Improbably, Blake Lively continues to have the entire fashion world at her mercy. Though she's only 23, she's been on the cover of Vogue three times. Here she is hanging out with Karl Lagerfeld last week. Here she is buying shoes with Christian Louboutin himself (yes, she actually went shoe shopping in Paris with Christian Louboutin). She was profiled glowingly in the "New York Times" and Women's Wear Daily over the weekend. And now she has made her debut as the new face of Chanel, with the first image from the campaign released this week (pictured below).
Lively's first ad for Chanel's Mademoiselle handbags. - Chanel
Michael Kors attempted to explain to the "Times" what it is about Lively that has so enthralled magazine editors and fashion luminaries.
"Blake's the triple S: sporty, sexy, sophisticated," he said. "You can say she's a California blonde, but she is very sophisticated and that's a rare combo. It's Lauren Hutton. It's Farrah Fawcett. They don't come along that often... You look at her skin and her hair - she's healthy. It's the anti-bored, too-cool-for-school, locked in a club for months on end look that you see a lot of young actresses going for. There's something very optimistic about her. I think she's the anti-downer, anti-sad."
And there does seem to be something to this. In great contrast to the Kate Moss waif look that appeared to the hallmark of fashion models seemingly forever (recent Chanel spokeswomen like Moss, Keira Knightley and Vanessa Paradis certainly fit this bill), Lively is just... sort of... normal. Well, as normal as a beautiful blonde who stars on a successful TV show can be.
"I've just always believed you should put a lot of positive out there," Lively told Women's Wear Daily. "When I have bad days, I just eat lots of chocolate ice cream and dance to the 'Lion King' soundtrack. It's really odd, but it's true."
While we are not Karl Lagerfeld (if only!), selecting a face of Chanel who digs ice cream and "Hakuna Matata" but also seems totally comfortable sporting a chic handbag seems pretty awesome to us.
