Renek Gaszewski [Blog]

Nude - not naked - is what’s sexy for spring.
As New York Fashion Week came to a close on Friday, the Band-Aid color dominated the runways as a modest substitution for the bare skin and cleavage that are often designers’ favorite accessories.
The stripped-down approach has been a popular strategy for designers battling it out in a weak economy, but these looks are anything but dull. Narciso Rodriguez and Herve Leger opted for nude-colored beads, while Ralph Lauren presented liquidlike satins in a sophisticated palette from light sand to olive and gold.
Of course, nude doesn’t match most people’s skin, but that’s a good thing. Traditional “skin” tones work best on women with olive and darker complexions, says Suze Yalof Schwartz, executive fashion editor at Glamour magazine. For paler skin, try pink or gold.
More than 100 designers previewed their spring collections during New York Fashion Week’s eight days of runway shows. Other trends to emerge were a casually elegant draped look, including a popular one-shoulder goddess style, harem-style pants, corsets and beachy shades of blue, violet and marigold.
RALPH LAUREN
If there is such a thing as “refined ruggedness” Ralph Lauren found it: Think “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with a Moroccan-Egyptian theme.
He captured a weathered spirit with safari and bomber jackets and even a ripped cotton-gabardine shirt, but, of course, the core of the Lauren label is luxury, so most of the outfits were ramped up with beautiful beadwork, liquidlike satins and a sophisticated palette.
Lauren also offered both the harem and modified track pant silhouettes, with billowy legs and tight, tapered hems, that have been all over the runways.
“My new rule is, if you’re going to wear harem pants and you’re over 40, make them eveningwear and make them Ralph Lauren,” Yalof Schwartz said.
PROJECT RUNWAY
The women ruled the “Project Runway” finale Friday, leaving the reality competition’s remaining male designers in the dust of jewel toned silks, vintage inspirations and dramatic showpieces.
For most of the show’s alums, the clear favorite was Portland, Ore.-based designer Leanne Marshall, the quiet, bespectacled brunette who was one of six designers to present before an audience that included stylist Rachel Zoe, a bevy of former “Runway” contestants, studio exec Harvey Weinstein and actress Michelle Trachtenberg.
Marshall sent down a beautifully crafted collection of separates and dresses draped in large panels of white, cream and shades of turquoise. Korto Momolu, another tent favorite, had a collection of halter dresses and minis with balloon sleeves in bright green, khaki and yellow.
Kenley Collins sent down vintage silhouettes in bright prints inspired by painting, fantasy and “Alice in Wonderland.” The men - who included Jerrell Scott, Joe Faris and the mohawked Suede - showed far less inspiring and innovative pieces. “I thought Leanne’s was fabulous,” said last year’s winner, Christian Siriano. “She has to be winner, because everything else was not cute.”
CHRISTIAN SIRIANO
The “Project Runway” winner showed his debut collection Thursday and wants the fashion world to know he’s not a flash in the pan.
“I just think there are so many reality shows that people become famous but they’re not really famous for anything,” Siriano said in a phone interview Monday while casting models. “At least people on ‘Project Runway‘ are talented.”
His namesake line, shown to an audience of the show’s alums and judges, along with actresses Elise Neal and Amanda Setton, featured futuristic skinny pants and ruffled blouses along with looks that are already his signature styles, like layers of chiffon circles.
The theme of a stormy night was repeated in dresses covered with layers of chiffon circles like groups of dark rain clouds. A one-shoulder mini dress made from diagonal tiers of gray and neon yellow chiffon strips looked like a rainy sky lit up with lightning bolts.

Following the recent Esquire magazine cover which showed a naked supermodel adorned with the title and first 48 words of Stephen King’s latest novel, there has been a call by writers at TheSpoof for a new feature on the site.
They are demanding parity with King and the option to write their inane rubbish onto the silky naked skin of nude models.
They suggested that writing onto naked flesh may help to get their creative juices flowing, and they made the point that anything that helped to improve the quality of the articles should be made available to them. Writer Monkey Woods said that he didn’t care whether or not the photos of the models were actually used on the spoof news site. “It’s the creative process that’s important,” he said.
Another writer, Skoob1999, immediately put his name down to write on Kiera Knightly. “I know she’s an actress rather than a model, but if she’s willing to do it then I’ll fetch my felt-tip.”
Queen Mudder, another prolific spoofer, said that she had several male models lined up, but was trying to find a pen that would write on a freshly oiled six pack.
However, some of theSpoofs’ writers were concerned that the trend could limit them. Roy Turse told us “It’s all right for writers like Monkey Woods, Queen Mudder and Skoob who can write concise, funny articles. I’m going to have to ask for Beth Ditto.”

Renek Gaszewski:

Muara Johnston describes figure drawing as Pilates for painters. Any painter, regardless of skill and experience level, can benefit from the presence of a live model from which to draw. Which is why the assistant director for the SLO Art Center selected two documentaries featuring nude models to screen in conjunction with the Art Center’s exhibit, Corpora in Extremis (Bodies to the Limits). The public is invited to view The Nude Model and Art is an Attitude: The Art of Drawing the Nude as part of the Art Center’s movie night June 15 at 7 p.m., a program that began last October with the purpose of enhancing the exhibits. Read the rest of this entry »

Sara Ziff began modeling at the age of 14 in New York. At her third casting, in the East Village, models went in to see the photographer one by one. When it was her turn, the photographer said he needed to see her without her shirt. Then he said it was still hard for him to imagine her for the story, so he asked her to take her pants off, too. Nervous, just 14 years old, and eager to succeed in her new profession, she obliged.
Stories like this are all too common in the modeling industry, though unlike anorexia or body-image issues, they’re hardly publicized. Ziff aims to expose them in the documentary she made called Picture Me. Over five years, she took cameras backstage at shows, to parties, and on photo shoots. Her now-ex-boyfriend, a filmmaker, came with her and shot, too. She gave cameras to fellow models and asked them to share their stories. Model Sena Cech described a disturbing casting with one of the industry’s top photographers:

Halfway through the meeting Cech is asked to strip. She does as instructed and takes off her clothes. Then the photographer starts undressing as well. “Baby — can you do something a little sexy,” he tells her. The photographer’s assistant, who is watching, eggs her on. What’s supposed to be the casting for a high-end fashion shoot turns into something more like an audition for a top-shelf magazine. The famous photographer demands to be touched sexually. “Sena — can you grab his cock and twist it real hard,” his assistant tells her. “He likes it when you squeeze it real hard and twist it.”

Cech did it, but turned down the job because she feared the audition was only a taste of what the shoot would be like. The photographer never wanted to work with her again. Ziff explains, “Pretty much every girl I have talked to has a story like it, but no one talks about it. It’s all under the radar because people are embarrassed and because the people in the industry who are doing these things are much more powerful, and the model is totally disposable. She could be gone in two years.” Young models don’t always have anyone to turn to. Just think of the enormous pressures placed on a poor 15-year-old from Latvia who is supporting her family and barely speaks English. Ziff continues:

“I’ve done shoots naked, totally naked. They sell it to you as: ‘Here’s this great artist and he wants to take your portrait.’ I had to switch off the voice in my head that said: ‘Do you really want to do this?’ When you’re being paid a lot of money and you want to appear cool you really don’t want to show any resistance to going with it.
“But at the end of the day I used to wonder: what’s the difference between doing a shoot in your underwear for Calvin Klein and being a stripper? Obviously you are compromising yourself. How far am I willing to go? How much am I willing to show for a big fat cheque?”

A model union could protect models from situations like these. A year and a half ago, two models based in Britain set one up that campaigns for better working conditions, holiday and sickness pay, and protection in case of injury. But they still have a lot of work to do.

Renek Gaszewski’s Studio presents the works of fashion photographer Paolo Roversi in its gallery showrooms. For over 35 years, Paolo Roversi, born in Ravenna, Italy, in 1947, has been working and living in Paris. The exhibition of around 50 photographs will show, beyond the series Guinivere and Nudi, pictures of the studio of the artist in Paris, portraits, as well as works of his lightpaintings. Owing to the well-balanced quality of colors and the clear composition of the photographs of the artist as well as the particular charm and grace of his models, the observer of these photographs is often tempted to study them more as paintings. This effect is also a result of the technique of the artist.
Since 1980 Roversi takes pictures with a 8×10 inch polaroid camera. The prints obtain their distinctive appearance through faded shades of skin color, as can, for example, be seen in the series Guinivere. Over the period of twelve years Roversi accompanied his muse of the same name with the camera in this long-term study. As a result, a mixture of abstract forms of graphic character and very intimate studies was generated. Whether the model is dressed or naked the photographs of Guinivere are unconventional and often provocative portraits.
The series Nudi is marked by a clear composition. The observer sees naked women in full-length portraits which seem to transparently merge into the white picture background. The ladies displayed in the exhibition are top models such as Kate Moss and Tatjana Patiz. This is not the primary interest of the artist. In the book Nudi, the models are simply called by their first name, and they are photographed entirely without requisites or clothing. Thus Roversi maintains the anonymity of the displayed and shows us delicate, in their purity almost heaven-like creatures and not the stars of the fashion scene.
Roversi’s photographs are full of poetry and reflect, in all its facets, the beauty of the female body. The photographs show the artist’s ability not to lapse into superficial aestheticism but to always bestow upon his pictures a subtle aura of the enigmatic and mysterious. Particularly his technique of lightpainting, for which he illuminates the model which is standing in the dark and thus in a way traces it, makes Roversi a traveler between the worlds of photography and painting in the true tradition of the pioneers of artistic photography - the pictorialists. Around the year 1900 artists such as Alvin Langdon Coburn and Edward Steichen began to give photography a pictorial character by using soft-focus, special printing techniques, and complex light installations.
Paolo Roversi’s works have been published in various monographs, among them the lavishly arranged books Nudi (edition Stromboli, Paris: 1999), Libretto (Steidl, Göttingen:2000), and Studio (Steidl, Göttingen and edition Stromboli, Paris:2002). Paolo Roversi was the photographer for campaigns such as Cerruti, Comme des Garçons, Christian Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Valentino, as well as editorials for magazines such as Arena, Harper’s Bazaar, I-D, Interview, Marie-Claire, The New York Times Magazine, Italian and British Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue, and W.