Random Bits: Royal Wedding Edition

-I know this isn't Freja related, but damn! How beautiful was that dress? And how absolutely, stunningly, breathtakingly gorgeous did TRH Catherine look!? I'm not one to buy into wedding hype at all, but I couldn't help but to get swept away in the emotion and significance of it all. Yes, I got up early to watch. Yes, I teared up a bit (much to my surprise). Yes, I'm ready for a nap.


-More details about Freja's second consecutive Harry Winston campaign have surfaced. According to WWD:

"In May, Harry Winston is set to launch a new diamond, platinum and yellow gold collection, Lily Cluster, inspired by a Forties floral motif pulled from the company’s own archives. The news here: It’s the first time the company has offered designs in flaxen hues — aside from the occasional special request — since the Nineties...........The Lily Cluster ad campaign, shot by Patrick Demarchelier, will feature Freja Beha Erichsen."

You can see these new jewelry designs in the campaign shot I posted here.


-Freja will be part of the grand, multi-girl editorial for VP's August photographed by Inez and Vinoodh. The week long shoot is taking place in Los Angeles right now, and Inez and Vinoodh have been tumblr-ing candid shots of models all week long. However, the candid of Freja comes from another source (by way of 50mmf12l.tumblr.com):

So far the model lineup for this shoot includes: Lara Stone, Anja Rubik, Arizona Muse, Isabeli Fontana, and Raquel Zimmermann. So basically, all the big guns. If you'll recall, Freja was also included in the editorial for last year's August issue shot by David Sims. She also happened to land that cover. So maybe she'll get a cover shot once again? (Though I think it's high time for a cover to go to Raquel.) In any case, it seems like Alt isn't straying out of her comfort zone in terms of model choice. That's a good thing if your favorites happen to be her favorites. It's not such a good thing if you were hoping to see new and fresh faces (cough Aymeline cough) in the pages of VP.


Now off I go to find super HQ detail shots of that dress.....!

Harry Winston Continued

Since it is the Monday after a holiday weekend (and these kind of Mondays are usually the worst) I thought I'd start it off with a new Harry Winston ad that I saw in the May issue of Harper's Bazaar:

Yup, it's Freja once again proving how versatile and so beyond stereotypes she is now in terms of her modeling. Don't mind her....she's just being fabulous, looking gorgeous, flashing that million dollar smile, selling that high end jewelry and making bank. Glad they decided to keep her around for another cycle of ads. She's proven her worth to them, so it would have been stupid of them to let her go. Now if only a big time beauty company could realize what they're missing out on.......

Image Credits: My scans

Harry Winston: After the Ads

In the modeling world we make such a big fuss over campaigns, but rarely do we get to assess how effective they are. So imagine my delight when I came across this article from WWD about Harry Winston jewelry sales. As we all know, Freja fronted their most recent ad campaign.

For the fourth retail quarter ending on January 31st, Harry Winston reported a 60% sales gain and a net income of $9.9 million dollars. Thing were already looking up for the company when they reported their third quarter results back in December. But sales stayed strong throughout the fourth quarter and beat analysts' expectations. So why am I talking about this? Because Freja's ads hit market saturation during this fourth quarter period (Nov-Jan).

Am I saying that Freja is the only reason why sales were so good? No, of course not. Yet I can't help but to think she certainly played a part. After all, she's been proven to sell as Franca has showed us:

"On July, 2010, three fashion magazines used the same Miu Miu dress, Vogue Uk, Elle Uk and W in America. Vogue UK had a model on the cover, Elle UK a singer - Lily Allen - and W Eva Mendes. In England sales were higher. Freja is the new icon for models. Eva Mendes didn't have an impact on W."

And where is a large majority of Freja's fan base located? Asian countries like China, Japan and Korea. Freja seems to have an unexplainable and ferocious appeal over there that perhaps no other model has. Her Asian fans are voracious when it comes to her and you can see that in the sites, forums and blogs that they've set up. Coincidentally (or not), Harry Winston sales in Asia were up 138% while sales in the US and Europe were only up 79% and 27% respectively.

Yes, everyone knows that Asia is the emerging market right now, but since Freja appeals to so many fans in Asia, I'm going to propose that she has great appeal to general consumers in Asia as well. So picking her as the face of the campaign made commercial sense (even though it didn't necessarily make the most fashion model sense at first), and it certainly seems to have paid off as well. Fourth quarter gains, good numbers, increasing sales; Freja and her ads did what they were supposed to do.

Of course, I don't really claim to know much about sales analysis. This is just where my mind went when I read the WWD article. I do consider myself somewhat of a Freja expert though, so that has to count for something, right? ;)

Some day, I'd love to get my hands on some Chanel sales figures......anyway, we should be proud of our girl. And we should also hope that some head honcho of a major cosmetics brand is putting as much thought into the matter as I am. High fashion campaigns. Check. Jewelry campaign. Perfume campaign. Check. Big time beauty contract? To be determined......

Campaign Videos

It's a video day today. We have three new videos to go with some of Freja's recent campaigns. First, thanks to a lovely anonymous commenter on the previous post (thank you!), a new Harry Winston behind the scenes campaign video has surfaced:

This videos accompanies the gorgeous and cheerful print campaign that was released late last year. Freja is just as cheerful and radiant on film as she is in the campaign images. Definitely a nice treat for any Freja fan, especially since we get a rare glimpse of her lighter side, with a cute baby and yummy looking cake thrown in for good measure.

The second two videos are part of Freja's recent ad venture with H&M. We already saw two videos featuring Freja in dresses, and now we have this one featuring her in trousers alongside Anne and Martha:

The last video is part of H&M's newly released "The Pants Collection" campaign:

Freja looks particularly great in this video. She's charming, effusive, quirky, and spontaneous. She looks just as comfortable dancing around in those pants as she does strutting down the street in her boots and leather jacket. She's come a long way this past year and I'm just so happy that I get to witness this change in her career direction because it's what I've been longing for. No longer pigeonholed, but instead exploring new avenues, new opportunities and new expressions of her many sides: feminine, commercial, mature, modern, and playful.

Freja is indeed the girl that can seemingly do everything and anything. Her career seems to have rebirths and rejuvenations just as often as she cuts and changes her hair. So where will we be in a year? I have absolutely no idea, but I'm betting that it will be somewhere new, exciting and unexpected. :)

Image Credits: hm.com
Video Credits: Harrywinston Youtube channel, hm.com

More Harry Winston

Thanks to a few lovely anonymous commenters in my previous post, I was directed to some more shots of Freja's Harry Winston Jewelry campaign, shot by Patrick Demarchelier.

Freja looks so great in these, albeit a bit too airbrushed. But whatever...she's smiling and positively radiant! WWD just came out with a report about Harry Winston's earnings, and now I think I have an idea as to why they went with Freja for the campaign; being the unconventional, but brilliant, choice that she was.

"Increased demand for luxury goods and higher sales from Asian consumers helped the luxury jeweler post a profit of $3.9 million..."

"The engine of this recovery is being fueled by the Far East as Chinese citizens become consumers not only at home, but also in the luxury shopping districts of the developed world,” chairman and chief executive officer Robert Gannicott said on a call with analysts."

Call me crazy, but it seems to me like Freja was picked to front the campaign because she has appeal to the Asian consumer. We all know how popular she is over there, so this just makes sense to me. I don't know, maybe I'm just making connections where there are no connections to make. But all of this is still interesting to say the least....

Image Credits: harrywinston.com via Noctilux tumblr

Magazine Mentions

Freja definitely gets more work in European magazines, but that doesn't mean you can't find her in the American mags. I gotta say, it was definitely surreal to flip through the November issue of Harper's Bazaar and see this in person.......surreal, but nice:

With a smile like that, it's a wonder how Freja ever got so entwined with tough androgyny in the first place. Anyway, I'm glad the Harry Winston campaign is turning out to have a bigger roll out than I initially thought. Silly me, thinking it was only for Asian markets. Now it seems like all markets will have the opportunity to see the bright and bubbly side of Freja. My fingers are crossed that this leads to some more similar work because I think seeing Freja in a totally commercial, mass-market kind of way is just the change of pace I need right now. She's a high fashion model no doubt, but I want to see her out of her comfort zone more often.


So with Harper's Bazaar covered, let's now move on to US Vogue. It's clear Anna isn't much of a fan, but at least we know that she and the other editors know who Freja is:

It's nice to see Freja get some sort of shout out, however minuscule. I guess it's better than nothing? Although now that Meisel has warmed to Freja, is it just a matter of time before Anna and US Vogue do? Seriously though, it is a bit ludicrous that Freja has only been in US Vogue once (in a multi-girl editorial) considering her status within the industry and her popularity among fans and industry insiders alike. Sasha, Raquel, Daria, Lara and other models who occupy/ied the top positions on models.com's list have all been featured many times, some even on the cover. So what gives? Maybe we'll just have to live with the fact that Freja and US Vogue weren't meant to be. But if that's the only publication that chooses to ignore her, than I think we're ok. We'll just take our five consecutive appearances in Vogue Paris, and covers of VI and UK and go elsewhere! Anna's loss for sure.

Image Credits: My scans

Changing Tides

I know I seem to be stuck on this subject (considering I just wrote something in the same vein two posts ago), but I think it's a pretty huge deal. Especially to all the longtime Freja fans out there. So what's the big deal? Freja is officially a modeling icon, or about as close as one can get to becoming a modeling icon these days under modern circumstances. She's no longer obscure, fringe or merely a cult hit. The tide has changed and she's mainstream, well known and recognizable now. I know, I know, we'll never return to the era of the supermodels. But at the same time, we shouldn't use that as the barometer against which we measure all subsequent modeling successes by. For the past is past, and we are firmly in the present. That past can never be replicated so long as the world evolves and things change. And if there is one certainty in life it's that things do change. The fact that a heavily tattooed, spotlight avoiding, tomboyish model sits at the top of a modeling industry predicated on long held feminine ideals of beauty should tell you as much. It's hard to imagine such a thing happening 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. But it's happening now.

We do get modeling waves: the Brazilians, the Russians, and (currently) the Dutchies. But the remarkable thing about Freja is that she doesn't belong to any of those waves. She didn't ride on the coat tails of an industry wide modeling trend. She started out when doll-like, blond models were all the rage. And so she got to where she is based on her uniqueness, personality, likability, authenticity and genuine appeal. That's what makes her an icon in today's fashion climate. That, and the fact that her career is stronger than ever five (almost six) years in.

Most of us had the fortune of witnessing the turnaround Freja's career has gone through this past year. She was a big name within the industry before, but now she's an even bigger name who has begun to transcend the boundaries that usually limit models like her to the high fashion sphere. So along with her high fashion cred, Freja has slowly earned commercial viability and mainstream appeal. She isn't a household name, but everyone seems to know her. And the work she's getting is beginning to reflect that.

Even Vogue Italia's editor in chief Franca Sozzani recognizes and write about it in her editor's blog on vogue.it:

"On July, 2010, three fashion magazines used the same Miu Miu dress, Vogue Uk, Elle Uk and W in America. Vogue UK had a model on the cover, Elle UK a singer - Lily Allen - and W Eva Mendes. In England sales were higher. Freja is the new icon for models. Eva Mendes didn't have an impact on W."

Freja can sell magazines! In a time where all American publications (cough, US Vogue, cough) tell us that celebrities are the only people who matter or who can move units off the newsstands, Freja is proving otherwise. Imagine that....a fresh, appealing face who isn't so completely overexposed that you're actually intrigued enough to see what she might have to say. Wow....I'm shocked (insert sarcastic smiley here). Anna Wintour take note; the general public might actually want to see someone besides a typical Hollywood starlet a la Blake Lively on the cover of Vogue. And to hit home on the idea of Freja's broader appeal, she'll be selling jewelry now as well.

Harry Winston Jewelry
Ph: Patrick Demarchelier

It's a bold move for Harry Winston, but a great coup for Freja. If I were her, I'd be going around to everyone I know saying "whatnowbitches...booyah!" But that's just me. I think that to a certain extent we've all underestimated Freja. Whether we think she can't pull off femininity or that she can't ever reach a high level of popularity, this campaign proves us all wrong. This is the type of campaign I've been waiting for. It gives her a completely new image, but one I always knew she was capable of. The irony of the images will not be lost on ardent fans, and the absence of tattoos might disappoint others; but the significance of this campaign is what's important here. And if all goes well, I think we could see Freja transcending even more boundaries in the future. So congrats to her. As she turns 23 and enters into a new stage of life, it's only fitting that her career should grow and mature as she has so beautifully done before our eyes.

Image Credits: bbs.sfileydy.com, twitter.com/amandaweiner, passionluxe.com via tFS member candlebougie