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Tag: supermodel

  • Supermodel Gigi Hadid Named for McDonald’s role

    Supermodel Gigi Hadid Named for McDonald’s role

    Supermodel Gigi Hadid is facing criticism over her recent promotional Instagram post for McDonald’s.

    A photo of Hadid eating McDonald’s French fries at the Coachella music festival provoked a considerable backlash in the comments feed, with many observers taking issue with her partnership with a fast-food chain considered by many to be synonymous with obesity and poor health, considering her Instagram account is followed by 47 million people.

    Hadid’s photo caption, captioned “Pre festival with @mcdonalds yesterday fed & hydrated, thanks friends!” caused many to question her wisdom in choosing sponsors.

    One popular comment liked by more than 3600 people read “I really do not understand why you would promote McDonalds. In fact, it utterly baffles me why an intelligent, well informed and influential person like yourself would what to be affiliated with such a company. Surely it can’t be for the money? There are so many other ways to be ‘fed and hydrated.’”

    The comments have been said to reveal McDonald’s still has significant PR hurdles to overcome regarding the nutritional content of its offering, despite recent moves to become seen as a “modern, progressive” burger chain.

    As one comment put it, “Awful partnership Gigi. McDonald’s is poison.”

  • Life after Karl Lagerfeld

    Life after Karl Lagerfeld

    Chanel has named Virginie Viard, Karl Lagerfeld’s closest collaborator for more than 30 years, as its new creative director, the French fashion house said in a statement following the death of the legendary designer. The move muffled speculation over whether Chanel might seek out another big name to replace Lagerfeld, who was 85 years old. Potential successors often cited by industry observers over the years included Hedi Slimane, now ensconced at Celine, as well as Phoebe Philo, the designer he replaced there, and Alber Elbaz, formerly of Lanvin.

    Those designers would likely have sought to bring their own vision to one of the world’s biggest luxury brands, with $9.6 billion in sales in 2017. Instead, Chanel’s owners, the billionaire Wertheimer family, emphasised continuity in appointing Viard, who the brand said in a statement had been “entrusted by chief executive Alain Wertheimer with the creative work for the collections, so that the legacy of Gabrielle Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld can live on.” The decision is in character for the Wertheimers, who waited 12 years after Gabrielle Chanel died in 1971 before appointing Lagerfeld in 1983.

    Viard, who has been called “Karl’s secret weapon,” joined Chanel as an intern in haute-couture embroidery in 1987, four years after Lagerfeld became creative director of the brand. (She was recommended for the job by a chamberlain of Prince Rainier of Monaco.) After working together at Chanel, Viard joined Lagerfeld at Chloé in 1992 — where he was also the head designer — and worked there for five years before returning to Chanel and working her way up to become director of the company’s fashion design studio.

    “Virginie is the most important person, not only for me but also for the atelier, for everything,” Lagerfeld said in a Netflix documentary released in 2018. “She is my right arm and even if I don’t see her, we are on the phone all the time.”

    Still, Viard remained largely in the shadow of her larger-than-life boss. “I hate being in the spotlight,” she said last year.

    In recent seasons, she began taking a bow with Lagerfeld at the end of each Chanel show, including the Chanel Métiers d’Art show in New York in December 2018, which marked the designer’s final runway appearance. At the end of Chanel’s haute couture show in January 2019, Viard stepped out solo to take a bow, raising concerns about Lagerfeld’s health and prompting the brand to issue a press release.

    Other fashion houses have tapped studio heads who have demonstrated their ability to channel a departed designer’s vision after their deaths, most notably Sarah Burton, the late Alexander McQueen’s right-hand, who was named creative director of the London-based fashion house after McQueen’s suicide in 2010.

    LVMH-owned Italian house Fendi, where Lagerfeld was the artistic director of women’s ready-to-wear and couture collections, has yet to announce a succession plan, saying it intends to take its time to pay the designer the homage he deserves. Fendi is to present Lagerfeld’s last collection on Thursday in Milan.

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  • Zara campaign featuring model with freckles sparks debate in China

    Zara campaign featuring model with freckles sparks debate in China

    Spanish fashion retailer Zara appears to have inadvertently sparked off a social media furore over the appearance of freckled Chinese model Jing Wen in one of its recent ads. In China, spots on the face are generally considered blemishes and are associated with disease and old age. Freckles are somewhat rare. In a country where racial homogeneity is a touchstone for beauty, outliers – the bushy eyebrowed, the wavy haired – are unlikely to be considered attractive. In the fashion industry, however, it’s these outliers who tend to have the unique, striking looks that brands prefer for their ambassadors.

    Despite hating her freckles as a child, Guangzhou model Jing Wen eventually learned to accept and capitalise on her point of difference. As a model for such brands as Calvin Klein and H&M, her face has even been called “iconic” by China’s media. Even so, her recent work with Zara has produced an outcry among local netizens who claim the use of the model intentionally “uglifies” the Chinese people.

    A BBC report on the freckled Chinese model quoted some disgruntled users of the Weibo microblog as voicing their anger over the images. “Such pictures featuring an Asian model with freckles and an expressionless pie-shaped face mislead Westerners’ impressions about Asian women,” said one user, “and can lead to racism against Asian women.”

    A spokesperson for Zara interviewed by Pear Video website commented that the advertisements were targeted at their global market, and not specifically at China.

    “The aesthetics of the Spanish people are different,” they said, adding “our models are all photographed purely, the pictures aren’t changed, and they’re not modified.”

    Zara’s response has provoked considerable debate within China on the issue, with some claiming the model has been bullied only by her fellow Chinese, and that more should be done to help China’s people embrace beauty in diversity. Others have called into question the false patriotism of those too eager to mount an attack on foreign brands.

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  • 97-year-old style icon Iris Apfel signs with IMG Models

    97-year-old style icon Iris Apfel signs with IMG Models

    The nonagenarian fashion icon had been modeling for major fashion and beauty brands for years, but last week it was announced that she is newly represented by IMG Models — the same agency that managed the careers of Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, and Miranda Kerr, among many others. Even as she is pushing 100, Apfel shows no signs of slowing down, and told WWD she is very excited about her new deal.

    IMG will represent her for modeling, appearances, and endorsements — though do not expect to see her strutting her stuff on the catwalk.

    “How can I compete on runway? That’s ridiculous,” she said. “We’ll be doing hopefully collaborations, or maybe I’ll be a spokesperson. I leave it to them. They know better than I.”

    “I’ve had all kinds of interesting commissions in my limited career. Everything from vodka and automobiles to beauty products, and I’ve also had a number of interesting collaborations with big stores like Bon Marché in Paris, the Landmark Mall in Hong Kong, Macy’s and Bergdorf Goodman.”

    Over the past decade, in particular, Apfel has modeled for a seriously impressive roster of big-name fashion and beauty brands.

    Sheis faced campaigns for Kate Spade, MAC Cosmetics, Alexis Bittar, Macy’s INC, Blue Illusion, HSN, Le Bon Marché, and the German brand Aigner.

    In each one, she showed off a facet of her style, including her signature over-sized round glasses.

    For several, she posed right alongside models a quarter of her age, including Karlie, Toni Garnn, Tavi Gevinson, and Jourdan Dunn.

    And no one is as surprised by her late-in-life modeling career than Apfel herself. Though she had a long career in fashion, it was owning her own textile company, Old World Weavers, from 1950 that kept her in the fashion world.

    “I never expected my life would take this turn so I never prepared for it. It all just happened so suddenly, and I thought at my tender age, I am not going to set up offices and get involved with all kinds of things,” she said.

    “I thought it was a flash in the pan, and it is not going to last. Somehow, people found me. People would just call. Tommy Hilfiger said that was no way to do it, and he put us together. I am very excited and very grateful.”

    In addition to modeling, she also designs her own clothing and accessories line for HSN and published a book last year.

    Her new agency is home to an impressive list of stars, inducing Alessandra Ambrosio, Ashley Graham, Amber Valletta, Barbara Palvin, Bella Hadid, Candice Swanepoel, Elsa Hosk, Gisele, Hailey Bieber, Joan Smalls, Kaia Gerber, Kate Moss, Lily Aldridge, Martha Hunt, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Stephanie Seymour, and Thylane Blondeau.

    The have also signed another mature model: Elon Musk’s 70-year-old model Maye Musk.

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  • Kendall Jenner signed agreement with Penshoppe

    Kendall Jenner signed agreement with Penshoppe

    Global fashion retail brand Penshoppe has unveiled the latest addition to its roster of international ambassadors – 23-year-old world’s highest-paid supermodel and one of the most followed celebrities on social media, Kendall Jenner. The model initially appeared on Penshoppe’s DenimLab campaign in 2015, and is now headlining the brand’s Spring Summer 2019 Campaign with Zayn Malik, Paris Jackson, Nam Joo Hyuk and Sandara Park.

    “As we move from strength to strength, we couldn’t think of a better addition to our growing list of global ambassadors”, said Golden ABC’s VP for brand management Jeff Bascon. “It’s good to have you back, Kendall!”


    Penshoppe has more than 400 locations across Bahrain, Cambodia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. The brand is available online in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia.

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  • Victoria’s Secret apologises for ‘insensitive’ transgender model comment

    Victoria’s Secret apologises for ‘insensitive’ transgender model comment

    Following the backlash on social media, the chief marketing officer of L Brands, parent company of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, has posted an apology on Twitter for comments he made about transgender models. Ed Razek, L Brands’s CMO, released a statement on Twitter clarifying a comment he made in an interview with Vogue magazine, which read:

    “To be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model in our show. We’ve had transgender models come to castings… And like many others, they didn’t make it.”

    Razek and Monica Mitro, vice president of public relations for Victoria’s Secret, sat down in an interview with Vogue which touched on the topic on the casting team’s choices. Razek, who is part of the casting team, mentioned the company had considered putting plus-sized models and transgenders in the show but had not acted on it, since the company “did not market to the whole world.”

    L Brands has recently announced it is expecting a third quarter loss per share of about US$0.17.  The reported loss per share includes a total charge of about US$0.32 per share, which consists of an approximate pretax cash charge of US$20 million related to the closure of its Henri Bendel business, and an approximate pretax non-cash impairment charge of US$80 million related to certain Victoria’s Secret store assets.

    Excluding the charges mentioned, the company expects adjusted third quarter earnings per share to be approximately US$0.15, compared to its previous guidance of US$0.00 to US$0.05, principally driven by outperformance at Bath & Body Works.

    The company has recently reported an 8 per cent increase in sales of US$860.5 million for the four weeks ending November 3 and a 4 per cent increase in same-store sales for the period. It has seen a 6 per cent increase for the 13 weeks ending November 3 of US$2.78 billion compared to the previous corresponding period.

    L Brands, is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on November 21.

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  • Estee Lauder to axe up to 1200 jobs

    Estee Lauder to axe up to 1200 jobs

    Beauty giant Estee Lauder has announced a multi-year initiative named Leading Beauty Forward to build on its strengths and better leverage its cost structure to free resources for investment to continue its growth momentum.

    The plan involves the reduction of between 900 and 1200 jobs – about 2.5 per cent of its workforce – and restructuring on a number of fronts aimed at saving US$250 million to $300 million in overheads.

    “Leading Beauty Forward is designed to enhance the company’s go-to-market capabilities, reinforce its leadership in global prestige beauty and continue creating sustainable value,” the company said in an announcement coinciding with its latest quarterly financial results.

    Globally, net sales for the company’s third quarter to March 31 totalled US$2.66 billion, a 3 per cent increase compared over the $2.58 billion in the prior-year quarter. Net earnings were $265.6 million, down on the $272.1 million of last year.

    Fabrizio Freda, president and CEO of Estee Lauder, said: “We are launching this initiative from a position of exceptional strength. With the aid of our 10-year compass, we are proactively anticipating long-term industry trends and positioning our brands in more promising and faster growing areas. Leading Beauty Forward should further position us better to continue winning on a complex global stage and generate savings to help sustain our long-term sales growth and margin progress.

    “This initiative is expected to provide further resources to invest in brand growth, increase speed-to-market and flexibility in resource allocation, and better leverage growth for continued profitability improvement,” he concluded

    Leading Beauty Forward will begin during the company’s current quarter. Specific initiatives are expected to be approved through to the end of the 2019 fiscal year and be complete by 2021. Key actions include:

    • Better leveraging growth through cost savings, more scalable processes and organisational design;
    • Redesigning select areas of the company’s go-to-market brand, region and affiliate organisations to strengthen capabilities in areas such as digital and retail;
    • Redesigning and restructuring select corporate functions that support the company’s brands, channels and geographies through the development of scalable global and regional shared services with a more efficient cost base;
    • Investing in brand growth, such as new products, social media, communications, in-store merchandising, point-of-sale activities and advertising.

    The company expects to take restructuring and other charges of between $600 million and $700 million, before taxes, consisting of employee-related costs, asset write-offs and other costs associated with implementing these initiatives.

    Estee Lauder said the job cuts will take into account the elimination of some positions, retraining and redeployment of certain employees and investment in new positions in key areas.

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