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Fashion houses are constantly on the lookout for fresh faces to front their marketing campaigns - but not this season. This time, old is gold.
From 1970s Hollywood starlets to 1990s supermodels, fashion is cashing in on the glamazons of yesteryear.
| TOD'S |
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| The face: Oscar-winning American actress Gwenyth Paltrow, 36
The background: Oh, how this Hollywood blue-blood has blossomed.
Once better known as Brad Pitt's ex, she grabbed headlines recently with her role in the blockbuster
Iron Man, not to mention her vamped-up red carpet looks. Clinching the Tod's campaign this season has sealed her A-list status.
The Italian leather goods company even likens her to the 'contemporary embodiment of Audrey Hepburn'. While we think that's quite a stretch, Paltrow certainly does ooze oodles of class in those leather booties.
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Flip through a recent issue of fashion-forward Vogue magazine and that 1980s survivor, British bombshell Naomi Campbell, 38, stares out defiantly from Yves Saint Laurent's autumn/winter 2008 campaign.
Another of last century's supermodels, Canadian beauty Linda Evangelista, 43, lends her still-flawless good looks to Prada's.
Naomi and Linda - along with Christy (that's Turlington, to Urban's pre-teen readers) and Kate Moss are veteran catwalk and campaign queens who are so famous they are known just by their first names.
These originals are in a league of their own, reckons New York-based designer Donna Karan, who put Kate in her latest campaign.
Today's generation of models lacks the passion, creativity and ability to be chameleons, the designer tells Urban in an e-mail interview.
Indeed, next to them, new It girls like Agyness Deyn and Lily Donaldson remain princesses in waiting.
Watson Tan, managing director of local modelling agency Upfront, says that while hiring a fresh face can cost as little as US$1,000 (S$1,434), splurging on established faces makes economic sense as they are certain cash cows.
Tan, whose agency represents the likes of Swedish male supermodel Marcus Schenkenberg in Singapore, says: 'They're instantly recognisable and unrivalled in terms of their star power.'
Fame does come at a price though: a report in British paper The Daily Mail estimates that Evangelista and Campbell are likely to pocket around ?300,000 (S$759,000) each for their work in the new campaigns.
Brands like Tod's and even Spanish high-street label Mango, meanwhile, have roped in actress Gwenyth Paltrow and 64-year-old model-turned-actress Lauren Hutton respectively to star in their ads.
Urban rolls out the latest autumn/winter campaigns from seven fashion houses that show that old is new again.
| PRADA |
DONNA KARAN |
MIU MIU |
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| The face: Canadian supermodel Linda Evangelista, 43
The background: The beauty who once famously declared models like her 'don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day' proves she has still got it by bumping 23-year-old Russian doll Sasha Pivovarova off the Prada campaign throne.
We were unable to get an official comment on the switch but if you ask us, what's there to explain?
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The face: Kate Moss, 34, British fashion icon and pioneer of the heroin-chic look
The background: The supermodel with the mostest. Despite a highly publicised cocaine scandal in 2005, Moss is still so much in demand she is said be the world's second-highest paid model behind 28-year-old Brazilian bombshell Gisele Bundchen.
A spokesman for Donna Karan, which used her in both its spring and fall campaigns this year, says of the waif: 'She has energy, passion, sophistication and cool. The clothes don't wear her. She wears the clothes.'
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The face: Vanessa Paradis, 36, French actress and singer
The background: She might be better known as Johnny Depp's main squeeze but this fiery redhead hit the big time at age 14 crooning about a taxi driver named Joe on her debut album M&J.
She is said to have fitted perfectly in Miuccia Prada's vision of a 'fantastical heroine of an imaginative world' for this season's campaign. Whether or not it has got anything to do with ex-campaign girl American actress Kirsten Dunst going into rehab is anyone's guess.
For being a model, singer and mum of two, Paradis certainly gets our vote for fashion superhero.
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| ESCADA |
MANGO |
YVES SAINT LAURENT |
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| The face: Christy Turlington, 39, American supermodel-turned- entrepreneur
The background: Turlington has made it known that she loathes the supermodel tag.
With a successful yoga clothing line Nuala and beauty brand Sundari under her svelte belt, she has proven she's no brunette bimbo.
On what makes her so alluring, Escada says in a statement released earlier this year: '(She) is more than a supermodel. She is a woman who brings meaning as well as beauty.'
We agree.
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The face: Lauren Hutton, 64, American model-cum-actress
The background: There's no denying Hutton is one cool cat.
Known for her purist approach to life, she posed nude on the cover of American publication Big in 2005 to encourage women 'not to be ashamed of who they are when they're in bed'.
Mango roped her in as its campaign 'girl', replacing 21-year-old American plus-sized model Crystal Renn, because it wanted to show that the brand is 'not just for models with certain statistics'.
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The face: Naomi Campbell, 38, British supermodel and infamous wild child
The background: Call it the ultimate battle of the supermodels.
Perhaps it's the old ties - Campbell has always credited the late Monsieur Laurent for giving her one of her first big breaks. Or maybe it's the fact that she has proven she can more than hold her own in any catfight.
Whatever it is, she managed to toss Kate Moss out of the YSL window.
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This article was first published in Urban, The Straits Times on Sep 12, 2008.
For more The Straits Times stories, click here.
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