Givenchy's Transgender Fall Campaign Model Posed Nude for French Vogue [NSFW]
* 7/19/10 at 6:42 PM
http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2010/07/givenchys_transgender_fall_cam.htmlFall's Givenchy campaign was made all the more buzzworthy when designer Riccardo Tisci cast his transgender personal assistant, Lea T., to appear in the ads alongside nine other models. And of all ten faces, French Vogue chose to highlight her with a nude portrait that appears in next month's issue.
Prior to this shot breaking, Lea T. modeled in Givenchy's haute couture show this month and posed, privates covered, for last month's Italian Vanity Fair.
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French Vogue's delightfully subversive nude
Lea T., a transsexual model, bares it all in the magazine's upcoming issue
By Alex Jung
http://www.salon.com/life/gender/?story=/mwt/broadsheet/2010/07/20/trans_model When Givenchy's head designer cast his personal assistant, Lea T., in a print ad for the brand, it sparked a frenzy of interest. Calls for interviews and modeling gigs began pouring in. Now, French Vogue, the hipper sister of American Vogue, is running a profile of the Brazilian model alongside a nude portrait in its upcoming issue. But this isn't your typical tale about the feverish discovery of a new face in high-fashion -- because Lea just happens to be a transsexual.
Of course, that makes the nude all the more provocative. Her gaze is calm and direct, and the casual placement of her hand clearly reveals that she hasn't had gender reassignment surgery. Unlike in the buzzed-about Givenchy ad, she doesn't wear ostentatious makeup or strike any of the dramatic poses that usually mark high fashion editorials. She is simply, arrestingly bare. With her long hair draped over her shoulders, Lea looks straight out of the Garden of Eden -- and that is perhaps what's most subversive about the photo: its ability to make us re-conceive of what we think of as "natural."
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Transgender Model Poses for Givenchy Campaign in French Vogue
http://www.passportmagazine.com/blog/index.php?/archives/1303-Transgender-Model-Poses-for-Givenchy-Campaign-in-French-Vogue.htmlThe Fall 2010 Givenchy campaign has a few unexpected surprises. Italian designer Riccardo Tisci hired ten models for the campaign. French Vogue decided, though, to feature one of the models nude, which happened to be Tisci's transgender personal assistant, Lea T.
Lea T. is not unfamiliar with the modeling world. She has modeled for Givenchy's haute couture show and has also posed, privates covered, for last month's Italian Vogue. While some have criticized Tisci for using his assistant as a marketing ploy, he remarked that she "exemplifies the masculine-feminine dichotomy that has become one of his design signatures."
