Raised in London and now based in Paris, she has recently arrived in New York to shoot the Marc Jacobs fall ad campaign—a dream job, she admits cheerfully, that kept her at work “in Central Park until 2:00 a.m.” the night before last. Perhaps you recall the model who wore only a pair of pin-striped shorts, opera-length gloves, and black patent heels in Jacobs’s fall 2013 show? That was McMenamy, covering her chest with her right arm in what was only her third runway appearance, ever. “First I couldn’t really believe that they were asking me to go topless, and then they were, like, ‘We’re being serious,’ and so I was, like, ‘All right. Fine,’ ” she explains with a laugh. “Marc and I talked a lot about my hand positioning. I wanted to do this.” She presses both her palms to her T-shirt. “But he said it’d be much classier with one hand. Like, ‘Oh, Mr. Produuuucer.’ I had to walk three times. When I came backstage after the first, I said, ‘Marc, was it all right?’ and he said, ‘Amazing.’ So I thought, okay, I can do it again.”
Valentino’s fall accessories campaign brings edginess to the brand better known for its aspirational glamour. The ads, shot in Rome at Studio Backspace, show fashion photographer Terry Richardson’s tattooed forearms, with his hands playfully tugging at the Rockstud Rouge and Rockstud Noir studded heels and handbags.
This is the first time Valentino designers Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri have collaborated with Richardson, and Chiuri noted that the images conveyed “the sensual yet elegant nature of our accessories, described as objects of desire.”
