bright’ campaign swung into action on social media. The campaign vows to crack down on influencers who create "ostentatious personas to cater to vulgar needs, and deliberately display extravagant lifestyles filled with money".
Jing Daily weighed in this morning, writing that across Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, Tencent, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu all reflect suspended accounts this week.
China Tackles Its Growing Income Gap Culture
The drive to reduce ostentatious displays of wealth [or internet cleanup, as Jing Daily calls it] “is part of a larger effort by Chinese authorities to curate and control social cultures to tackle China’s widening income disparity and wealth inequality.”
Top model Mona Tougaard poses in the inaugural issue of Beyond Noise [IG], styled by co-founder Sarah Richardson and creative director Pieter Mulier in The Art of Alaïa. Photographer Larissa Hofmann [IG] is behind the lens, capturing Tougaard in the elevated print project, scheduled to start shipping in the USA and EU/UK on May 31, 2024.
The biannual magazine Beyond Noise is a project of stylist Sarah Richardson and her photographer husband Richard Bush. Investor Stefan Ericsson also was key to launching the project.
Beyond Noise targets America as its core market, then the U.K., Europe and the rest of the world. Richardson calls America an ‘optimistic country’ [ask me in November, Sarah] but one in need of a women’s voice beyond American Vogue.
Read On: Brand Analysis and Fashion News
Women’s News and Interviews
Sophie Turner, Good Mother, Tells Her Story | Vogue Greece Acknowledges ‘Multicultural Aesthetics’ with AOC Applause | AOC Firebirds: Jodie Comer and Elizaveta Porodina Soar for Modern Weekly China | Lupita Nyong’o Covers Glamour Global June 2024 | Tokischa Lanches Her Own Label SOL
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British actor Sophie Turner covers the June 2024 issue of British Vogue [IG], meeting up with Chioma Nnadi at London Zoo’s Gorilla Kingdom for the cover story Sophie Turner Is Doing Just Fine.
Camilla Nickerson styled Turner in a Louis Vuitton yellow top and white jeans for the cover, in a fashion story lensed by Mikael Jansson [IG].
We return to the charming London Zoo gorilla Effie, not awarded high marks by the zookeeper.
“Do you see how she’s dangling her baby by one arm? That’s actually not the best way to handle their newborns.”
Effie has had four attempts to get it right, and good mothering escapes her. Sophie Turner, mother of two girls, can relate. According to Nnadi, “ . . . it is, in fact, Turner who has been subjected to mom-shaming—of the most egregious kind.”
The June 2024 issue of Vogue Greece travels to Messenia for a cover story featuring rising Israeli model Sun Mizrahi. Nicholas Georgiou acts as creative director, styling the photo shoot lensed by Phil Poynter [IG]. Hair by Stelios Chondros; makeup by Athina Karakitsou
Vogue Greece Names ‘Multicultural Aesthetics’
The loudest voices in our culture would have you believe that the global landscape was originally a very pure and culturally-uncorrupted place, where humans lived idyllic lives in harmony with each other.
Reality is that traders of every hue have been on the high seas for thousands of years and especially in the Mediterranean world. And early humans cracked each other’s skulls.
Photographer Elizaveta Porodina [IG] brings her creative combustion talents to a fashion story for Modern Weekly [China] Style [IG] June 2024, featuring ‘Killing Eve’ actor Jodie Comer.
Kingsley Tao styles the shoot, with set design by Louis Simonon./ Hair by Shon; makeup by Miranda Joyce
‘The Bikeriders’ Are Coming
Comer will hit June 21, 2024 movie screens in Jeff Nichols’ film ‘The Bikeriders’, also starring Austin Butler and Tom Hardy. There is such disorder in the movie house, that there is no way we can conflate Porodina’s images with a blood and guts Chicago biker gang — even one with Austin Butler.
The film is such a unique story about packs of Harley Davidson riders in 1960s midwestern America, that it requires its own post.
Beloved actor Lupita Nyong’o covers Glamour magazine June 2024, serving four powerhouse covers that project strength, confidence and high-voltage modernity across Britain, Germany, Mexico and the US.
The fashion message styled by Rachel Wang presents a sleek, bodycon fashion statement in pure red and leopard prints lensed by Adrienne Raquel [IG].
Superstar Lupita Nyong’o had such a severe fear of cats, that she begged director Michael Sarnoski to employ a different animal for her role in the new horror film ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’.
Dominican artist Tokischa, [born Altagracia Peralta] covers the June 2024 issue of ELLE Mexico, wearing Ferragamo on her two covers.
Maha Haider serves as creative director on the fashion shoot, with more Tokischa luxury fashion from Chanel, Coperni, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu and Y/Project lensed by Riccardo Apostolico [IG]. / Makeup by Magdalena Major
Last week Billboard announced that Tokischa will launch her own label called SOL, with her manager [and SOL co-founder] Angelica Piche within Warner Music Latina and supported by Atlantic Records.
Read On: Interviews: Models, Artists, Business
Jewelry News
Swarovski ‘Beneath the Surface’ for Numero NL | Bulgari Riches in Harper’s Bazaar Brazil | High Jewelry by Carlijn Jacobs D Magazine | Jacquie Aiche Rebel Heart Campaign
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