Emporio Armani has unveiled its Autumn/Winter 2012/13 advertising campaign and Paco Rabanne has named Lydia Maurer its new creative director of womenswear.
The Italian brand has landed in the Orient for its latest advertising campaign shot by renowned fashion photographer Alasdair McLellan.
Models Anna De Riik, Tao Okamoto, Paolo Anchisi and Alfred Kovac are photographed in the streets of Tokyo with neon lights, billboards and graffiti providing a backdrop of graphic Japanese text.
The sleek silhouettes and polished styling, a signature of the label, are juxtaposed against the urban, futuristic metropolis.
Look out for the images in magazines from July.
The 29-year-old designer will replace Manish Arora in the coveted role and will present her first collection for the label during Paris Fashion Week in October.
Paco Rabanne’s vice president Vincent Thilloy told WWD, ”She has a true vision of what Paco Rabanne’s [fashion voice] is and what sets the house aside from the pack in terms of design signatures. She brings a real freshness. She has this sensual Latin side, but also this sense of rigor that is very Germanic, with a real architectural approach to construction – she is very Rabanne.”
Lydia, who will also oversee accessories, says she wants to develop more sensual takes on the house’s iconic materials, such as metal mesh.
She said, ”We started by thinking about wearability. Paco Rabanne has always had a hard time existing [outside of] its beautiful iconic dresses that were made out of metal or plastic, or other uncanny materials, so the main concern was really to start by rendering [looks] more feminine, fluid and warm.”
