NORTHERN WOMEN IN CHANEL

Keep an eye out for Northern Women in Chanel - the exquisite and limited-edition tome that accompanies the eponymous travelling photographic exhibition. Shot by Stockholm-based photographer Peter Farago and styled by Ingela Klemetz-Farago, the creative duo behind the luxe Farago Publishing house, the images are a tribute to the ethereal beauty of leading Nordic and Baltic models such as supermodel Freja Beha Erichsen, who features on the book's cover (below). Throw in a fabulous wardrobe of current and vintage Chanel Couture and Ready-to-Wear and you have a haunting series of shots juxtaposing the starkness and traditions of Scandinavia with the opulence of Chanel.

The Classical Edition coffee table book is available as a limited and numbered edition of 2000 copies

through Farago Publishing and selected bookstores

Swedish model Dorothea Barth Jorgensen in embellished and feathered Chanel Couture

While Nordic Women in Chanel may have been a more appropriate title for the UK market (so as not to confuse the title with an ode to all the beauties in the North of England), the images in the book pay tribute to the merging worlds of high fashion, art and photography.

Danish rose Freja Beha Erichsen in Chanel Couture

Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's Creative Director, has written the preface for the 384-page book and all profits are being donated to Save the Children. At the recent exhibition launch in Copenhagen  Anne-Louise Sommer, Director of DesignMuseum Danmark, said, "As Karl Lagerfeld expresses in his foreword, Northern Women in Chanel is about beauty defined in many different ways. A common thread, he underlines, is a kind of mysterious depth – a depth that also fascinates us, and reminds us of great talents like actresses Asta Nielsen, Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman, whose strong personalities resonate in the images in this exhibition. And it’s more than pure aesthetic pleasure to Lagerfeld, because the women “represent a kind of universality for the part of the world they are from. The claim to this kind of universality is never put into words by them; it’s just something based upon similarity of origin, nature and circumstances that creates this very special identity.” I guess one could say that, what Karl Lagerfeld is pointing at here, is the essence of the Nordic."

Norwegian beauty Iselin Steiro wearing a covetable Chanel boucle jacket with signature gilt buttons

The photographs are shot as fairytale vignettes, inspired by opera, dance and art and have been exhibited in Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen and at Verdens Ende (The End of the World) in the Norwegian archipelago. You can catch the show at Laboratory, the pop-up photographic gallery in Helsinki, the World Design Capital of 2012, for the final leg of its Nordic tour from 5th December to 27th January 2013. 

Swedish models Julia Hafstrom and Linnea Regnander shot on location against traditional Dalmalare designs (c:a 1700 - 1800) from the region of Dalarna in Sweden. 

Swedish model Vicky Andren sporting the iconic Chanel 2.55 handbag