Bond Girl

In the US Vogue appeared in May 1999 the editorial "License to Thrill" with Carmen Kass and done by Ellen von Unwerth.

In her typical ironic manner Unwerth is quoting the Bond heroines, here especially the first of all Bond girls Ursula Andress as Honey Rider, in Dr. No (1962).

Spiderman

This picture by the Italian photographer Gian Paolo Tomasi is an obvious quotation of Spiderman coming up a skyscraper.

Post Apocalyptic Zombies

This Editorial by Steven Meisel was published in the Vogue Italia in 2004.



Despite it’s no quotation of any specific artwork it refers to a lot of post apocalyptic zombie movies. With its dark and morbid atmosphere is it not atypical for the kind of Editorials by Meisel.

Christina Barbarella

In 2008 Ellen von Unwerth made a photo shoot with Christina Aguilera for the greatest hits album, "Keeps Gettin’ Better".


It’s a nice retro shoot which reminds of good old Barbarella.

Star Wars Fashion

In Highlights Magazine Fall 2008 appeared a series called 'Armour Karma'. The photographer was Kah Poon.


Without any doubt nice pictures, but I see a strong influence of the dresses of queen Amidala from Star Wars.

Sin City Fashion by Steven Meisel

In spring 2005 the film Sin City by Frank Miller was real sensation. The impressive colors and the perfectly arranged film noir and pulp esthetics made Sin City also to an ideal pattern for a special kind of dark fashion.

Because of that it isn’t very surprising to me that it was Steven Meisel who has an inclination to dark and sometimes violent arrangements shot in the same year a Fashion Editorial for Vogue Italy, inspired by the film.

Beer Surfer

Few days ago a friend showed me this nice clip on Youtube about the Guinness Surfers.

A wonderful clip without any doubt by I wished that the English painter Walter Crane (1845-1915) would have been mentioned.

Walter Crane: Neptune's Horses (1892)

Catwoman

The modern "Carousel of Ideas" is moving and it’s not always easy to decide where icons, once put on in move, had their strongest impact.

For example Catwoman is a fictional comic book character associated the Batman comics. Catwoman first appears in Batman 1940. As a very popular character Catwoman has been featured in many media adaptations like other comic series, toys, television series and movies. Best known are the film with Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in 1992 and that with Halle Berry in 2004.

In the May 2008 issue of US Vogue the photographer Craig McDean presented a series called “Daring Do” where the Canadian supermodel CoCo Rocha poses as Catwoman.

Transformers

The conjunctions between artwork and advertising have a lot of variations. A nice example is in my opinion the movie Transformers (2007), which was the result of the old Transformers toy advertising campaign.

After the success of the new movie these images where used by Citroën and Nissan for new advertising campaigns.

Charming Facism

I think in 2008 there was a new clip for the Citroën C5, which should be sold with the slogan: "Unmistakeably German".


Well, why not. But it's a strange image of Germany, which is used by this clip. The whole scenery is taken from the thirties, the blond SS-styled guy and the Wagnerian music. To me it seems like a production by Leni Riefenstahl.




But the best, and I don’t think that this is a pure coincidence, the protagonist looks almost exactly like Jonathan Littell that English/French writer, who became famous with his novel “The Kindly Ones” the fictional memories of an SS officer and mass murderer.

So what the hell they are doing here? Telling their customers what cool guys have served in the SS and that this is unmistakeably German?

Cleopatra

In Vanity Fair Magazine of February 2009 were a series of photos from Cate Blanchett, who is posing as a actress in different roles.

The pose and exotic costume reminds of countless odalisques in art. But even more of Theda Bara in the film Cleopatra from 1917.

But already this film got its inspirations and its images from history paintings of its time. There are a lot of Cleopatra paintings in this time. I will only show this from the Austrian painter Hans Makart (1840-1884).

The Death of Cleopatra (1875)