Sunday March 22, 2009
Alluring accessory
By ELAINE DONG
Former supermodel Jerry Hall has re-emerged, showing off her sensuality for Chanel’s accessories campaign .
TAKE a sprinkling of French luxury, a healthy dose of Karl Lagerfeld and throw the inimitable Jerry Hall into the mix and what do you have? A deletable dessert of fashion visuals, possibly the creme brulee of the couture world.
Plucked ceremoniously from a retired model’s cushy life – languishing on a yacht, lazy afternoons spent penning her autobiography and attending glitzy social events – Hall is once again front and centre in a studio. And not just any studio, mind you, but the legendary, multi-talented Lagerfeld’s.
Jerry Hall with younger male model Baptiste Giabiconi for Chanel Spring/Summer accessories campaign. German-born designer Lagerfeld stepped behind the camera to capture the full glory of Hall; the images are part of an accessories catalogue for Chanel’s Spring/Summer 2009.
The resurface of American model Hall coincides with the campaigns of her peers Claudia Schiffer and Helena Christensen; the former recently posed for Yves Saint Laurent’s Spring 2009 campaign while Christensen dripped sex appeal in advertisements for Agent Provocateur.
No shrinking violet herself, Hall was shot in several provocative poses with much younger male model Baptiste Giabiconi in a specially constructed bedroom.
When asked why he chose Hall for this project, Lagerfeld proclaimed her “sumptuous and generous”, having known Hall since she was 15.
Jerry Hall surrounded by all things beautiful - the latest Chanel offerings and Giabiconi, the most promising model of the moment. “I have always loved her – her skin, her complexion, her hair, her overall allure,” said Lagerfeld in a press release.
To him, Hall, like her fellow supermodels in the 1980s and 1990s, is a strong woman.
“They do not have a problem with age, time, life of the evolution of fashion and that is what I love about them,” he added.
The admiration is mutual, for Hall remembered meeting Lagerfeld in the 1970s. “He was very sexy,” recalled Hall. “I first worked for him as a model for a Chloe fashion show. My daughters are now wearing one of his miniskirts from that show!”
Thirty years on, the chemistry between couturier and clotheshorse still made for combustible material. The resulting pictures are raw and seductive, with 53-year-old Hall more than holding her own with the virile younger model playing her lover.
Jerry Hall, fabulous in nothing but Chanel. The shoot was based on the post-war novel Chéri, by Colette, a famous French writer (1873 –1954), telling the love story between a young man and an older woman.
“It was this whole idea of seduction that was summarised in Collette’s story that appealed to me,” mused Lagerfeld. “That of a young man enthralled by the older woman: her wardrobe, her perfume, her movements, her allure.”
Lagerfeld was also inspired by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, who once wrote that “I like men who have a future, and women who have a past.”
In the pictures, Hall is draped, decked and bejewelled with Chanel’s signature accessories – the quilted bag featuring the instantly recognisable double Cs, the pearls and the shoes.
“This whole idea of essential accessories is reassuring today,” said Lagerfeld. “In these uncertain times, products from brands with a high level of quality and savoir faire are of real importance. It is probably better to invest in products of real value rather than in what is flashy.”
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