Irina/Marilyn | Ph. Steven Meisel Vogue Italia Jan 06.
The first newcomer in this season is a girl so cool she’s a cult unto herself. Though S/S 06 is Irina Lazraneau‘s first big NY show season she has hit the scene as a fully fledged star.
Her meteoric rise through the fashion ranks have been partly on the strength of her striking looks, partly through her very focused discipline as a ex-student of The Royal Academy Of London and partly on her ability to be totally of this cultural moment. This is after-all, the girl who co-wrote “La Belle et la Bete” with Pete Doherty on the Babyshambles album (the one that Kate Moss warbles on.) It was Kate also who handpicked Irina for an Only Girl story in the December issue of French Vogue guest edited by Miss Moss thus kicking up an editorial buzz. That buzz culminated in her January 06 Italian Vogue cover with Steven Meisel as well as her S/S 06 campaigns for Just Cavalli, Mulberry (with Lily Donaldson), Anna Molinari and of course the newly released Balenciaga campaign.
The 22 year old Canadian it seems is also a bit of an inspirational dresser, serving as one of the muses for Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquiere, who found her so perfect for his vision while designing performance outfits for her Babyshambles gigs, he insisted on putting Irina on his S/S 06 runway, though she was not part of the editorial in-crowd at the time. It is clear that the latter day fashion world knows that something is in the air, specifically related to the aura of the new rock culture crackling in London and New York. Hedi Slimane has been mining it for Dior Homme. V Magazine has been telegraphing its grainy sense of urgency. But until now that new feeling has not crystallized around a model. That is until the sudden explosion of Irina.. And like all instinctive fashion muses, Irina is honest about her references ” I’m very influenced by the whole 60’s-70’s London era, not only in terms of my clothes but also in terms of the music I listen to, the movies I watch, the writers I read. Those influences probably translates into my personal style in an unconscious way.” Unconscious it may be in execution but the impact is massive. Girls like this are once in a decade.
