London or Bust

I know it's way too early to be thinking about the SS11 runway season, but London has just announced it's schedule. Brands like Burberry, Matthew Williamson, Pringle of Scotland and Jonathan Saunders are set to show in the city again, while Swedish label Acne will be making it's London show debut. It was only a few seasons ago when the people behind LFW seemingly decided to amp it up to attract bigger names and more attention, and look where they are now. The city's fashion week definitely cannot be missed, especially for fans of Jonny Johansson.

I don't want to be presumptuous, but I hope this lineup means that we'll be seeing Freja on the London catwalks again and for the third time in her career. She only made her debut in the city during the SS10 season so she's still relatively new there. But it's a pattern that I'm beginning to see a lot more often; bigger name models aren't bypassing the city anymore, and neither are the press and the rest of the fashion flock. With the schedule being the way it is, can you blame them?

But of course, this is Freja who were talking about. So I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that she walks at all this upcoming season and doesn't disappear on us like before or decide to retire from runway a la Raquel and Lily D. And if she makes it to London again, and maybe even that Acne show, that will just be icing on the cake.

London FW1011 Recap

London Fashion Week F/W 10.11 - 6 Shows Total 0 Opening Slots 2 Closing Slots

Aquascutum - 2 Looks
Burberry Prorsum - 3 Looks
Jaeger London - 2 Looks
Jonathan Saunders (C) - 2 Looks
Julien MacDonald - 2 Looks
Pringle of Scotland (C) - 3 Looks

Whoa, is it just me, or did London seem to fly by in the blink of an eye? I know it's not completely over yet, with today being the last day of shows. Buy with all the big names having already showed, you can bet most of the fashion flock have packed up for Milan. Anyway, Freja continued her great season by walking for only the second time ever in London. If she keeps up her pace for all four cities, she could fool me into thinking that she's the new "it" girl and not a veteran of 11 runway seasons dating back five years to 2005.

Her first appearance came on Sunday at Julien MacDonald, followed by a runway debut for label Acquascutum.

Monday came Jaeger London and Pringle of Scotland. The later show in which Freja had three looks and closed.

On Tuesday, Freja walked for Jonathan Saunders (who doesn't seem to be going anywhere after moving his show from NY to London last season). She closed that show as well, and if she continues with this opening and closing rate in Milan and Paris she'll be top three for sure.

Later during the day Freja walked in Burberry Prorsum as expected. It was a great show for those that got to watch it streaming live. The over sized shearling coats and biker boots and booties definitely had me lusting. And it was also great to see Karmen Pedaru, as a London exclusive, open the show. She's such a great model who has been flying under the radar up until now. And as we all know, she's a good friend of Freja's.

Milan starts today, but the shows that everyone are looking forward to start tomorrow with Fendi and Prada. If things go according to expectations, we'll see Freja at both. And aren't you just dying to see who the Prada exclusives will be this year? Miuccia always has something interesting up her sleeve.

Image Credits: style.it

New Editorials and London

Here are two of Freja's March magazine madness editorials:

Chic Mystique
W Magazine March 2010
Ph: Mario Sorrenti

Love At First Sight
Vogue US March 2010
Ph: Steven Meisel

I'm just so happy to see Freja in US Vogue that I can't really say anything substantive or meaningful about the editorial. Usually I'm apathetic towards standard studio edits, but this one is special, obviously. And the rest of the cast is so great that I don't mind that Freja only has three shots. I like to think of this as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, hopefully. Finally US Vogue is changing up their model casting. In addition to Freja, this issue also boasts debuts for Abbey Lee, Patricia van der Vliet, and Mirte Maas! If Anna Wintour keeps this up I'll actually be looking forward to getting my copy of Vogue in the mail every month. Now...if we could just get her to do something about those awful celebrity covers....but even that might be changing in the near future. I swear, this entire month has seen the fashion world turned upside-down and inside out, especially for us Freja fans.

Anyway, as you all know by now, Freja is in London and she's already walked two shows, one of them a debut for her: Julien MacDonald and Acquascutum. The craziness continues, so if you thought this week was going to be a nice break between New York and Milan, think again. London is the place to be right now as a lot of models are walking there this season (think Anja, Abbey, Freja, Karlie, Sigrid, etc). I think this is great for a city that's generally overlooked. Collections have been strong so far so take a look when you get the chance.

Oh, and thanks to tFS member s'gnac, we have a preview of Freja's SPUR cover. I guess that means it's out in Japan and hopefully we'll be able to see some scans of the story eventually.

Image Credits: My scans, amazon.co.jp via s'gnac @ tFS

London Again?

It feels like the SS10 shows just ended, but it's already time to start thinking about the FW1011 season just two short months away! And Burberry starts things off with the news that their runway show will again be held in London instead of Milan.

When I heard about this move last season, I was a bit skeptical as to whether Freja would walk in London. I knew she was a Burberry runway regular (and I'm convinced that if she were British she'd already have a campaign under her belt). But in nine seasons on the runway circuit she never once made it to London. Nevertheless, she surprised us all with a strong debut season walking in 6 shows, which makes me wonder if she'll repeat her performance for the upcoming season?

Freja started working like crazy halfway through 2009 with tons of editorials, campaigns and her strongest runway showing in a while. So if she keeps this up my guess is she'll be making the London stop again. But at this point it's all conjecture. You never know about the runway prospects of established models like Freja. One season they're everywhere, the next season they're gone...I'm looking at you Raquel Zimmermann.

Image Credits: style.it

Backstage Moments - New York and London

During fashion month pictures come at us so fast and in such high quantity that I think we can miss out on some really great ones amid all the excitement. So, once shows end I always make sure to look back throughout the season in order to catch the backstage moments I might have missed the first time around.

The following are my favorite of those moments from New York and London. Milan and Paris will come later in succeeding posts. All of these pictures come from various sources whose names you will find in the image file label. There is no common thread to these, other than Freja's presence. Some of them I like because I find them to be humorous. Others I like because I find the friendship moments captured to be endearing. And others I like simply because I think the capture a beautiful moment. Regardless of my reasons, I think they all warrant another look.

NEW YORK:

LONDON:

Image Credits: catwalking, cobrasnake, dazeddigital, eastnews, elle, elle.fr, hobogestapo, imgmodels.blogspot, modelinia, style.it, vmagazine, wireimage, wwd