I love commercial photography. I love looking at campaign ads and fashion editorials and I love doing commercial inspired shoots. Because I am a photographer, and not a designer, my interest in the fashion industry lies mostly in the photography and how to look at clothes and fabric and people rather than the clothes themselves. However, there are certain times when I am drawn to the fashion, the designers and their lines. I was going through some magazine clippings I had and the shoes for the fashion house Balmain were commented on quite frequently. While the shoes aren't as extraordinary as the ones featured in the Alexander McQueen Spring 2010 Collection (also featured in Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video), the Balmain shoes were practical and thus marketable in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Harpers Bazaar (where my clippings were from).
Alexander McQueen:
I searched http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/F2009RTW-BALMAIN for the Balmain 2009 Fall collection which the shoes were featured in. I found that the clothes were incredibly well suited and that the shoe and clothing pairing for the show was perfect in every outfit. Looking through some of Balmain's previous shows and the Spring 2010 collection, the Fall 2009 was my favorite because the clothes were making a statement with their "disco-inspired" prints and textures but were, at the same time, relatively marketable and wearable (especially the last 3 here). Here are some of my favorites from the Balmain Fall 2009 collection from head designer Christophe Decarnin:
- I think the newest ads for the company aren't anything spectacular. The men's collection doesn't have any amazing pieces to showcase and while the pictures aren't bad, they aren't anything we haven't already seen before a hundred times. They don't attempt to promote any type of lifestyle in their campaigns because of their blank white background and they rely solely on their young, attractive model, with the same expression in each photograph, to attract their target audience. I think as an ad campaign, they could do so much more. However, if I saw these images as an editorial shoot in a magazine I would probably take more notice of the images as portraits, but as images to represent their entire company, and campaign I am not quite impressed.
Balmain Homme Spring 2010 Campaign Ads:
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