Bitchin'...

So here we go folks, a brand new ad season is closing in and the first glimpse of something new is a preview of Givenchy's F/W 09 campaign. I've never been really wowed by a Givenchy campaign before, often finding them boring and kind of uninteresting. Since Riccardo Tisci started in 2005 his campaigns for the label have been shot by Dutch duo Inez & Vinoodh, which could perhaps be why I've never been especially moved by them (I don't want to say I've never liked anything by I&V, but it's rare that I do). But in the past, despite not liking the images much, I have always been intrigued by Tisci's choice in models which can only be described as eclectic. Lately he's been mixing hot new faces (Iris Strubegger, Edita Vilkeviciute, Lakshmi Menon), Givenchy perennials (Lara Stone, Mariacarla Boscono, Natasha Poly) and interesting curveballs (Frankie Rayder, Ujjwala Raut, Kristen McMenamy, Adriana Lima) on his runways to great effect, and the result is some of the most interesting casting around. This season Tisci decided to replace I&V with another dynamic duo, Bourdin-worshipping golden boys Mert & Marcus. I have sort of a love/hate relationship with M&M. Occasionally they really bring it, but more often then not their formula of inhumanly airbrushed perfection and cartoony color just grates on my nerves and bores me to tears. So I wasn't really sure what to expect when the results were unveiled. The fact that for a while Adriana Lima was the only girl mentioned as part of the cast wasn't exactly reassuring. However, what we wound up with is actually pretty solid, if the preview is anything to go by. Set in a fancy-pants boudoir, the cast, with their death stares and severe makeup, looks like some kind of really chic cult of sexual predators or something along those lines. I really like the contrast between the fussy interior and the aggression of the girls and clothing. Then there's Adriana's solo shot. It's kind of what you'd get if you crossed a George Hurrell photo of Jean Harlow with a Marilyn Manson groupie circa 1997, and I mean that in the best possible way. She looks nothing like "Adriana Lima" the bubbly, boobalicious, ultra-glossed Victoria's Secret angel everyone loves, and for that alone I'm kind of impressed. I wouldn't have thought it possible. There's also this Leonor Scherrer, the one who looks quite a bit like Malgosia Bela, thrown into the mix. Until I read the blurb posted from WWD on tFS, I had never heard of her before, though I found out she's the same woman I had seen in a picture by The Sartorialist that I loved. Overall the result is pretty different than what I would have expected, and if I didn't know that Mert & Marcus were behind the images I probably wouldn't have guessed it.

I don't want to say that I'm in love with them just yet, because I've yet to see the rest of the campaign and it'll probably be a few more weeks at least until more campaigns debut, but there is something about these that I like very much. Hell, it could just be that I really like the cast and the look, the whole "I might drain your blood as foreplay, I might not" kind of vibe. One thing's for sure, I can't wait to see more.

All images from wwd.com via MissMagAddict at theFashionSpot