“Alice in Wonderland” is a photo set taken by talented artist Annie Leibovitz, for Vogue Magazine featuring Russian model Natalia Vodianova as Alice.Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Masterpiece, Leibovitz utilizes Surrealism expertly to reveal the fantastic world in which Alice lived.
"Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll dressed her as an innocent in satin in ribbons. Disney made her flexen-haired and saucer-eyed. In the pages of Vogue the land o merry unbirthdays and late-running rabbits shimmers to life again – as the world`s most influential designers dress the original little-girl-los in their own visions.
Lewis Carroll dressed her as an innocent in satin in ribbons. Disney made her flexen-haired and saucer-eyed. In the pages of Vogue the land o merry unbirthdays and late-running rabbits shimmers to life again – as the world`s most influential designers dress the original little-girl-los in their own visions.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a stammering bachelor professor of mathematics at Oxford University, was a gifted amateur exponent of the fledgling art of photography and a man of profound religious beliefs and bounding imagination. Under his nom de plume, Lewis Carroll, he gave posterity two of the most enduringly enchanting children's books in the English language. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, first published in 1865, and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, Dodgson transposed the conventions of his genteel world into a magical universe. Instead of the dour, moralistic tales that were considered appropriate nursery fare at the time, Dodgson served up absurdist takes on Victorian England's polite tea parties, its eccentric dons, its gossipy news stories, its popular poems, songs, dances, and parlor games.
All this was calculated to entrance the grave, well-mannered, and preternaturally poised young girls that Dodgson cherished, so ambiguously to modern eyes. First among these was Alice Liddell, the middle daughter of Dodgson's dean at Christ Church; Alice is her story.
Today, the Alice fantasies, available in dozens of editions, are the most translated and quoted books after the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. Since their original publication, countless artists (from Arthur Rackham to Salvador Dalí and Ralph Steadman) and filmmakers and directors (from Walt Disney to Jonathan Miller) have risen to the considerable challenge of improving upon Dodgson's imagination and John Tenniel's brilliant woodcut illustrations. Now Vogue joins this illustrious roster, with Annie Leibovitz's photographs of a cast drawn from fashion's own often fantastical universe.
Vogue's Alice is 21-year-old Natalia Vodianova, whose heartbreaking blue-eyed beauty made her the inevitable choice to play the poignant and spirited heroine. 'Alice is my dream girl, and so is Natalia', says Grace Coddington, Vogue's creative director. 'She's a rare, rare model'. Vodianova's unique trajectory—this self-proclaimed 'poor little Russian girl' helped to support her family as a teenager, selling crates of fruit in far-flung Nizhniy Novgorod — is part of what made her ideal for the role. In 2002, Vodianova made a fairy-tale marriage to the Honorable Justin Portman, the dashing scion of a patrician English family; she gave birth to the adorable flaxen-haired Lucas; and she now has multimillion-dollar contracts with Calvin Klein and L'Oréal. Her trip has been every bit as fantastical as Alice's fall down the rabbit-hole.
Leibovitz cast the poetic Olivier Theyskens, a photographer himself, as Dodgson the cameraman. Like Leibovitz, Theyskens is a great admirer of Dodgson and his contemporaries. 'I love the timeless beauty and freshness of those girls', says Theyskens. 'They are so lovely, like little cats'. Standing next to an elaborate antique camera apparatus for his portrait, Theyskens felt transported in time. 'It took so long to take pictures back then that little children were almost sleeping', Theyskens says. 'And Annie said to Natalia, You're entering a dreamland! and she was nearly asleep, too!'.
'I loved Alice's innocence and her discovery of a world that doesn't exist', says Jean Paul Gaultier, who played the Cheshire Cat. 'It is fascinating and scary, and truly surrealistic—the sense that everything is possible, that you can open your doors and go and invent a new world'. English milliner Stephen Jones loved the books, too: 'I always thought it was terribly normal', he says. 'Wonderland was the reality, and in a way it still is!' Jones, naturally enough, played Vogue's Mad Hatter, whom he describes as his profession's 'patron saint'.
Tom Ford was similarly enthusiastic about his casting as the fastidious White Rabbit. (He told Coddington, 'That's a fabulous idea because the White Rabbit's really hot and sexy, Isn't he?') Ford wore a perfect white suit from his Saint Laurent men's collection. 'He was immaculate, with a little camellia and little white gloves', Coddington says. But he was unprepared for the scenario that Leibovitz had conceived for his character. 'The next minute Ricky' — Floyd, Leibovitz's choreographer —'picks him up, flips him upside down, and puts him on the background!' Coddington reports with a laugh. 'He was really a good sport'.
Donatella Versace made an inscrutable Gryphon, with her pal Rupert Everett as the Mock Turtle emotively declaiming the poignant 'Turtle Soup'. (Cary Grant played the role in Paramount's version; he wept through his rendition of the song.) And Jean Paul Gaultier — 'I couldn't imagine anyone else as the Cheshire Cat', Vodianova says. 'His smile is one of the most beautiful smiles in this business, with this smart little sparkle in his eyes' — also explored new heights, literally. 'As a child I tried desperately to climb trees, but I never succeeded', he says. 'Until now, at the age of 50! Cats are supposed to be very agile, but this was the contrary: a paralyzed cat!'.
The cast members each had an opportunity to realize the Alice gown of their childhood dreams. Coddington's only injunction was to create something in Alice's signature blue. The results ran the gamut from Versace's sea-foam gown with a thousand ruffles to Lagerfeld's Chanel couture 'dress of a very young girl from the 1870s, in a kind of baby color, with a twenty-first-century mood with the boots', to Marc Jacobs's waifish mini.
The designers rose to the challenge of their own costumes, as well. Christian Lacroix arrived in a suitable crumpled suit to play the distracted March Hare. John Galliano adapted an outfit from his Christian Dior couture show to play the formidable Queen of Hearts—and even made a costume for the Jack Russell terrier, Cheyenne.
A Louis XVI folly garden beloved of the Surrealists was the setting. 'It's a beautiful place', Gaultier says, 'very much a Jean Cocteau place—with its tower in a wood, it could have been a setting for La Belle et la Bête'.
'I feel very chosen', Vodianova says, 'by Vogue but also by the book, which is very precious. It's just amazing that people would give it up for a great idea—forget their own egos, give up their personalities—and become something different for a second. Alice is a very special little girl'.
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