Text, Vivian Kelly

Nirvana.

I was sitting in Anthony’s black patent leather nailhead chair with Madison Avenue to my right and my laptop in front of me. To my right on the marble ledge were stacks of Rizzoli and Assouline coffee table books as well as the latest European editions of Vogue. As Anthony magically erased my skunk roots with the potion in the squeeze bottle, we talked blogs and the Superbowl.

He’d just posted  on the killer images shot by Carlyn Cerf de Dudzeele for Vogue Japan, which he’d also collaborated on. Anthony’s role was to work his colorist magic to give the models cotton candy colored hair which played off the Versace outfits. I’d  previewed them on his ipad over the Holidays but seeing them in the post and in the actual magazine blew me away. The other contributors were Oribe who styled the hair and Lena Koro who did the makeup.

This shoot  is unmistakably reminiscent of those incredible Avedon ones back when Gianni was still alive. The clothes, many of them from the Versace for H&M Collaboration were so close to Gianni’s early nineties designs that I almost wept with joy. Enjoy these cotton candy images, you can peruse on your iphone as you pretend to be paying attention to the SuperBowl game.

Fashionistas – don’t forget to look up at half-time though, to watch the one and only Material Girl strut her stuff in front of 111 million viewers [last Bowl's figures]. The SuperBowl is said to rank #2 in “holidays with most food consumption”, but maybe thoughts of fitting into Versace and watching Madonna’s insanely toned body will spur us to put that 10th chicken wing down!

To read Anthony’s post on this fantastic editorial, go to Anthony Leonard Salon’s blog. Note his clever use of cotton candy colored text!