Barneys Fall 2011 catalogue: left, Carine Roitfeld, and right, her daughter Julia Restoin-Roitfeld.
I am highly confused about these photos for the Barneys fall 2011 campaign. It was announced in March that she would be the stylist and editor of their fall catalogue, but it has only just come out that she is modelling in it… with her kids.
My question is why?
First of all, since when does the American Barney’s customer care about Carine Roitfeld? Sure, some will know who she is, but she doesn’t represent anything American, and I doubt many of their customers relate to, or aspire to be like, a stick thin, smoky-eyed French woman in her fifties who rarely wears a bra. (I don’t know this for a fact, but from the photos I’ve seen, I can make the conclusion that the bra is not an everyday item for her.)
Barneys Fall 2011 catalogue: a rather intimate photo of Carine and her son.
Second of all, why the hell is the catalogue turning into a family album? Do ANY of the Barney’s customer care about her kids?
I didn’t have much of an opinion of them until a friend of mine, who turns in the same circles as Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld (Carine’s son) told me that both of her kids were talentless and capitalizing on their mother’s fame. When Vladimir explains an exhibition he “curated” in New York, his articulation of the images is so poor it leads me to think he has no idea what the hell he is doing (“Mixing pictures, different pictures together, different stories, different moments” not a very interesting way to explain an exhibit of photos…)
When Julia (Carine’s daughter) says that her mother wouldn’t let them hang on her coat tails, I don’t believe a word of it. ‘My parents would never let that happen. They invested money in our education to give us the tools, but as soon as that was over my brother started to make it within six months of graduating and I started to work right away.’ (Telegraph) I somehow doubt people would have turned up at Vladimir’s exhibitons if Carine weren’t there, and Julia probably wouldn’t have landed the Tom Ford modelling gigs if her mom hadn’t been so close to him. And let’s not even start on that terrible short film that Julia did…
Anyway, I doubt the Barneys woman is interested.
A Restoin Roitfeld family portrait, I guess these kids are used to being photorgaphed with their Mom.
Third and last, that photo of her and her son hugging is a bit creepy. I’ll never forget when she talks about him in the CNN documentary and she explains that she wants to be “the fiancé of her son in a way” (note, fiancé in French can mean girlfriend, not necessarily wife-to-be.) While I admire her frankness, when I saw this photo, and thought about that quote, I just started to think…ewww. (Am I immature?)
While I could see these images working in a cool French magazine, they simply do not belong in a Barney’s catalogue. And will this actually help them to sell any clothes?
