KELLY MITTENDORF / JAMIE LEE REARDIN by Veronica Marciniak ‘Cruella de Vil meets Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, reimagined by Alexander McQueen’ is how snappy young Canadian fashion illustrator Jamie Lee Reardin describes her idiosyncratically leggy, lippy, eyelash-heavy, cartoonish creations. It’s certainly a look channelled in her wild and alluring drawings of Kelly Mittendorf, the striking Arizonan model spotted while swimming at her local pool aged 11. In Double Double, a hypercolour spread for Fashion magazine (shot by Chris Nicholls, styled by Zeina Esmail), Mittendorf dons flamboyant furs by designers Roksanda Illincic, Fendi, J.Mendel, Paul Smith, Michael Kors, Pucci, Gucci, Sonia Rykiel, DKNY, Lanvin, Guiseppe Zanotti and Roberto Cavalli, posing in each beside her identically dressed ‘mischievous alter ego’, doodled by Reardin. Mittendorf’s fantastically feline features, piercing stare and captivatingly crisp cheekbones (watch out for papercuts) landed her a starring Prada campaign role at 16, a Vogue Italia editorial shortly after. And it’s these angular assets that make her the perfect muse for Reardin’s exaggerated, jagged brushstroke. Splattered paint, swirls of fur, enormous smoky eyes, flirtatiously pouty lips, elongated toothpick legs, teensy feet and mile-long eyelashes dance across each page, accentuating both Mittendorf’s striking looks and the colour and texture of each fur. Tim Burton super-fan Reardin fled her snowy homeland for Californian glamour in 2008, and her new LA life has led to a number of high-end collaborations with renowned designers, photographers and magazines, including Derek Blasberg for V Magazine, Dior Beauty and Via Los Angeles. And, judging by this gloriously glamorous spread, she’s precisely where she should be.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 18:24:25 +0000