118 posts tagged “lucire”

I thought this was awesome news in that the photographer, Giuliano Bekor, shot regularly for Lucire. From the Lucire ‘Insider’ section.

Giuliano Bekor, whose credits include numerous Lucire shoots, photographed Hayden Panettiere for her 2008 Candie’s print campaign.

Hayden Panettiere will star in Candie’s back to school 2008 television, print and online advertising campaign, according to the company. Hayden, who is known as an award-winning actress, activist and star of NBC’s hit television series Heroes can now add recording artist to her résumé.
   Following last year’s marketing campaign with Grammy-award winning artist Fergie, the new fall TV commercial will be a direct lift from Panettiere’s first music video, ‘Wake Up Call’, which was styled using Candie’s apparel, footwear and accessories.
   This is Panettiere’s second season with the brand.
   To coincide with TV, a print campaign will feature Panettiere in a variety of sexy and sweet vignettes as she playfully poses with a piano, behind a beaded curtain and in a club-like setting among others. The ‘Wake Up Call’ video and the Candie’s commercial were shot in Los Angeles by famed music video director Chris Applebaum and the print campaign was shot by fashion photographer Giuliano Bekor, whose credits include Lucire, and created by the Iconix in-house marketing team.
   Fans can listen to ‘Wake Up Call’ exclusively at www.candies.com and www.kohls.com/inspire (streaming only) beginning today. The single will be available for download on iTunes beginning August 5. The single is being released by Hollywood Records.

[Cross-posted] Miss Venezuela, Dayana Mendoza, has won Miss Universe 2008, with Miss Colombia, Taliana Vargas, runner-up. Dominican Republic, Russia and Mexico rounded off the top five.
   Miss Mendoza, 20, hails from Caracas, and is already a model represented by Élite Model Management.
   The 57th Miss Universe contest was held in the coastal town of Nha Trang, Khánh Hòa, Vietnam, during the morning of July 14. It was broadcast live on Sunday night to American audiences.
   The show was compèred by Jerry Springer, who had hosted Miss World in the past. Melanie Brown, formerly of the Spice Girls, co-hosted and sang during the telecast.
   The judges were Donald Trump, Jr, Roberto Cavalli, Nadine Velazquez, Jennifer Hawkins, Louis Licari, John Nguyen, Joseph Cinque, Eesha Koppikhar and Taryn Rose.
  Special awards went to Miss El Salvador (Miss Congeniality) and Miss Thailand (Best in National Costume, decided by online voting).

It’s quite easy to work out the agenda of the mainstream media when it comes to an article like this, trying to harm Samantha Powell’s chances at Miss Universe tomorrow night.

• Personal aggrandizement of the journalist, or, if not the journalist, then the newspaper editors or management trying to look like they can set agenda. (The part about Val Lott hanging up the phone, I understand, is total fiction—so if something so minor is untrue, can we trust the rest?)
• Trying to cause a split between pākehā and Māori when in fact there is none. Fact: the photograph of Samantha Powell doing the pukana was actually published in mid-June—and even ran in a rival newspaper here! There were no complaints from anyone, Māori or any other group, until the Herald made it a race issue yesterday. Or the Herald is trying to play catch-up because it missed the photos a month ago and was desperate for a fresh angle.
• Racism: come on, the headline is clearly poking fun at Māori and the pukana. I don’t appreciate the newspaper doing that, and I would say my Māori friends would be more upset at that than the Herald’s false defence of the haka. Like a newspaper owned by Australians and the Irish really understands Māoridom.
• Implying that two beauty queens are at odds with one another. False. Samantha Powell is in communicado for the most part in Nha Trong, Vietnam, and I severely doubt Miss World New Zealand, Kahurangi Taylor, would risk criticizing another pageant for fear of damaging her own chances when she goes to Miss World.
• Tall-poppy syndrome. (The newspaper failed there: the judges decided their top 15 last week.)
• Lack of patriotism: you would never drag the All Blacks down a peg the day before a big international. And places like Venezuela treat Miss Universe with greater fervour than we treat a rugby match. But an absence of supporting New Zealand is understandable, since The New Zealand Herald is owned by a company listed on the Australian exchange and in turn owned in part by a company based in Dublin. Pity: their business pages are good, so it’s a shame some of these others are dragging them down.

   My views about the appropriateness of Samantha Powell’s haka are at the Lucire blog. I agree that Māori culture should be defended. But you couldn’t really call it a haka. She just did a few moves. It would be like a Caucasian donning a lion mask and moving two metres and calling that a Chinese New Year’s lion dance.
   As I said in Lucire: ‘I know of no Māori who, while rightly guarding against improper use of their culture, would deny a chance for it to be promoted or be rendered so “untouchable” to those who came later to Aotearoa. In fact, one kaumatua I spoke to says it is our duty, regardless of our ethnic origins, to be promoting Māori culture when we are abroad. 
   ‘Sometimes, because we have not been immersed in the culture, we err. It is to be expected. And, when the one who errs is not of our own race, we forgive and we educate, but we do not criticize.
   ‘All New Zealanders should be proud to propagate Māori culture as the alternative would be to ignore it and pretend we are mere facsimile of Great Britain, as many Kiwis did 50 years ago.’
   I’d hate to see us head back to those monocultural times—though it looks like the Herald wants that to happen by running a story like this.
   Since the newspaper has been shifting a lot of its work to Australia, I imagine an Anglicized monoculture makes it easier to take more editing work away from Kiwis.
   Any time you see a story about over-sensitive Māori getting upset about the way the culture has been portrayed, think again about the agenda.
   All the Māori I know put mana first and actually see this as an opportunity to reach out and educate in order to promote their culture. 
   A big fail for the Herald. Sam’s still going to wow the world tomorrow night.

I enjoy these behind-the-scenes design stories a lot, and check out the video of the designer drawing the new BMW 7-series (F01). From Lucire.

 

From the menu at Arbitrageur, a wine bar in Wellington, New Zealand:

   I would have had a Château Lucire instead …

Got this baby till Monday. First time I played with sat-nav in New Zealand and it is surprisingly accurate. Without the ass-warmers, I mean, seat warmers, and heavier steering you kind of feel you are taking a step down from the A5 with the S-Line pack, but the sat-nav partly makes up for it. Quite sprightly for a 1·8 and better than the previous BMW 320i, though to be fair I need to compare it with the latest model. Easily better than the Mercedes-Benz C200K in terms of the gearbox (eight speeds in this sucker) but that heavy steering is a surprise. Full review in Lucire later.

Not the best shots since they are off a cell but the better ones are on my 35 mm.

I really love this shape from the rear, too. It looks very low and purposeful but the car is narrower than you think when behind the wheel (I kept parking it far from the kerb), and it’s also reasonably high for front-seat passengers. Audi, Walter da’Silva and his team have done a good job.

[Cross-posted] Miss New Zealand, Samantha Powell, flew out to Vietnam a couple of weeks ago and the Fairfax Press gave her a bit of a boost yesterday in the local media. It’s in stark contrast to the hatchet job the same publishing group gave her predecessor, Laural Barrett, last year.
   If you head to the Miss Universe site now, there is a good selection of images, plus Sam’s video interview. The more casual shots are the better ones, in my opinion—having photographed her myself there’s a good, real energy about her.
   But it’s hard to be negative about any of the shots of any of the contestants: we are talking Miss Universe here.
   The contestants get to Miss Universe and are given a photo shoot and their video interview fairly early on.
   I have had a brief email from Sam after her arrival and she is loving it. Both pageant director Val Lott and I agree that nothing seems to faze her.

I love it. Haven’t really opened it up yet—the fastest I have gone so far is 60 km/h. I need to find some tougher roads.
   This is after I cleaned the bird poop off.

I am looking forward to picking up one of these babies shortly … the Audi A5 V6.