The Concept of Travel in an Emotional Sense

“The Journey of a star, captured in a flash”. Annie Leibovitz and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Annie’s studio, New York

 
 

“Is there any greater journey than love?” Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi. New York

 
 

“There are journeys that turn into legends”. Sean Connery, Bahamas Islands

 
 

“Every journey began in Africa”- Ali and Bono. Uganda

 
 

“A journey bring us face to face with ourselves”. Mikhail Gorbachev, Berlin, Germany

 
 

“Some stars show you the way”. Muhammad Ali and a rising star. Phoenix, Arizona

 
 

“Three exceptional journeys. One historic game”. Pelé, Diego Armando Maradona and Zinadine Zidane. Madrid, Spain

 
 

“Some journeys change mankind forever”. Sally Ride, Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lowell. California

 
 

“A single journey can change the course of a life”. Angelina Jolie. Cambodia

 
 

“Inside every story, there is a beautiful journey”. Sofia Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola. Buenos Aires, Argentina

 
 

Louis Vuitton Core Values campaigns revisit the brand’s heritage with a completely fresh interpretation of the concept of travel in an emotional sense, viewed as a personal journey, a process of self-discovery. The campaign debuted in September 2007 in major international titles featuring no other but the former Soviet statesman Mikhail Gorbachev, the French movie siren Catherine Deneuve, the founding member of The Rolling Stones Keith Richards and the tennis power couple Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, among many other influential and famous people.

Pietro Beccari, Senior VP of Communication explains this shot: “Not only does it capture the unique quality of a father-daughter relationship, in which both are enriched by a shared experience, but it also evokes the heritage of Louis Vuitton with its suggestion of know-how being passed from one generation to the next.”

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first steps on the Moon, the ad features legendary astronauts Sally Ride (first American woman in space), Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11, first steps on the Moon, 1969) and Jim Lovell (Apollo 13) looking up in the Californian desert night sky.

In 2010 Brazil’s Pelé, Argentina’s Diego Maradona and France’s Zinedine Zidane all won football’s ultimate prize, and all wore the emblematic N°10 shirt. They met up in the Café Maravillas, a typical bar in Madrid, and were tempted into a game of table football. The image leaves the suspense intact, but clearly captures the atmosphere of fun and friendly rivalry.

Given the photographer of all Core Value campaigns personal and financial troubles in 2010, Louis Vuitton wished to offer support in the most positive way and suggested that Annie Leibovitz become the next campaign’s hero. She accepted on the condition that she appears alongside for friend and one of the foremost dancers of the 20th century, Mikhail Baryshnikov.

This is the first time U2 frontman Bono has appeared in an ad sans his bandmates, but instead with his wife Ali Hewson. It’s also the first time that a label other than Louis Vuitton is getting a fashion credit – the pair are wearing their own clothing line Edun, a line of ethical fashion. Proceeds from the sales will go to TechnoServe, which supports sustainable farming in Africa.

As the pioneer of the art du voyage, Louis Vuitton is always on the look out for the exceptional people with extraordinary journeys. The question is who will be next?

Marc Jacob’s Favorite Muses

Louis Vuitton Handbags by Marc Jacobs, Spring-Summer 2014 collection

 
 

Louis Vuitton celebrates outgoing creative director Marc Jacobs’ new campaign starring his favorite muses. This campaign is Jacobs’ final one for Vuitton. Portraits of French actress Catherine Deneuve, American director Sofia Coppola, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing and French model Caroline de Maigret form part of the mix. British model Edie Campbell, who opened Jacobs’ last show and who scooped the Model of the Year prize at this year’s British Fashion Awards, was also cast. Photos were shot by Steven Meisel with makeup by Pat McGrath and hair by Guido Palau.

Not So Unexpected References

The tagline is “Be unexpected.” The fragrance created by perfumer Jacques Polge debuted on fall 2010 preceded by a media campaign which include the short advertisement “Bleu de Chanel” by Martin Scorsese featuring French actor Gaspard Ulliel. Prior to Scorsese, Baz Luhrmann had worked on Chanel No. 5.

The Rolling Stones‘ She Said Yeah, from band’s 1965 album December’s Children (And Everybody’s),  propels the script of the short film, in which rising international star Gaspard Ulliel plays the role of a young actor whose artistic talent, rebelliousness and good fortune have thrown him into the public eye. However, he refuses to conform to the lifestyle and expectations his newly found fame has placed upon him. As he struggles with new pressures and expectations, he runs into his first love, who for years, supplied him with the passion and turmoil that fueled his work. Faced with a decision, he pushes aside convention to embody the bold energy and elegance of Bleu De Chanel by daring to be unpredictable and refusing to bow down to convention. Scorsese had directed the 2008 Rolling Stones concert film Shine A Light. 

The song She Said Yeah was recorded by the group in September of 1965 at RCA Studios in Hollywood, the very same place where the band’s anthem (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction had been recorded a few months earlier. She Said Yeah was written by the late Sonny Bono and West Coast rockabilly performer Roddy Jackson, and had been a single for Larry Williams in the late 1950s. Williams became known with such early rock ‘n’ roll hits as Bony Maronie, Dizzy Miss Lizzy and Slow Down, the last two of which were covered by The Beatles.

 
 

Still from Mishima, a Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1984)

 
 

Still from short advertisement “Bleu de Chanel” (Martin Scorsese, 2010). The exploding screen wall seems to be inspired by Ishioka’s set design for Mishima. “We knew the old Hollywood system was gone, so we thought we could get in the cracks somehow. Francis was already at it — he was the big brother…”, Scorsese said about starting out with his friends George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. Rolling Stone Magazine 40th Anniversary (2007)

 
 

Gaspar Ulliel taking pictures to the woman he was chasing. This scene reminds the famous photo-shoot played by David Hemmings and  sixties model Veruschka in Blown-Up. In a piece called, The Man Who Set Film Free, Scorsese wrote about the sensation of seeing the Italian director’s L’Avventura for the first time, almost 50 years ago.

 
 

Movie Poster from Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)

 
 

A Life in Four Chapters and Many Colors

“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act”
Truman Capote

 
 

 
 

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is an American/Japanese film co-written and directed by Paul Schrader in 1985. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas served as executive producers. As the title indicates, Mishima is divided into four chapters, each encapsulating a different aspect of the man’s spirit, three of which include condensed adaptations of his most famous novels. The film is based on the life and work of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, interweaving episodes from his life with dramatizations of segments from his books The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko’s House, and Runaway Horses.

 
 

 
 

Although Mishima only visualizes three of the writer’s novels by name, the film also uses segments from his autobiographical novel Confessions of a Mask. At least two scenes, showing the young Mishima being aroused by a painting of the Christian martyr Sebastian, and his secret love for a fellow pupil at school, also appear in this book. The use of one further Mishima novel, Forbidden Colors, which describes the marriage of a homosexual man to a woman, was denied by Mishima’s widow.

 
 

The film sets in on November 25, 1970, the last day in Mishima’s life. He is shown finishing a manuscript. Then, he puts on a uniform he designed for himself and meets with four of his most loyal followers from his private army.

 
 

 
 

As Schrader wanted to visualize a book illustrating Mishima’s narcissism and sexual ambiguity, he chose the novel Kyoko’s House (which Mishima had translated for him exclusively) instead. Kyoko’s House contains four equally ranking storylines, featuring four different protagonists, but Schrader picked out only the one which he considered convenient.

Mishima uses different colour palettes to differentiate between frame story, flashbacks and scenes from Mishima’s novels: The (1970) contemporary scenes are shot in subdued colours, the flashbacks in black-and-white, the The Temple of the Golden Pavilion-episode is dominated by golden and green, Kyoko’s House by pink and grey, and Runaway Horses by orange and black.

Schrader considers Mishima the best film he has directed. “It’s the one I’d stand by – as a screenwriter it’s Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), but as a director it’s Mishima.”

Mishima earned Eiko Ishioka the Best Artistic Contribution award the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.

Like Father… (Artists)

English author, critic and mountaineer Leslie Stephen and Virginia Woolf

 
 

Painter Lucian Freud with his daughter, fashion designer Bella Freud

 
 

Gerolamo “Gimmo” Etro, the brand’s founder and his four children: Jacopo (manages textiles, leather goods and the home collections), Kean (is responsible for the menswear collections) , Ippolito (the CEO) and Veronica (is responsible for the women’s collections).

 
 

Gabriel García Márquez, his wife Mercedes Barcha, alongside their sons Rodrigo (screenwriter, television and film director) and Gonzalo (graphic designer)

 
 

Spanish fashion designer Adolfo Dominguez and two of her three daughters

 
 

Tommy Hilfiger and His son Richard, a rapper who is known as Ricky Hil

 
 

Alex Bolen, her wife Eliza Bolen, Oscar de la Renta’s step-daughter, and Moisés de la Renta

 
 

Jerry Hall, Oscar De la Renta and his adopted child Moisés, who debuted his very first collection (a limited edition T-shirt line called MDLR for a Spanish chain) in 2010

 
 

Ralph Lauren, his wife Ricky and their children Andrew (film producer and actor), David (Senior Vice President, Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications at Polo Ralph Lauren) and Dylan (owner of Dylan’s Candy Bar, which claims to be the largest candy store in the world, based in New York City)

 
 

Pablo and Paloma Picasso

 
 

John and Anjelica Huston

 
 

Henry Fonda with his children Peter and Jane

 
 

Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia and Roman

 
 

Alain Delon and Anthony

 
 

Vincente Minelli and Liza. Photo: Bob Willoughby

 
 

Mel Ferrer with Audrey Hepburn Holding Newborn Sean

 
 

Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville and Patricia

 
 

Kelly Curtis, Jamie Leigh Curtis, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh

 
 

Robert De Niro Sr. (painter) and Robert De Niro Jr.(actor)

 
 

Jaime Haven Voight, Angelina Jolie, and Jon Voight. Photo: Ron Galella

 
 

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their blended family

 
 

Steve McQueen, Neile Adams, Terry Leslie and Chad

 
 

Jean Paul Belmondo and Patricia

 
 

Heath Ledger and Matilda

Fashion Takes Its Bite of the Big Apple

Peter Som, United Bamboo, Imitation of Christ, Jeffrey Chow, Behnaz Sarafpour and Sebastian Pons

 
 

Actress and Imitation of Christ creative consultant Chloë Sevigny, with Elephant lead singer Diego Garcia, Hope Atherton and male model

 
 

Michael Kors, Carmen Kass and Mexican actor Diego Luna

 
 

Mark Badgley, James Mishka, Vera Wang, a group of rappers and models

 
 

Narciso Rodriguez, Oscar de la Renta, his daughther Eliza Reed Bolen, Karolina Kurkova, Liya Kebede, Eugenia Silva and other models

 
 

Proenza Schouler designers Lázaro Hernández (left) and Jack Mc Collough. In this picture they attempt to corral a llama, inspired by Inge Morath’s 1957 photograph in which the animal rides a cab through New York City.

 
 

Tommy Hilfiger and Karolina Kurkova

 
 

Zac Posen and his circle of friends

 
 

Angela Lindvall and Donna Karan; Isabelli Fontana and Kenneth Cole; Alek Wek and Diane von Furstenberg

 
 

Carolina Herrera, surrounded by models and the members of the Frick Museum’s gala benefit committee.

 
 

Ralph Lauren, Anouck Lepere, Isabelli Fontana and Filippa Hamilton

 
 

Marc Jacobs and his close friend Sofia Coppola

 
 

Calvin Klein creative director Francisco Costa, Natalia Vodianova, Luca Gadjus and Patrick Robinson (the-then designer of Perry Ellis)

 
 

Fashion Editorial pressed in Vogue USA, February 2004
Photographer: Mario Testino
Editor: Tonne Goodman

A Tribute To The Seventh Art

Mark Summer’s process of drawing

 

Step 1: A quick sketch to block out the final composition.

 

Step 2: The preliminary sketch
“I don’t always go to this extreme for a rough sketch- only if the piece is fairly complex or if the client needs to see some indication of where the exact light and darks will fall. I’m not sure how I wound up doing sketches in such a Byzantine fashion, but it is a quick way to determine the overall tone.
This is a simple line drawing, done with a felt tip pen. On tracing paper- I then spray mount it onto a light toned paper. The highlights are acrylic paint. Even after this step I will still tend to “fiddle.” If I feel a hand is too small, or a figure too large I photocopy it to the proper size and just paste it in.”

 

Step 3: The finished black and white.
“Each drawing begins as a black square. After this, using a knife, I scratch white lines into the surface. I try to discourage clients from asking to see “the work in progress,” as at any time there will be an entirely finished head here, a hand there, all floating in a sea of black.
I tend to work size-as (this drawing is 12” high- each face being approximately 2” high.) In a drawing such as this, I find it takes a full day to finish each figure. I then have the finished work scanned and printed onto photographic paper.”

 

Step 4: Finished color.
“A fast process, as the black and white drawing already defines the modeling. Simple flat tones of color are all that are really needed. I paint details with watercolor and then everything else with oil glazes. Sometimes I go in and smooth things out with airbrush. The final step is to paint in highlights with acrylic.

The coloring of this piece took about three hours.”

 
 

Orson Welles (as Charles Foster Kane), hominid (from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Oddyssey), Peter O’Toole (as Lawrence of Araby), Alfred Hitchcock, Marlon Brando (as Vito Corleone), Judy Garland (as Dorothy), James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart (as Rick Blaine) and Vivian Leigh (as Scarlett O’Hara).

Another Turn of the Screw

…Or how a script was screwed

 

Paramount Pictures executives commissioned Truman Capote to pen the screenplay for the third filmed version of Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. They offered to pay him $135 for the script.
 
By its structure, like an extensive flashback, by its brevity and, above all, by its elegiac tone, The Great Gatsby has a lot in common with The Grass Harp and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Basically, Truman was delighted by the commission. “Fitzgerald has a charm”, he said. “It may be a silly word, but I think that is maybe the word that fits. I like The Great Gatsby a lot and that nostalgia, it’s both sad and joyful.” Capturing and portraying Gatsby’s ephemeral features into a screenplay turned out to be a task much harder than what Capote ever thought. It was a nightmare for him.
 
Jack Clayton, the British director who specialized in bringing literary works to the big screen, had previously worked with Capote on The Innocents (1961), a movie based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. By a suggestion of the author of In Cold Blood, Clayton was hired to direct The Great Gatsby.
 
Capote finished the draft in January 1972, and on the whole he felt satisfied with what he had constructed. However, Paramount rejected the script, considering it “unacceptable” and for being too similar to the literary version. A young, UCLA screenwriter named Francis Ford Coppola came in and did a basic transfer of the novel to screenplay form. It was a solid script but perhaps too respectful. On his commentary track for the DVD release of The Godfather, Coppola makes reference to writing the Gatsby script at the time, though he comments: “Not that the director paid any attention to it. The script that I wrote did not get made.”

 
 

Truman Capote portrayed by Irving Penn, 1965

Life Becomes Them

In her formative years, Monica Bellucci’s most intimate desire was to follow in the footsteps of Gina Lollobrigida, Silvana Mangano, Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren, four Italian muses that, (as she finally also achieved) became magnificent actresses in their country and abroad. Monica began her modeling career at Elite+ Models Agency working with several important brands like Revlon.

 
 

The Most Unforgettable Women in the World Wear Revlon, Ad Campaign phots by Richard Avedon, 1989

 
 

Legendary filmmaker Dino Risi (who directed movies starring by Monica Vitti, Sophia Loren and Ornella Mutti) offered her a leading role in 1990’s Vita coi Figli. Francis Ford Coppola, after watching photos of her in a portfolio offered her a small but arresting cameo in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). Bellucci played one of Dracula’s brides who, in one particularly erotic scene, practically devoured Jonathan Harker, the fictional character performed by Keanu Reeves.

 
 

Producer Franco Rossellini, Isabella’s cousin, also appears in the Ad Campaign

 
 

By that time, Steven Meisel made this Dolce Gabbana’s Spring Summer Collection 1992 Ad Campaign inspired by La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960), depicting playful mischief and self-indulgence behaviors along glittery outfits. The collection higlighted the trends of that season: short dresses, embroidered accents, bustiers with lifelike flowers, along with D&G’s stylistic signatures over the years, lingerie, lace and so on.

 
 

Goldie Hawn wearing a costume for the frisky photo shoot by Annie Leibovitz. Vanity Fair, March 1992.

 
 

Isabella Rossellini began her career as a model at 28, photographed by Bruce Weber for British Vogue. From 1982 to 1996, she became the exclusive face of Lancôme. Around October 1992, Rossellini made appearances in two of Madonna’s projects: her outrageous book Sex and the Erotica music video.

 
 

British Vogue cover by Bruce Weber, circa 1982

 
 

Lancôme Ads

 
 

That same year, in Death Becomes Her (Robert Zemeckis, 1992) she played Lisle, a mysterious, wealthy socialite who seems to be in her thirties. However, Lisle discloses her true age as 71, and reveals to Madeline (Meryl Streep) the secret of her beauty: a potion that promises eternal life and an ever-lasting youthful appearance. It has been said that after her appearance in that film, Lancôme was considering not renewing their contract with Rossellini.

 
 

Death Becomes Her Theatrical movie poster

 
 

 
 

The comedic film, Cactus Flower (Gene Saks, 1969) marked the return of Ingrid Bergman (Isabella Rossellini’s mother) to the movies. This, her first role in a comedy, garnered critical praise. Goldie Hawn won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.