Lucire: Insider

University professor puts Twilight: New Moon into context

Lucire staff — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:27:28 +0000

The University of Denver is an unlikely institution to get on board the Twilight movie phenomenon, but Lynn Schoﬁeld Clark, associate professor of mass communication and journalism, puts it into context.
Dr Schoﬁeld Clark says that Twilight appeals to teenage girls, and their mothers, because of its empowering message. ‘Who wouldn’t want to be irresistible and hold the cards in the relationship, especially when it comes to initiating sexual behaviour?’ she adds.
The theme goes even further in Twilight: New Moon as Bella, the main character, has two suitors.
She also looks at the symbolism of the vampire in culture—something she knows a great deal about, having authored From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural (Oxford University Press, 2003).

Korean model Daul Kim found dead, suicide suspected

Lucire staff — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:25:58 +0000

Daul Kim, the South Korean model, was found dead at her Paris apartment on Thursday morning, according to sources.
Initial reports suspect that the model has died by her own hand. [Update, 12.24 GMT: the Associated Press reports that Kim was found hanged in her apartment.]
Kim, who had appeared on international catwalks, was 20. She had kept a blog entitled I Like to Fork Myself.
According to Lucire writer Devin Winter, who visited Kim’s blog just prior to the model’s death, there was no hint of an impending suicide. Her last entry was entitled ‘say hi to forever’ (sic), which might have an extra layer of meaning after her death, but did not at the time.
Earlier this year, Korean actress Jang Ja-yeon, 26, committed suicide. In her suicide note she targeted the Korean entertainment industry and its sexual abuse. Model Kim Ji-hoo, 23, was harassed after coming out, and committed suicide in October 2008.

Oprah Winfrey to call it quits on talk show in 2011

Lucire staff — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:20:01 +0000

The Oprah Winfrey Show will broadcast its ﬁnal episode on September 9, 2011, according to sources.
Oprah Winfrey’s company, Harpo, Inc., ofﬁcially announced the end of the show on Thursday. A public announcement will be made on the show on Friday in the US.
Winfrey, 55, is tipped to focus on her cable network, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), a joint venture with Discovery Communications, according to The New York Times.
The ﬁnal show will coincide with its 25th anniversary, although it will be taped six months prior.
Presently, The Oprah Winfrey Show attracts some seven million viewers a day in the US and is still the top among syndicated talk shows. Winfrey herself was listed at number 45 on Forbes’s ‘most powerful people’ list this year.

Von Avi announces Amelia competition

Lucire staff — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:35:39 +0000

Wanaka, New Zealand-based fashion accessories’ brand Von Avi, known for its handbags constructed from aircraft aluminium, is giving away an aviation-themed prize pack to coincide with the release of the ﬁlm Amelia.
The pack is valued at NZ$1,200, and comprises the Bar Fly handbag constructed with aircraft aluminium (left), solid rivets and solid brass handles, a small make-up purse with cast metal jet plane zipper, a box chain shoulder strap and a double pass to the movie.
Ten runners-up will win double passes to Amelia. To enter the draw, visit www.vonavi.co.nz.

Capturing the Addington races, November 2009

Jack Yan — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:44:06 +0000

There’s something about shooting on 35 mm ﬁlm and the depth of the photographs produced, even if the resolution is no longer a match for the professional digital cameras around these days. Below are some of mine from the Addington Races last week, where I joined a number of luminaries—including Barbara Lee, Melinda Jones of BDM Grange and Tamsin Cooper—in judging the fashion in the ﬁeld competition. And two of the CTV hosts did a fabulous job compèring the fashion events.
My camera, a Voigtländer Bessamatic Color-Skopar, celebrated its 50th birthday this year and, as you can see, still fares particularly well with colour and overall quality.
I also caught Carly Flynn of TV3’s Sunrise, who had been up since 4.30 a.m. covering the events from the raceway. One international ﬁgure at the races was Merrill J. Fernando, the founder and chairman of Dilmah Tea, who was in Christchurch to open a tea lounge at Ballantyne’s.
Our compliments to Angela Stone for organizing the fashion events at Addington, and to Barry Johnson and the Addington Racing Club for their hospitality. Here are some of the shots from roll number one:

Land Rover celebrates 20 years of the Discovery

Lucire staff — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:47:50 +0000

In many respects, we’re lucky the Land Rover Discovery is still around. In 1989, the British motor industry was excited by the prospect of a new model from Land Rover that would bridge the gap between the iconic Defender model and the Range Rover, which had become ever more plush in the 1980s. Tipped to be called Highlander (a name which Volvo owned in Europe, and Toyota in some other countries), the vehicle would capture the SUV boom but have the Land Rover pedigree.
While an attractive vehicle, the Discovery was hardly reliable in its ﬁrst incarnation, suffering from quite a few bugs. It took BMW to begin putting things right after the Rover Group was sold to the München-based car maker, and under Ford ownership, Land Rover kept improving its quality. Now, with the Discovery 4, things are looking better than ever, though as with the situation 20 years ago, the vehicle has grown far plusher, which perhaps leaves room for the Freelander to grow. Discovery has retained a sort of fashion-item status—something which qualiﬁes it for our pages.
Ford sold Land Rover to Tata last year, which means it’s now on to its fourth owner over the last two decades. Tata realizes it has a real asset in the brand, and isn’t tampering much; instead, it has found ways to keep the company going on its original path with some of the best four-by-fours in the world.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary, we have two videos: one showing clips from TV commercials from the last two decades, and another looking at the early R&D days through to the release of the Discovery 4. (We’ve had to host these at YouTube for technical reasons.)

First Jaguar XJ to raise funds for NSPCC

Lucire staff — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:30:52 +0000

A few months ago, Lucire brought readers the ﬁrst non-embargoed image of the new Jaguar XJ. To promote a good cause with the new model, the company is giving away the ﬁrst one destined for showrooms off the production lines to help the NSPCC.
Esther Rantzen visited the Stratstone Jaguar dealership in Luton to back the Jaguar Prize Competition, which aims to raise £1 million for the NSPCC’s helplines, including ChildLine, which she founded. The new luxury saloon, worth more than £62,000, is Jaguar’s ﬂagship model and will launch in showrooms in the New Year.
The money will help grow ChildLine so it can answer every call, text and email from children. It will also go toward developing the NSPCC helpline for adults worried about a child.
‘Children can now text and chat to a ChildLine counsellor at www.childline.org.uk as well as phone on 0800 1111. However, there is much still to be done before we can be there for all children. The Jaguar Prize Competition takes us one step further to raising the funds we need to do this,’ says Rantzen.
The competition runs until November 25 and the winner will be announced on December 1. Entrants must correctly answer three questions about the new Jaguar XJ to be in for a chance to win the car.
Each entry costs £125 and there is no limit to the number of entries per person. More information is at www.jaguar.co.uk/nspcc.

Modelling scam artists vary their MO

Jack Yan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:07:01 +0000

Disturbingly, it looks as though the scam artists have changed their game. At the beginning of this year, we noted that we, Glamour and FHM had been affected by scam artists illegally using our name and promising models photo shoots. But there was one hitch: the scammers were using an address and names that had no connection to Lucire at all.
We asked the British High Commission to investigate, as the scam artists were using a UK address, but it said it was not its job and it was up to us to prove that the scammers were British. Since we didn’t have our own squad of detectives, which the High Commission must assume everyone must have, we were unable to go any further using the correct channels.
We did the next best thing: go public with it, since we care a great deal about whether people are getting conned, whether under our name or those of other magazines’. The notes here must have had some effect because the scammers’ MO has now changed.
However, the scam still appears, by and large, to be a variant of the air fare scam, adapted to the modelling industry.
We were alerted today by an astute model that they are now using a real Lucire address in New York (at 244 Fifth Avenue) to begin their contact, as well as the name of our associate publisher in New York. However, as with all these scams, they have the details wrong: the telephone number is off by a digit and her title (they called her ‘Fashion Coordinator’) is wrong. Even if they were to correct the title, one hopes that models realize that associate publishers don’t do model bookings.
The key is still to look at the email address: a Lucire person would not contact you via Gmail or any free email service, certainly not through lgfmagzine@gmail.com or luciremagazine**@gmail.com. (Our email convention is firstname.surname@lucire.com, and all replies go to an address of this form, with the exception of a general mailbox.) We do not refer to ourselves as ‘Lucire Global Fashion Magazine’ in text (whoever heard of calling yourself by your name and part of your tagline?).
Since they deal in email, they know that putting an address that is @lucire.com would send it back to us for real, and they cannot afford that.
Fake names the scammers have used so far include Bruce Williams, Jack Henry, Jeff Daniels, C. Ellsworth and Gregory Williams. One fake address used regularly is 32 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London (we do not have an ofﬁce there).
Generally, the best course of action is to contact this magazine or to add a comment below if you are unsure. A legitimate shoot enquiry will come from a Lucire email account, a modelling or talent agency or a photographer working with the agency. If you are signed up to an agency, the enquiries will go through there, not to you directly.
We have investigated a little more on who you can report these to. If you are a US citizen or resident, and the scam seems to originate from the US, your best bet is the FBI. We are happy to send complaints on to the FBI, if we can get the scammers’ emails with complete headers (you can use our feedback form or email info@lucire.com).
In fact, now that the scammers are dumb enough to use the real name of a US citizen, it gives the authorities an extra cause of action against them.
Please stay vigilant and let’s get these scam artists.

A media opportunity as Sarah Palin, aided by Oprah, goes to the mainstream

Jack Yan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:25:09 +0000

American readers will get to see Oprah Winfrey interview Sarah Palin today, in what is widely tipped to be a casual, feel-good special to promote the former governor’s book, Going Rogue.
Some media have tipped this as the launch of ‘Sarah Palin 2·0’, one who is now free from the Republican Party machine and can speak her own mind. Palin needs it, too: after the hammering the media gave her during the campaign trail, and the lampooning by Saturday Night Live, she needs to distance herself from the image of the right-wing political neophyte.
Much of the coverage, as this publication mentioned at the time, was biased, leaving aside whether we liked what Sarah Palin stood for or not. As with Hillary Clinton, American media questioned whether Palin could be a ﬁt mother and a politician, even if they never realized they never asked whether Barack Obama could be a ﬁt father and the president. Her policy positions, many of which were out of kilter with the many Americans who voted for Obama, were not attacked with the vigour one might have expected had she been a man. Instead, things got personal and even familial, something which fans of CBS’s resident cranky old man, David Letterman, know full well.
Yet as many opponents of Sarah Palin know, her time as Alaskan governor was not without imperfection. Any other politician would have been given a dressing-down for the things that went wrong there: the disputes with the oil companies and the reality behind her relationship with them, for instance; or the claims about ‘the bridge to nowhere’.
An easy point of attack, for those who disagreed with her, might have been Gov. Palin’s view on abortion: she was against it, even in cases of rape, one which only, according to polls at the time, a minority of Americans agreed with. It is certainly a position universally panned by staff I asked at this magazine.
The venom that was released instead seemed hard to believe. Most Palin positions were ignored for the simplistic picture that Saturday Night Live popularized: here was a right-wing country gal from Idaho who somehow ﬂuked in to the gubernatorial position in Alaska and came second in a beauty pageant along the way.
Was it, we thought, due to sexism? It’s a charge that we levelled at some of the American media then, certainly: one which we in New Zealand can feel smug about after having two prime ministers, two governors-general and a chief justice who happened to be women. At one point, the legislative, executive and judicial were helmed by women; something which, even in the time of Thatcher, Britain could not claim. The US is, after all, a country that took far longer for a woman to break the glass ceiling on a job as relatively trivial as who reads the nightly news on a big three TV network. (Connie Chung had to share her duties with Dan Rather ofﬁcially; not counting that experience, Americans had to wait till the twenty-ﬁrst century and Katie Couric’s emergence.) A female in the White House? It seemed harder to fathom than the Obama miracle.
There was an extra element, however: the insistence by media (not just American) that the general population is stupid. That the simplistic Saturday Night Live version was easier to swallow than debating the Governor on any of her policy positions. Why? Because she might actually have been able to defend them, when ill-informed journalists enquired into the dealings of the 50th state for the ﬁrst time.
Never mind that the Governor is sometimes not ﬂuent in her interviews or even some of her speeches—she makes my long sentences seem stunted in comparison—the media chose not to ﬁght. They chose to ridicule.
Let me be quite clear: Americans are not stupid. It doesn’t matter what walk of life they are on, they want to be informed and treated with respect.
We hear all the time in the media business that newspapers target their reading to the level of an 11-year-old (I used to hear 12 and recently I even heard nine, and the number seems to fall by the decade), and I think this is daft. Lucire’s policy, certainly with the print magazine, is to present as intelligent a view as possible, because even if the level is above the average reader’s (and I wonder if we are that far above), it gives one something to aspire to. Remember being in the ﬁrst grade and looking enviously at the kids in the fourth, and the much cooler books they seemed to be assigned?
So the fact that nearly a million people have joined Sarah Palin’s Facebook fan page—she beat Oprah Winfrey’s total a very long time ago—might not mean outright agreement with her. It might not even mean outright opposition to President Obama’s policies. It could mean, to some Americans, redressing the balance created by media that failed in their objectivity. In her ranks, they receive her Facebook notes, some of which take dubious positions, but why should they trust the media after last year? Even lovers of Fox News might be suspicious, after it initially blamed Palin for the GOP loss last year, before becoming her cheerleader the week after.
And her numbers might swell when Going Rogue is launched on Tuesday.
However, is this really Palin 2·0? While she has softened on her positions in terms of the media image—her Hong Kong conference speech, behind closed doors, painted her as a small-government conservative who supported business—one wonders if these are different from the positions she believed in the ﬁrst place. Frankly, we never clearly heard much about them.
Her business element was there in parts last year, even if her love of drilling bordered on environmentally hazardous and made one wonder about Palin’s own connections to the oil business. Both major political parties—even President George W. Bush himself—have talked about alternative energies, a direction which Lucire happily endorses. Good decisions are never easy, and one which continues a gas-guzzling lifestyle cannot be, for a leader, wholly responsible. ‘Drill, baby, drill,’ is not a catch-cry with visionary appeal. ‘Death panels’, meanwhile, play to those who view the Obama administration with suspicion—the Murdoch Press among them—and who cannot be bothered reading s. 1233 of the America’s Affordable Health Choices bill for themselves.
Of course, part of the negative image fell on her own shoulders: Palin 1·0 was happy taking on the gun-toting, moose-hunting image to capture “heartland” voters, even if such a generalization of their lifestyle is inaccurate and unfair on those who live in what were termed ‘red states’ (a.k.a. ‘blue states’ for the 2012 elections). She did, by all accounts (even her own), botch her interview with Couric. It wasn’t enough for those who wanted to see her destroyed.
Yet having simpliﬁed the argument to the level of a comedy sketch, some are now on the defensive. Going Rogue will be analysed to shreds, in the hope that the smart-arse positions of the campaign can be maintained. It ignores the million that Palin has captured on Facebook, indicative of even wider support in the US.
We are not saying that the million needs to be pandered to—but alienating them further is unwise. Educating and reporting seem smarter.
What Americans might want to see this week, as Oprah Winfrey kicks off some form of mainstream acceptance of Sarah Palin, is Media 2·0: one which acknowledges that accurate and fair reporting serves the United States’ best interests, and lets Americans judge the former governor for her policies, not for her parodies. Getting down and doing one’s journalist duty is preferable to sensationalizing for the sake of sensationalism. Failing that duty will see more head toward blogs and read what they think the media have hidden from them—when some bloggers often hide facts to suit their views.
Some media have begun to give Palin a fair go, realizing that she is not going away any time soon. For those of us who enjoy national health care, for example, some of her writings on the American debate seem far-fetched, to say the least. That is something Americans must determine for themselves, intelligently and with all the facts. And we should let Sarah Palin fall on her own sword if she is wrong.
Her ideas may still fail if they are outside what Americans want, but at least that is a fairer way to go than being their forever imprinted with images of a Tina Fey impersonation.

Evolve’s certiﬁed organic beauty range: in the making for years

Lucire staff — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:32:47 +0000

We’ve known about Laura Rudoe’s Evolve beauty range for a long time—long before news of it became public last month. In fact, the connection to Lucire goes back to Laura’s days at Harvard University, when she was already very active in ﬁnding a way to produce ethically made and branded products.
Not only has Laura welcomed her ﬁrst child this year, Evolve has launched with a range of organic beauty products for face, body and hair priced at below £15.
The range has been certiﬁed organic by Ecocert. Goji berries and Peruvian Inca Inchi oil are both highly nutritious, either as part of one’s diet or when incorporated into skin care products.
See the entire range and retail information at www.evolvebeauty.co.uk.

Elle Macpherson Intimates enters continental European market

Lucire staff — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:21:26 +0000

Just shy of its 20th anniversary, Elle Macpherson Intimates has announced its entry into the continental European market with a launch in Berlin last Thursday.
The spring–summer 2010 collection was displayed at the Galerie Morgen, with supermodel Elle Macpherson herself, as the creative director of her brand, present.
‘The reaction to the launch of Intimates in Europe has surpassed all our initial expectations. It’s a very exciting time for me and my design team,’ says Macpherson in a release.
‘The focus for the Intimates lingerie has always been on impeccable design, using luxurious fabrics with attention to ﬁt, comfort and affordability. This is what sets the lingerie apart.’
Guests included Anna von Griesheim, H. P. Adamski, Tamara Gräfin von Nayhauß, Sophie Schütt, Celia von Bismarck, Unrath & Strano, Tobey Wilson, Anastasia Zampounidis, Tanja Bülter, Stephanie Stumph, Marcel Neumüller, Hubertus Regout, Prof Dr Jo Groebel and Fiona Benett. Catering was by Kuchi.
Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Greece are among the countries the Elle Macpherson Intimates range has now entered. In Germany, Elle Macpherson Intimates is available at Galeries Lafayette and KaDeWe in Berlin, Ludwig Beck in München and Breuninger in Stuttgart. There is also representation in Mannheim and Hamburg.
Macpherson says that by spring 2010, her brand will be represented in 300 stores in 11 countries.

Behind the scenes with Sylvie van der Vaart on the BMW hair test

Lucire staff — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:31:54 +0000

At the end of last month, we covered a publicity stunt from BMW, where former Miss Bundesliga Sylvie van der Vaart put two BMW 3er convertibles, separated by 20 years, the hair test. Sitting in a wind tunnel, van der Vaart, arguably Germany’s and the Netherlands’ most famous WAG, had her hair blown about severely when sitting behind the wheel of the 1980s’ model. After having her make-up and hair redone, she got behind the wheel of a modern 3er Cabriolet where the wind, cranked up to 60 km/h barely affected her hair at all.
Although we showed a summary video of the hair test, we have a few more clips from behind the scenes in north München.
We begin with van der Vaart getting collected in the morning in a new 7er-Reihe saloon, and getting prepared for the shoot. There are some more sound bites from her on what she expects from the shoot, getting her hair done for the 2009-model test, and a brief interview with Thomas von Salomon, the photographer.

Cassius shows ’10 campaign visuals

Lucire staff — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:43:26 +0000

We love these new visuals that Jason Ng at Cassius Eyewear sent to us earlier this month. The extra good news, apart from doing some very stylish eyewear, is that his company is getting more attention domestically—until recently, it seemed Cassius would be known outside its native New Zealand more than it would be on-shore. (Though check out Jason’s interview in US magazine BlackBook, which makes for good reading.)

McLaren puts MP4-12C through its paces

Lucire staff — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:29:00 +0000

McLaren is a name that should conjure up many positive images for New Zealanders through its founder, Auckland-born Bruce McLaren, and by spring 2011, it should give car aﬁcionados even more reason to get teary-eyed.
The UK-based company is preparing to launch its second production car, the MP4-12C, which features a twin-turbocharged 3·8-litre V8, producing a whopping 600 hp and 433 lb ft of torque. It’s expected to cost more than the Ferrari 458 Italia, but the speciﬁcations appear more high-tech.
McLaren says no part has come from any other manufacturer: everything in the 12C has come from its own company.
No carbon dioxide emission ﬁgures have been announced, but the company stresses that its Carbon MonoCell, a carbonﬁbre body tub that forms the heart of the car’s structure, is only 80 kg. By reducing weight, it can reduce emissions.
The above video shows the MP4-12C being taken through its paces during development. Dick Glover, McLaren Automotive Technical Director and Chris Goodwin, Chief Test Driver, give some inside information on the development.

Has Ryanair pushed its 2010 calendar too far?

Jack Yan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:06:15 +0000

We knew it was that time of year again: the number of searches that resulted in hits at Lucire about the Ryanair calendar were on the rise again.
Last year, this magazine covered the story brieﬂy, trying to stay neutral by reporting the facts. We detailed how there were concerns about the objectiﬁcation of the Ryanair female staff who appeared in the calendar, while noting that proceeds were donated to charity.
We didn’t cover the news of the new calendar this year because it seemed to be yet another repeat of 2008. And of 2007. One side condemning it, the other side saying, ‘But it’s for a good cause.’
Shot in Alicante, Spain, this time around, with proceeds this time going to KIDS (for disabled children and their families), the 2010 The Girls of Ryanair calendar (at €10) goes a bit further than its predecessors. There is more nudity, though concealed, while the Ryanair publicity machine has gone on high gear by making a “making-of” video available on YouTube (below).
However, the airline is unashamed this time around of pushing the sex appeal of the calendar, with the last frame in the video reading, ‘Fly Ryanair for the lowest fares and the most gorgeous girls.’
An excuse for male passengers to sexually harass Ryanair staff, perhaps?
When the airline is being that obvious with its motives, it lends weight to its critics, with one MEP last year, Mary Honeyball, calling the 2009 edition ‘derisory’.
As a man, of course I admit that gazing at beautiful women brings me some pleasure, and that in that respect this calendar’s imagery is no different to my female friends who enjoyed the New Zealand Fire Service’s ﬁremen calendars over the years.
The line, I feel, rests between stripping off for a good cause and actively promoting sexism. Swimsuits are one thing, but have we strayed a tad too far into the lads’ mags category when Danija appears on the October page in her birthday suit (left), and several of her colleagues are topless? Does this really help Ryanair’s brand?
It would be easy to use the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition’s example, where that magazine pushed its envelope from year to year—but then, we have models there, not airline personnel who have to return to work.
And our ﬁremen had some gear on: no bloke was left holding his bits in any shot.
It is the individual woman’s choice at Ryanair—and 800 applied voluntarily, which is about a ﬁfth of its cabin crew workforce—and I am sure that they were aware of the consequences. Calendar or not, some are probably subjected to inappropriate advances anyway.
However, I’m not as convinced this year of the charity angle as I was in previous years, now that less of Ryanair’s staff members’ modesty has been preserved. The calendar would have sold in the same numbers regardless.
Maybe now that my friends’ daughters are beginning to model in their teens I am getting more paternal, which is rather better than becoming a dirty old man.
Nevertheless, one only hopes that KIDS beneﬁts hugely, and that we chaps are civilized enough to separate a charity effort from real life. Sometimes I wonder.