Monday, January 31, 2011

Morgan Booth: Medic











White Nurse: Morgan Booth - White and Red Nurse: Synthetic Daisy
Make-up and Hair by Melissa Nicholl and Christina Rufino
Photography by Luisito Alvina


The photos are from an August 7, 2010  photo shoot for Artifice Clothing. Morgan Booth and Synthetic Daisy's outfits can be purchased from Artifice Clothing http://www.artificeclothing.com/em/shop/scripts/default.asp         

L'Amour Poisonne












La Petite Mort

 La Petite Mort - Photographer: Luisito Alvina Model: Poisonne 

La petite mort, French for "the little death", is a metaphor for orgasm. More widely, it can refer to the spiritual release that comes with orgasm, or a short period of melancholy or transcendence, as a result of the expenditure of the "life force".


Mon Dieu! I have died countless times

 

The Aesthetics of Fetish Fashion

 
Model: Poisonne; Wardrobe Stylist Laura Ann Viehover; Photographer: Luisito Alvina

The aesthetics of fetish fashion has to do with the unique combination of the demure femininity and the unapologetic sexuality that’s captured in fetish model photography. Modern fetish models typically wear extremely or highly stylized clothing to accentuate the female body. Fetish models invariably draw our attention to the beauty of the female form. 





Lady Gaga Unleashed Material from Born This Way at the Paris Fashion Week

Mugler had the hottest soundtrack on the runway at the Paris Fashion Week - January 19-23,  2011. Nicola Formichetti, the new creative director at Mugler, formerly Thierry Mugler Fashion House, and stylist to Lady Gaga tapped the pop sensation to create an exclusive soundtrack for the Fall/Winter 2011/2012 men's reday-to-wear show. Formichetti  told WWD that Gaga would be "musical director" for the show, among the most anticipated debuts of Men's Fashion Week in the French capital. 



Formichetti had been planting teaser images online ahead of the men's show, depicting a model coated in black latex and wearing a black biker jacket and spiked metal helmet.


Formichetti, also an editor and consultant, joined the Paris-based fashion and fragrance firm last September, overseeing two newly engaged designers: Sébastien Peigné, a 10-year veteran of Balenciaga, for women's wear; and Romain Kremer, who has shown experimental looks under his fledgling Paris label since 2005, for men's.  Formichetti styled some of the pop diva’s most famous photos in 2010, including her nearly nude gun-bra cover for Rolling Stone and her lady-in-gray cover for Vanity Fair. 



Formichetti said he’s already created custom Mugler costumes for the pop sensation’s album art, videos and performances ahead of her album release on May 23, and Gaga will likely be more involved in the women’s ready-to-wear line, making its debut on the runway March 1 during Paris Fashion Week


 Photography: Nick Night;  Fashion Director: Nicola Formichetti

Lady GaGa in "Born This Way" leather jacket by Haus of GaGa in collaboration with Tom Tom.

 Song out Feb 13 2011; Album out May 23 2011

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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Lady Gaga versus the World

"I’ve always been Gaga," she said in an interview with Rolling Stone. "It’s just that all the years of schooling and being in a Catholic environment and living in a place where we were kind of told what was the right way to be, I suppressed all those eccentricities about myself so I could fit in. Once I was free, I was able to be myself. I pulled [Gaga] out of me, and I found that all of the things about myself that I so desperately tried to suppress for so many years were the very things that all my art and music friends thought were so lovely about me, so I embraced them." 


“I don’t view myself as outrageous – that’s not the intention. Its to be more and more original.” - Lady Gaga to Allure

However, not everyone seems to agree with her. Since she first came on the scene a number of artists and models claimed that GaGa had ripped off their look.  Here are a few the controversies see what you think.

Kerli vs. Lady Gaga 




Kerli Kõiv [ˈkerli ˈkɤ.iv] born February 7, 1987, better known as Kerli, is an Estonian recording artist.  She frequently cites Björk as a major influence and one of her favorite musicians and Sigur Rós as her favorite band. Among her other influences are Anouk, Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin.

She was signed to Island Def Jam Music Group in 2006 by LA Reid and in 2008, she released her debut album, Love Is Dead which charted at 126 on the Billboard 200 in July 2008 and at 2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart the following month. The album contained the singles "Love Is Dead", "Walking on Air" and "Creepshow", with "Walking on Air" being the most notable. It charted at number seventy-five on the European Hot 100 and was featured twice on the United States television dance competition So You Think You Can Dance.



According to Neon Limelight, Kerli called out Lady Gaga for stealing her locks and her looks. She later apologized, but justified the tirade due to her friendship with Gaga’s team and is disheartened that “every time I do something different and I post a picture up on Myspace, she’s also looking the same way within two week’s time.”



Roisin Murphy vs. Lady Gaga

Irish singer-songwriter and music producer, known for her electronica style. Murphy first came to note as part of the electronic music duo Moloko. Her partner in the band was then-boyfriend Mark Brydon. After the two ended their romantic relationship, Murphy released her debut solo album Ruby Blue, written and produced with Matthew Herbert, in 2005. Her second solo album Overpowered was released in 2007. On 10 January 2008, Overpowered received a nomination for the Choice Music Prize in the Republic of Ireland; the award is given each year to an Irish artist who has proved to produce a critically acclaimed album. Her version of “Slave to Love” by Bryan Ferry is featured in the 2008 Gucci commercial starring actor James Franco.

 


New York based Village Voice columnist Michael Musto has said that Lady Gaga is the new Roisin Murphy. Musto also argues that Roisin is the new Kylie. Someone who couldn't agree less with Musto is music blogger Arjan. Click here to read more! 

But former Moloko frontwoman Murphy firmly believes that she's responsible for Gaga's looks and has labelled her a 'style thief'! In an interview with 'Daily Mail', Roisin let rip:"She's copied my style. I met her about a year ago before she got really big and I had no clue that this was all going to happen. She wasn't wearing shoulder pads at the time, and I was. Lady Gaga is just a poor imitation of me. She has copied my style, she took my shoulder pads and all that. Mind you she doesn't wear the bottom half!"







Miss Mosh vs. Lady Gaga

Masha Federova, better known by her online name of Mosh or Miss Mosh, is a fetish, alternative, and nude model. She chose Mosh as her nickname after "Masha" was taken on the modeling network site modelmayhem, where she made her debut.  She was born in the Soviet Union and moved to the United States at a young age. During her early teenage years she became fascinated with images of fetish-wear, bondage, and pin-up. Years later she joined in on the fun and now enjoy being surrounded by the world of fetish. She now resides in Los Angeles, CA and run her own website, themoshroom.com

Mosh wrote in her deviant art journal "  I look like Lady Gaga? I'm so f*cking tired of this. I know I wear a lot of latex, and have lavender hair... I'm disgusted and outraged to know that my image is being blatantly ripped off by a mainstream pop "artist", and the true creator of putting it all together won't get a dime or a credit. I would have at least a respect for her if she was a true unique artist, sadly, she couldn't even do that. She needed to take something from someone who had much less exposure than her."

"You may be mainstream but you will never be an original".



Lady Gaga  vs. Christina Aguilera

Christina Aguilera was accused of stealing Lady GaGa's look in early 2009. The multiplatinum-selling singer performed at the MTV Video Music Awards in September wearing platinum blonde hair extensions, a black catsuit, and a mask, leading many critics to claim she was swagger jacking Lady GaGa’s signature.




Lady Gaga said "I’ve really burned graphic images of my visuals onto the irises of my fans.”They saw a huge, Grammy-winning star who’s been around for years and they recognized Lady GaGa. That to me is quite an accomplishment.”

Then in mid 2010 the Daily Mail [London] reported:

Eighteen months ago, Christina Aguilera dismissed suggestions she was copying Lady GaGa, icily declaring: 'I don’t know if it is a man or a woman.'
But as the 29-year-old prepares to release her first studio album four years, it looks like Aguilera may be feeling the pressure to mount a stunning comeback.
In a clip of the singer's new video for her comeback single Not Myself Tonight, Aguilera opts for a PVC bra and pencil skirt - identical to an outfit worn by GaGa in London last August.



To be honest after searching numerous blogs and galleries other than Lady Gaga versus Christina Aguilera I don't see the fashion heists that GaGa has been accused of committing. With the exception of the platinum  hair with the blunt bangs and fetish fashions most of the comparisons require a stretch of one's imagination. Let's face it platinum hair, blunt bangs, latex have all been around for sometime.  I don't necessarily subscribe to the old adage that there isn't anything new under the sun; however I do believe that it is difficult to be original, not impossible, just difficult.

Instead of being vicious like a lot of fans have been relentlessly attacking the alleged offender, everyone should step back and remember that "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" [attributed to Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832].






Friday, January 21, 2011

Lady Gaga Gallery and Random Quotes


One of the most outspoken and outrageous and outgoing personalities in the world today, controversial singer-songwriter and fashion icon Lady Gaga (Poker Face, Bad Romance and Just Dance) has had a lot to say about her life, her music, her desires, her sexuality and herself [From The Quotable Lady Gaga]


 A glamorous life is quite different to a life of luxury. I don’t need luxury. For years, I was practically broke but I was still very vain and glamorous. And I still am. 
— Lady GaGa saying a glamorous life is not a life of luxury / May 04, 2010
To this day I love sexuality. I love the art of sexuality. I love Lady Gaga and the performance of sexuality. The mysterious, the artistic and the slightly perverse. I'm interested in all that. 
— Helen Mirren likes Lady Gaga / March 2010


 I want to do a fashion story so bad, fashion is my whole life. 
— Lady GaGa on fashion / July 07, 2009


It's not just about the music. It's about the performance, the attitude, the look; it's everything. And, that is where I live as an artist and that is what I want to accomplish.
— Lady GaGa 
 
 
“I don’t view myself as outrageous – that’s not the intention. Its to be more and more original.” - Lady Gaga to Allure
 


Pop music is commercial art the way Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans were commercial art. I don’t know why everyone is so against pop music. I love a good chorus – sue me. It’s that f***ing simple. My ultimate goal besides making music forever and touring the world over and over and becoming the greatest pop performance art show on the planet? I want a Lady GaGa exhibit at the Louvre. 
— Lady GaGa about pop music / August 31, 2010




Lady Gaga: Simply Amazing

I am simply in love with Lady Gaga. I find her to be one of the most intriguing Pop Stars ever. The following blog is reprinted from PluggedIn.com.    
http://www.pluggedin.com/upfront/2009/learningfromladygaga.aspx  

It was written by Adam R. Holtz and published December 3, 2009. It is the best article I have seen on Gaga, enjoy.

Learning From Lady Gaga

Sometimes it can be hard to separate pretenders from contenders. Who will be a flash in the pan? Who will have real staying power?

Who could have known, for instance, that Madonna’s outrageous, panty-revealing publicity stunt at MTV’s first Video Music Awards show in 1984 was actually a coronation of sorts that would inaugurate her nearly 25-year (and counting) pop music reign?

Something similar may be afoot with a 23-year-old performer from New York named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Never heard of her? That’s because she goes by a significantly catchier stage name: Lady Gaga.

The Lady, whose moniker is a nod to the Queen song "Radio Ga Ga" as well as the flamboyant excess of that band’s deceased frontman, Freddie Mercury, entered the cultural zeitgeist in August 2008 with her debut album The Fame. Its first two singles ("Just Dance" and "Poker Face") hit No. 1, followed by three more Top 5 tracks. Four million albums and 20 million digital downloads later, those songs have helped propel this siren to the very fame she sings about. And this week her follow-up eight-song EP, The Fame Monster, debuted at No. 4.

Going Gaga 

But the Gaga phenomenon is bigger than even those numbers indicate. From the outset she’s sought to cultivate an image and a mystique that extend far beyond her music.

If you happened to tune in to this year’s Video Music Awards, you saw Lady Gaga simulate her own death with a faux stabbing and lots of stage blood as she performed her hit "Paparazzi." And as for the spectacle she made of herself at the American Music Awards, it’s hard to say what was more arresting, her skintight, flesh-colored leotard, her smashing of a glass cage to get to her piano … or her setting said piano on fire.

Those kinds of moments combined with a stream of jaw-dropping outfits (who else would wear a lion-like mane of white tinsel or a dress made of lots of Kermit the Frog puppets) have made fans go … gaga. They’ve also made Lady Gaga the most Googled image of 2009.

Stefani Germanotta has clearly graduated with honors from the Madonna school of famous-osity: raw sexuality melded with equal parts spectacle, controversy, unpredictability and a big dose of equally raw talent.

Remember My Name? 

Two things quickly become apparent when one listens to Lady Gaga for more than five minutes or reads more than one or two interviews with her. One, she’s obsessed with fame. Two, she’s utterly willing to use her sexuality to achieve it.

Let’s begin with the former and rewind the Blu-ray on the Lady’s life story a bit:

A child prodigy who was playing piano by ear at age 4, Stefani Germanotta planned to go to Julliard to polish her skills. After a stint at a private Roman Catholic school (more on that in a minute), she instead ended up attending New York University’s über-prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.

"I studied classical music and I grew up hanging out in jazz clubs, and being in jazz bands and choirs and rock ’n’ roll and stuff," she told iprong.com. In the years that followed, she honed a dancey, electro-pop sound that borrows liberally from the likes of David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and, of course, Madonna. "I was always doing something artistic," she says.

But being "artistic" for Lady Gaga is about far more than just penning hit songs. It’s about embracing and living a life of fame that, to hear her describe it, almost sounds like a parody—except she’s deadly serious about making her vision of success a reality.

"I believe in living a glamorous life and I believe in a glamorous lifestyle," she said in an extensive interview with Out magazine. "What that means is not money or fame or prestige. It’s a sense of vanity and glamour and subculture that is rooted in a sense of self. I am completely 100,000% devoted to a life of glamour." Out writers Joshua David Stein and Noah Michelson noted that Lady Gaga wants to "be life-changing, historical and memorable."

"Those are the three things that are important to me," she says.

She sums up her life philosophy in five words: "My performance is my life." She told Out, "There’s an art to fame. Even in the most humiliating and defaming moment of your life, you’re still ready for the camera."

In short, "You’ve got to create some kind of stir," she says. "You’ve got to say something that’s got to upset some people, and that’s the risk-taking that makes music so fun."

Putting Feet to Fancies 

Lady Gaga has already put feet—along with the rest of her body—to those salacious sentiments. Whether it’s lyrics that glorify casual sex ("Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick," she sings on her hit "LoveGame," I wanna take a ride on your disco stick") or racy outfits that leave little to the imagination, Lady Gaga constantly leverages her sexuality.

"I write about what I know: sex, pornography, art, fame obsession, drugs and alcohol," she told Elle. "I mean, why would anyone care to listen to me if I wasn’t an expert in what I write about?"

Some songs ("LoveGame" among them) reflect her interest in men. Others ("Poker Face") indicate that she sometimes prefers the sexual company of women—a predilection she’s hardly tried to keep under wraps. "I don’t think being gay or being bisexual or being sexually free is anything that should be hidden," Gaga told USA Today. "Everybody has a right to their secrecy, of course, but I don’t feel particularly shy about it. It is who I am. I sing very openly about it in my music, so I suppose I could say that I choose not to hide it in my interviews because I don’t care to hide it and, two, because it is very obvious in my music that I like women."

Actually, Lady Gaga identifies the gay community as the core of her fan base. "The turning point for me was the gay community," she told MTV. "I’ve got so many gay fans and they’re so loyal to me and they really lifted me up. They’ll always stand by me and I’ll always stand by them."

And when it came to going on tour with Kanye West, a hip-hop artist with a history of directing critical comments toward homosexuals, Gaga minced no words: "I’m gay. My music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it’s gay. And I love my gay fans and they’re all going to be coming to our show. And it’s going to remain gay. I very much want to inject gay culture into the mainstream. It’s not an underground tool for me. It’s my whole life."

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Lady?

 Are you ready to dismiss Lady Gaga as just another self-absorbed, out-of-control hedonist headed for hero status in the subterranean world of sex-pop? Before you do, I think there’s one more layer that needs to be peeled back—perhaps an unexpected one. Underneath the makeup and the wigs and the fishnets and the stage blood is a woman who yearns for acceptance. And someone who, apparently, didn’t find anything like that in her experience with Christianity.

"I’ve always been Gaga," she said in an interview with Rolling Stone. "It’s just that all the years of schooling and being in a Catholic environment and living in a place where we were kind of told what was the right way to be, I suppressed all those eccentricities about myself so I could fit in. Once I was free, I was able to be myself. I pulled [Gaga] out of me, and I found that all of the things about myself that I so desperately tried to suppress for so many years were the very things that all my art and music friends thought were so lovely about me, so I embraced them."

That sense of embracing what others may have considered freakish or eccentric now radically compels Gaga as she creates her music. "The whole point of what I do—the Monster Ball [her current tour], the music, the performance aspect of it—I want to create a space for my fans where they can feel free and they can celebrate," she told MTV. "I didn’t fit in in high school, and I felt like a freak. So I like to create this atmosphere for my fans where they feel like they have a freak in me to hang out with and they don’t feel alone."

So, surprising or not, once you get past Lady Gaga’s outlandish costumes and outlandish tales of debauchery, you can see an exceptionally talented young musician expressing a longing for freedom and acceptance.

Those very human longings hardly let her off the hook for her no-boundaries, anything-goes approach to sexuality, of course. "My fans … come to my shows to be freed," she told MTV. But what she labels "freedom" isn’t. Fans who take Gaga’s glamorous-but-shallow lifestyle to heart will almost certainly end up worse for the wear as emotional and relational carnage come calling.

Which makes me wonder if somewhere deep down Stefani Germanotta knows that her tenacious pursuit of fame ultimately cannot give her what she longs for most. "Nobody gives a s‑‑‑ what is really going on," she says. "Everyone wants me to tell them a story. Art is a lie, and every day I kill to make it true."