“Everybody wants to do everything, everybody needs to do everything, and everybody feels that he can. And I’m still feeling that a dancer should dance and a chef should cook and a singer should sing and a designer of clothes should do clothes. Because the moment we try to do everything for ourselves, we’re becoming very mediocre in what we do, and we don’t go to extremes and we don’t touch excellence. And I prefer to touch excellence.” – Alber Elbaz

The quote above is from the very talented creative director behind luxury label Lanvin and taken from a series of interviews from of Style.com’s Dirk Standen, entitled The Future Of Fashion, that I came across last May. I must say, Alber, I do concur. Despite having read the interview over a year ago, it recently came to top of mind after a recent announcement from Elle Magazine regarding James Franco’s contribution to the publication as a  fashion photographer. Yes, a fashion photographer. And yes, that pseudo-hottie from those Spiderman movies. Of course, annoyingly intrigued, I took a peek at what the thespian/cinematographer/author/comedian/helicopter pilot..(ok, I made the last one up) had to offer. After a thorough one-minute review, I could only muster up a drawn out “meh” as my final judgement. It wasn’t terrible, but the guy’s no Irving Penn or Annie Leibovitz. This small anecdote leads to the question: Can celebrities truly be Jacks or Janes of all trades?

James Franco (looks better in front of the camera than behind the camera in my opinion)