Herb Ritts, the fashion photographer who rose to fame in the 80s and 90s, was known for his work in black and white, and for making humans look like classic sculpture. He became more popular in pop culture circles after he famously shot videos for Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Michael Jackson.
NOWNESS has some newly-revealed and never-before-seen shots from the photographer, Herb Ritts, who died in 2002. They feature a young Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Johnny Depp, David Bowie and Karl Lagerfeld. Naomi famously once said, “All of us experienced pain with Herb, but the pain was worth it. You want one of those photographs in your lifetime of modeling.” Cindy Crawford said, “Herb would always get you naked. I think he photographs women the way they want to look. You knew that’s the way it went, you are going to look good.”
Desperate socialite Queenie Singh tried everything possible to host a bash for the visiting Celebrity Blogger Perez Hilton so as to get mentioned by Perez in his popular blog. But poor Queenie failed in her ambitious mission as Perez left India after holidaying in Rajasthan. Sources told me that Queenie desperately tried getting in touch with Perez Hilton by calling the Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur but without luck.
Queenie’s shrewd formula of hosting bashes for visiting international celebrities to get to know them worked successfully earlier. She hosted lavish parties for revered fashion editrix, Suzy Menkes, Naomi Campbell and most recently Paris Hilton with the sole idea of getting on Page3 posing with the famous people and to flaunt her association with them. Gawd…things these desperate socialites do for that shallow ‘fifteen-minutes-of-fame’! Poor Queenie’s luck ran out with Perez Hilton and her dream of being mentioned on his Blog alongside the likes of Victoria Beckham and Lady Gaga crashed.
I think somebody should do a TV series on “Desperate Housewives of Mumbai and Delhi”. The TRPs would be great and there are no dearth of Desperate Housewives (like Queenie) willingly starring in them!
“I am shocked. It’s upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humor in this. It is insulting and hurtful,” said the uber model Naomi Campbell. Obviously she was referring to the new Cadbury Ad to promote its new Bliss chocolate bar. The advertisement read, “Move over Naomi, there’s a new diva in town,” with an image of the candy posed on a mound of diamonds.
Cadbury has now apologized to supermodel Naomi Campbell for using her name in the new Bliss chocolate bar Ad. Cadbury posted the following statement on its website: “Cadbury understands that our latest advertising campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss caused upset to Naomi Campbell and her family. Cadbury takes its responsibility to consumers very seriously indeed and we would never deliberately produce any marketing material we felt might cause offence to any section of society. It was not our intention that this campaign should offend Naomi, her family or anybody else and we are sincerely sorry that it has done so.
We can confirm that the advertisement is no longer in circulation and we will not be using it in future marketing for Cadbury Dairy Milk Bliss. We have been in discussions with Naomi’s solicitors and can confirm that they have accepted our apology on her behalf as a conclusion to this issue.”
Naomi Campbell was pleased that Cadbury asked for forgiveness. But, she added, “It is also a shame that it took so long for Cadbury to offer this apology. I hope they and other multinationals can learn from this; that offence may not be their intention, but when it is shown that it has caused offence a sincere apology straight away goes a long a way. Better still they should avoid causing offense in the first place which is best achieved by having greater diversity at board and senior management level.”
By the way Naomi Campbell Posed with a Chocolate Bunny for a David LaChapelle Photograph sometime back!
Alexander McQueen killed himself with an overdose of drugs and now it seems that the other famous, or should I say infamous Brit designer, John Galliano’s outburst at the Paris cafe was fueled by drugs. Yves Saint Laurent died fighting his drug problem, Gianni Versace met his killer at one of his coke binges and Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein accept their drug problem. Drugs seem to be the biggest scourge of the fashion world. Yet fashion courts drugs! 
Remember the era of Heroin Chic & Rehab Chic? Dior better consider Heidi Slimane’s drug problem before signing him on as his name is doing the rounds.
Galliano’s friends; rather experienced substance-abusing friends, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell have advised him to check-in to the high-profile rehab – The Meadows! Kate Moss managed to resurrect her career post getting caught sniffing cocaine on camera and I think Galliano too will bounce back surely because of his immense talent.
Hope our desi fashion fraternity realises the peril of substance abuse. However more than Indian Fashion, I feel it is Bollywood that would sooner or later crumble because of rampant drug abuse. I can count names on my fingers of stars who DON”T sniff cocaine. Most do, and when you spill the beans they go ballistic screaming from TV Channels and sending legal notices to poor scribes about us trying to taint their image. I too got a legal notice and mouth full of abuses from one such Bollywood’s (fading) Star. But then I care a Damn!
Tuesday (7th December) night London played host to this year’s British Fashion Awards – aka the fashion Oscars. Let’s see who won what, shall we?
The big news of the night was Phoebe Philo, creative director at Celine and queen of minimalism, who won the prestigious British Designer of the Year Award over Erdem and Christopher Kane, the other stalwarts nominated for the award.
Lady Gaga’s stylist and Thierry Mugler creative director Nicola Formichetti took home this year’s iconic Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator thanks to his unique vision which has seen an incredible impact on the international fashion scene.
The inaugural British Style Award, as voted for by the public, was awarded for the first time to Alexa Chung – who’ll now act as an ambassador of British style across the globe.
This year’s Designer Brand Award went to Mulberry who, after being beaten to the title by Burberry last year, pipped the British power house and Victoria Beckham to the post to scoop this year’s coveted prize.
And Lara Stone’s certainly climbing up fashion’s ladder, too. The Dutch supermodel won the Model of the Year Award while Naomi Campbell was awarded Special Recognition for her influence and contribution in fashion.
The other winners were:
Menswear Designer – Patrick Grant for E. Tautz
Accessory Designer – Nicholas Kirkwood
Emerging Talent for Accessories – Husam El Odah
Emerging Talent for RTW – Meadham Kirchoff
Digital Innovation – Burberry
BFC Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design – Lee Alexander McQueen