iSad.

May the man who changed the world forever Rest In Peace.

The Sexist Lingerie Ads with Gisele Bundchen that Brazil Wants to Ban.

Is breaking bad news to your significant other easier when you're sporting sexy lingerie? That's the message behind Brazilian lingerie brand HOPE's campaign - urging women to use 'their natural charms' when delivering less than appealing information to their husbands. Are men really that easy? If you look like Gisele, I bet they are.



The land of waxed coochies and sexy supermodels is considering a ban on the ad campaign (whose three spots are shown below).

Brazil's Ministry for Women called Wednesday for the suspension of a television ad campaign featuring lingerie-clad supermodel Gisele Bundchen, saying it reinforces the stereotype of women as sex objects.



The agency said in a statement it was asking the state council on advertising to halt the use of the ads with Bundchen, the Brazilian native who is believed to be the world's highest paid model.



The ads "reinforces an erroneous stereotype of women as sex objects and ignores the progress made in ending sexist practices. It also represents discrimination against women," the ministry said in a statement.



In the ads for the Brazilian intimate wear brand Hope,"Bundchen is clad in panties, a bra and high heels, in an effort to distract her husband when she delivers bad news -- about damaging the car, exceeding her credit limit, and her mother coming to live with them.

The TV ads send a message "that sensuality can melt any man" and "encourages Brazilian women to use their charms... to minimize the reactions of their husbands," the ministry said.

The ministry managed to ban a beer ad in 2010 featuring US model Paris Hilton in suggestive poses.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

If You Don't Look Like Steve McQueen At Least You Can Dress Like Him.

Steve McQueen was the embodiment of rugged sexiness. The fact that he was as masculine offstage as on, makes his appeal timeless. So it's no wonder that clothing company Barbour has introduced a Steve McQueen Collection consisting of good-looking outerwear, rough-hewn workshirts, knits and tees. Created to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the International Motorcycle jacket, the iconic British Brand designed this limited edition capsule collection featuring the King of Cool.



Items in the new collection are worth a gander and are playfully named after his movies or interests. Sweaters, outerwear, buttoned work shirts and t-shirts make up the small line. Although the t-shirts are nothing to write home about (colored tees with images of McQueen and Barbour International printed upon them), the jackets even have inner linings which feature black and white images of the handsome legend.

Here's proof that cool doesn't go out of style:














Shop the collection here.

Below is a reprinted interview with Chad McQueen, the son of the film star, motorcycle racer, stuntman and style icon.


Your father is often described as the 'King of Cool'. How would you describe his dress style?
Classic, elegant, cool and timeless.

Why do you think your father's dress style is still relevant today?
Cool doesn’t go out of style.

Knowing the heritage of the brand and the fact that your father is one of its most famous wearers, what does Barbour mean to you? Is it a brand you feel particularly aligned with? Do you wear Barbour yourself?
I have some great memories with the Barbour jackets. They were always around and I remember the way they smelled, the way they felt, and the weight of them. I do wear Barbour and of course it’s because of the images of my dad on the Triumph. It’s such a cool image that it’s burned in to my mind forever.

Back in the 60s when your father competed in the ISDT, he wore Barbour. You are also well known for racing 2 and 4 wheels. How did you and your father choose the clothes that you wore to race cars/bikes?
Sponsorships started coming in to play in the 70s so that really dictated what I wore while I raced, but I’m sure that Bud’s influence was a big part of my dad’s decision to wear Barbour.

What do you like best about the collaboration with Barbour?
I am happy to be part of the 75th anniversary of the motorcycle jacket with this exciting collaboration. All of the designs capture my dad’s sense of style and the timing is perfect - Chad McQueen for Barbour

Barbour Steve McQueen™ Collection

Angelina Jolie Print Ad and Video Teaser for Louis Vuitton's Core Values Campaign.

above photo (detail) by Annie Leibovitz


Angelina Jolie is the latest celebrity photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Louis Vuitton's ongoing "Core Values" ad campaign. Posing in a wooden boat in Cambodia, and wearing her own clothes, the print ad broke yesterday and will soon be accompanied by an interview with the actress, filmed on location, to be featured on Louis Vuitton's Journeys microsite.


Angelina Jolie print ad for Louis Vuitton, shot by Annie Leibovitz

The previous ads, photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the Louis Vuitton Core values campaign, are shown below and feature Bono, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride and Jim Lovell and Sean Connery:






What makes Angelina's ad even more beautiful is that Ms. Jolie has donated a large slice of the $10m (£6m) she is said to have been paid from a Louis Vuitton photo shoot to charity, according to Sky News.

The following teaser launched yesterday on Louis Vuitton's Journey microsite:


From WWD:
She’s barefoot, wearing her own clothes, no makeup and toting her own elegantly weathered monogrammed Alto bag. Yet Angelina Jolie looks radiant and completely in her element, reclining on a wooden boat in a verdant, lakeside landscape in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province. Jolie discovered the country in 2000 when she filmed “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” and it sparked her humanitarian activism.

She’s the latest celebrity to pose for Louis Vuitton’s popular “Core Values” campaign — and surely the only one who brought four children to the photo shoot, some of whom had to be shooed out of Annie Leibovitz’s frame.

“People are not used to seeing Angelina in this situation,” said Pietro Beccari, Vuitton’s executive vice president, unveiling the image exclusively to WWD. “I like the fact that it’s a real moment. This travel message we give through personal journeys is a fundamental one for the brand.”

The ad is slated to break in the International Herald Tribune on Wednesday, followed by a range of news, general interest and lifestyle publications, including Vanity Fair.

Beccari declined to disclose budgets for the media buy, or comment on reports Vuitton paid the American actress millions for the shoot. He would only say Jolie donated an undisclosed portion of her fees to a charity.

The campaign is expected to run for at least 18 months alongside a few other recent “core values” personalities, including Bono and Sean Connery. Vuitton introduced the advertising concept in 2007 as a way to trumpet its travel roots and showcase its perennial monogrammed leather goods as a balance to its fashion-driven marketing — and to reach a broader audience. Other personalities who have posed for Vuitton include Mikhail Gorbachev, Keith Richards and Catherine Deneuve.

Today, Louis Vuitton posted the teaser on its Web site, louisvuittonjourneys.com/cambodia, foreshadowing an interview with Jolie that will be posted later in the month. In it, she is expected to discuss how her visit to Cambodia was a life-changing experience, awakening her to the plight of Third World countries. She adopted her eldest son, Maddox, from Cambodia and she and Brad Pitt established the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which is active in community development and conservation in the country.

“This campaign is about a very special person and a very special journey,” Beccari said.

And a storied handbag. Beccari showed off several paparazzi shots of Jolie toting the Alto carryall, which is believed to be at least six years old. The style is no longer in production, but “we are considering to re-edit it,” Beccari noted.

Louis Vuitton Journeys/Cambodia

Lindsay Lohan Strikes A Pose. Make That Many Poses In Richard Phillips' First Film.

above: Film stills from Lindsay Lohan by Richard Phillips

Lindsay Lohan - A Richard Phillips Film, Jul 28th 2011 at The Gagosian Gallery


The press release:
Gagosian Gallery announces Lindsay Lohan, Richard Phillips' first short film. In his 90-second motion portrait of Lindsay Lohan, Phillips draws on the conventions of his painting that explore the legacies of classical portraiture in relation to the mediated representations of contemporary popular culture.

The film depicts Lohan in a number of classical poses, with references to iconic moments in film, such as Brigitte Bardot smoldering in Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, or the searing psychosexual interplay of Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman in Ingmar Bergman's Persona. To create a timeless and psychologically charged Hollywood setting, Phillips repurposed a remote Malibu mansion, but freighted it with the speculative desire of contemporary cinematic performance.

Through Phillips's lens, the defiant openness that makes Lohan so compelling on film becomes the ignition key of each image; the pause before action that allows for the identities of actor and director to meld, where expectation and projection contrast with the construction of multilayered identity.

In these full-frame motion portraits of Lohan, Phillips repudiates the cynical expediency associated with the artistic and commercial convention of the screen test by examining and exposing its manipulative and coercive undertones. He thus works to subvert this carefully constructed form, presenting Lohan as released from acutely mediated narrative representation.

"Lindsay has an incredible emotional and physical presence on screen that holds an existential vulnerability, while harnessing the power of the transcendental—the moment in transition. She is able to connect with us past all of our memory and projection, expressing our own inner eminence." -Richard Phillips

Richard Phillips’ Lindsay Lohan will be included in Commercial Break, presented by the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Venice, June 1 - 5, concurrent with the 54th Biennale di Venezia.

Credits:
Directed by: Richard Phillips and Taylor Steele
Director of Photography: Todd Heater
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Creative Director: Dominic Sidhu
Art Director: Kyra Griffin
Editor: Haines Hall
Color mastering: Pascal Dangin for Boxmotion
Second Director of Photography: Alejandro Berger
Directors’ Assistant: Katerina Llanes
Wardrobe Stylist: Ira Hammons-Glass
Hair Stylist: Aaron Light
Make Up Stylist: Mylah Morales
Photographer: Christelle De Castro
Photographer's Assistant: Gregory Brouillette
Music: Tamaryn and Rex John Shelverton
Production: GE Projects
Typeface(s): Jean-Luc by Atelier Carvalho Bernau

Richard Phillips would like to thank Lindsay Lohan, Eleanore Lieven, Melissa Lazarov, John Good, Natalia Bonifacci, Doug Aitken, Aimee Walleston, Michelle Finocchi, Ania Diakoff, Patrik Sandberg, Chrisitian Kaemmerling and Group Lotus, Lynne Mannino at Spotwelders, Nadia Sadigianis at Box Studios, Jess Rotter at Mexican Summer, Mark Mayer, Celestine Agency, MILK Studios, Chateau Marmont, and Gagosian Gallery. Special thanks to Josephine Meckseper.

View more videos from "Commercial Break," presented by the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture: www.commercialbreak.org

Her Men, Her Movies, Her Diamonds, Her Photos. The Legacy Of Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011

She loved men. And diamonds. And we loved her. This morning's death of legend Dame Elizabeth Taylor is being felt around the world. The world's most glamorous actress of all time passed away at age 79 of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles early this morning, prompting bloggers and newspeople to begin publishing the many incredible images of the violet-eyed beauty and details of her illustrious career.

Over the past three decades much has been published about her many marriages, her incredible personal collections of some of the most magnificent diamond jewelry, her substance abuse problems, her avid activism on the behalf of AIDS sufferers [she helped start the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and established her own AIDS Foundation] and her bizarre friendship with Michael Jackson.



In addition to the aforementioned, she was a savvy businesswoman, creating a collection of fine jewelry (House of Taylor) and several best selling perfumes. But let us not forget, she also was a fine actress.

She's also been immortalized by some of the most well-known and talented photographers and artists of all time. Here are a few of my favorite images of Liz.

THE IMAGES
By Richard Avedon (1964):

By Franceso Scavullo (1964):

By Andy Warhol (1964):

By Philippe Halsman (1948):

by Frank Worth (1955);

By Norman Parkinson (mid 1950s):

By Angus McBean (1966):

By Burt Glinn (1959):

By Douglas Kirkland (1961):

By William Klein, 1965 cover of Paris Vogue:

By Cecil Beaton (1971):

By Helmut Newton (1986):


More of my favorite images of Liz, only I do not know the photographers:




A few basic stats:
Date of Birth: 27 February 1932, Hampstead, London, England, UK
Date of Death: 23 March 2011, Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth Name: Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor
Nicknames: Liz, Kitten
Height: 5' 2" (1.57 m)

HER HUSBANDS & WEDDING PHOTOS
Taylor was married eight times to seven husbands. Here are photos of each of her weddings:

* Conrad "Nicky" Hilton (May 6, 1950 – January 29, 1951) (divorced):

* Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 – January 26, 1957) (divorced):

* Michael Todd (February 2, 1957 – March 22, 1958) (widowed):

* Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 – March 6, 1964) (divorced):

* Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 – June 26, 1974) (divorced):

* Richard Burton (October 10, 1975 – July 29, 1976) (divorced):

* John Warner (December 4, 1976 – November 7, 1982) (divorced):

* Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 – October 31, 1996) (divorced):



HER JEWELS:
Liz was bought some of the world's finest and most expensive jewels from husbands Richard Burton, Michael Todd and Eddie Fisher. Her love affair with gems is well known and her perfumes were named after them as well.

Most famous of her extensive collection are the 33.19 carat Asscher-cut Krupp Diamond, a ring which she wore for many decades:



And the 69.42 carat Taylor-Burton Diamond, which she wore as a pendant on a necklace as well as a ring:


above: The Taylor-Burton diamond necklace consisting of 67 pear-shaped diamonds with the central diamond of 69.42 carats. The necklace was made for Cartier in 1969. Image Courtesy of Oscar Heyman, Inc., New York.

She also wore the enormous pear-shaped Taylor Burton Diamond as a ring:


She has a very extensive collection of diamond tiaras and many emeralds, rubies and more. Many of which can be found in her book, Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry


above: the cover of her book, My Love Affair With Jewelry


HER MOVIES:

above: Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Giant in 1955

If you're going to memorialize her by renting a few of her movies this weekend, I highly recommend the following, which really were her most memorable performances:

• Suddenly, Last Summer
• Butterfield 8
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
• The Sandpiper
• Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
• The Taming of the Shrew

Not as great but worth renting for the novelty are:
• Giant
* The Last Time I Saw Paris
* Cleopatra
* Raintree County
* A Place In The Sun

For the kids, you may want to consider:
• National Velvet
• Lassie Come Home
• Father Of The Bride

See her complete filmography here.
Books on Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor Movies on DVD

The world will not be the same without you. Rest in peace, Liz.
images courtesy of Magnum photos, Artnet, LIFE magazine and Getty images