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FASHION

Son and daughters of stars are Paris catwalk’s new royalty

They are fashion's new celebrity aristocracy, the sons and daughters of stars who are themselves becoming the kings and queens of the catwalk shows.

Published: 21 January 2017 13:31 CET
Son and daughters of stars are Paris catwalk's new royalty
Paris Jackson
From Lily-Rose Depp and Will Smith's daughter Willow — the faces of Chanel — to the Beckham boys and Sylvester Stallone's two daughters modelling for Dolce & Gabbana, celebrity offspring are luxury labels' new not-so-secret weapon.
   
With their huge followings on social media and instant name-recognition, these millennials born in the limelight have become the perfect avatars for advertising campaigns.
   
British actor Jude Law's daughter Iris is the new face of Burberry having followed her brother Rafferty in modelling, while the daughters of singer Lionel Richie, Cindy Crawford and even Bob Dylan's grandson have all embarked
on catwalk careers.
 
Michael Jackson's daughter Paris turned up in the French capital this week for a photo shoot, adding her name to a bulging celebrity model roll call that includes the daughter of Oasis singer Noel Gallagher, the son of Isabelle Adjani and Daniel Day-Lewis, the daughter of Nastassja Kinski and Quincy Jones, and the sons of Sean Penn and Pierce Brosnan. 
 
The list is endless and seemingly inexhaustible, with marketing experts maintaining that young consumers cannot get enough of celebrity dynasties. You just have to look at the Kardashians, said Gachoucha Kretz, professor of fashion marketing at the HEC business school in Paris, to see how the model works.
 
They have converted their reality television fame into fashion hard currency, with Kim Kardashian and her half sister Kendall Jenner now established stars of the firmament, their every wardrobe choice scrutinised on social media.
   
Brands hope to piggyback on “the popular fascination with these tribes and families”, Kretz said.
   
With no problem about name recognition “there is much less marketing to do”, she added. “The associations are already created.”
   
With their Instagram or Twitter endorsements of their favoured brands, they become the ultimate “influencers” to help push demand. Aged only 17, Brooklyn Beckham has nine million followers on Instagram.
 
After two years as a model he has branched out into fashion photography, shooting an advertising campaign for Burberry this summer that made headlines around the world.
   
Even fashion's biggest players are happy to play along with the family fame game. Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, has been a enthusiastic nepotist, hiring Depp, Smith and Jenner, and taking former supermodel Ines de la Fressange's daughter Violette d'Urso as his muse.
 
“The tabloids and celebrity magazines love these famous families and that assures media coverage,” said Aurore Gorius, co-author of a French book “Sons and Daughters of…”
   
The 2015 book casts a critical eye on the public's fascination with this “phenomenon of elites reproducing themselves and blocking social mobility.
   
“These children have grown up under the eyes of the media and we are curious what will become of them,” she said.
   
Trends expert Cecile Poignant, who teaches at the New School Parsons Paris, said there has been a gradual push towards the “starification of childhood” over the last 15 years.
   
She said it began with photographer Annie Leibovitz's famous front cover of a naked Demi Moore pregnant for Vanity Fair magazine.
   
“For a lot of models and celebrities, the child has become something of a fashion accessory, a must have,” Poignant told AFP.
   
But could the omnipresence of celebrity offspring now finally lead to a backlash.
   
Fashion student Marie Richaud said she found it irksome that their fame “is not based on merit but family links. It excludes”.
   
Even so the 25-year-old follows several second generation celebs on Instagram even if “she doesn't identify with them”.
   
“These children who seems to have had it all give people something to dream about. But at the same time they can just as easily annoy,” said Poignant. “Do any of them have any talent or is their name enough (to succeed)? We will have to wait and see,” she added.

FASHION

Paris exhibition celebrates 100 years of French Vogue

A new exhibition in Paris will tell the story of 100 years of French Vogue - from the post-war 'New Look' of Christian Dior through the sexual liberation of the 1960s to the dangling-cigarette waifs of the 2000s.

Published: 7 October 2021 08:21 CEST
French Vogue celebrates 100 years
French Vogue celebrates 100 years. Photo: Thomas Olva/AFP

But as well as celebrating the magazine’s storied history, the exhibit comes at a time of turbulence for the publication.

Just last month, it was confirmed that its editor of 10 years, Emmanuelle Alt, was out and wouldn’t be replaced.

She was not alone.

Looking to cut costs, owner Conde Nast International has axed editors across Europe over the past year, and put international Vogue editions under the direct control of global editorial director, Anna Wintour, in New York.

New York-based Anna Wintour now has overall control of French Vogue. Photo by Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

Like much of the media industry, Vogue is struggling with tumbling sales and ad revenue in the digital era.

But the latest twist is also part of the endless push and pull between New York and Paris going back to its early days.

“The whole history of French Vogue is one of back-and-forth with Conde Nast in New York – growing more independent for a while, then being reined back in,” said Sylvie Lecallier, curator of the new exhibition, “Vogue Paris 1920-2020″, which opened this weekend after a year’s delay due to the pandemic.

The Paris edition was often the loftier, more bohemian sibling to its more hard-nosed New York version.

But it was also the hotbed in which much of 20th century style and womenhood came to be defined.

“Paris was the place to hunt out talent and content and bring it to New York,” said Lecallier.

The exhibition charts the evolution from art deco drawings of the 1920s through the erotic image-making of photographers like Helmut Newton in the 1960s and 1970s.

Its last peak was under editor Carine Roitfeld in the 2000s, who brought back a provocative Gallic identity by ridding the newsroom of foreign staff and becoming a fashion icon in her own right.

Her successor, Alt, was a quieter presence, though she still oversaw key moments including its first transgender cover star, Brazilian Valentina Sampaio, in 2017.

But internet culture has created “a perfect storm” for Vogue, says media expert Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis.

“The first 80 years of Vogue’s life, it had the market to itself, it was the bible for fashion,” McCabe told AFP.

“But online today, there are so many other ways to get your information. Influencers, Instagram, YouTube — everyone’s a threat.”

In a world where new fashion trends can blow up around the world in seconds, it has become much harder for a monthly magazine to set the pace.

“It’s not that they can’t survive for another 100 years — but they will be differently sized,” McCabe said.

Vogue has tried to branch out into different areas, including events.

“I used to work for a magazine, and today I work for a brand,” Alt said on the eve of French Vogue’s 1,000th issue in 2019.

But the big money was always in print, and Vogue Paris sales are dropping steadily from 98,345 in 2017 to 81,962 to 2020, according to data site ACPM.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the new top job in Paris, redefined as “head of editorial content”, went to Eugenie Trochu, who was key to building the magazine’s online presence.

She declared herself “thrilled to be part of Vogue’s international transformation”.

For the curator of the exhibition, it is ironic timing.

“We had no idea it would end like this when we started work on the exhibition,” said Lecallier.

“Who knows where it will go from here.”

The exhibition Vogue Paris 1920-2020 is at the Palais Galliera in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. The gallery is open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Sunday and is closed on Mondays. Tickets for the exhibition are €14 (€12 for concessions and under 18s go free) and must be reserved online in advance. 

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