BY DESIGN : Modeling, as Seen by Insiders and Outsiders
What makes the beauty business so ugly?
* “Model”: The heights are incredibly bright and glamorous. The depths are equally dank and appalling. Only a few can reach the pyramid’s point. It is crowded around the bottom. Wanna-be models, lacking the looks, the will and the sense to understand their precarious position, are junk food for modeling’s predators and bottom feeders. But rarely is anyone in this business of illusions what he or she appears to be. The good can be not so. And the bad often do hold the keys to success--or at least know how to pick the locks.
* “The Beauty Trip”: So why talk about beauty when it pains many, flusters everybody at one time or another, and often sounds frighteningly shallow in conversation? Maybe I’m dwelling too much on adolescent wounds, still trying to find a perfect prom photo with me in it. But though I’ve tried, I’ve found beauty impossible to ignore. I prefer to face beauty, as intimidating and humbling as that sometimes is, than to force myself to look away. Maybe something so compelling can be an inspiration instead of a whip or a crutch. There must be a way to pursue beauty with grace.
Cindy Crawford, Two Approaches:
* “Model” does it in detail. Witness the index entries: Crawford, Cindy, background and career of first modeling job of Gere’s relationship with income of non-modeling career of nude posing of as symbol Times ad of Vogue shoot of
* “Trip” does it as a voyeur, watching Crawford from afar at a panel discussion at Princeton University:
“Don’t you cause eating disorders?” (asks a student) Cindy is earnest: “Do you look at pictures of me and want to puke?” “What about beauty that comes from within, why can’t that be used to sell products?” (asks another student) “It can’t be photographed,” says Cindy.
Models on Their Craft:
* Suzy Parker in “Model”: “It was a job, that’s all. You know, my friend Coco Chanel said it. Fashion is a joke. It isn’t an art, because if it were an art, it would be permanent, and it isn’t. It’s something that changes constantly. I was just lucky. Sheer luck. I was lucky to have been born with cheekbones.”
* Veronica Webb in “Model”: “Let’s face it, I hit the jackpot. But you only hear success stories. So the problem is, all those little girls in Iowa and Kansas think they’re going to become millionaires: You’re better off buying a lottery ticket.”
* Carmen Dell’Orefice in “Trip”: “I was a member of a generation of women who found their identities through men. No woman whose youth and beauty brought fame and fortune terminates that period without fear.”
The Business of Beauty:
* Author Michael Gross in “Model”: “Women today are striving to be perfect, to be the ultimate Barbie doll, (photographer Steven) Meisel has said. I can’t think back in history where women have been so plastic. I mean, how many women are going out to have face lifts and are having their teeth done and are dyeing their hair? Sociologically, it’s definitely a modern thing.”
* Author Ken Siman in “Trip”: “The business of beauty is inherently superficial, cold and exclusive. The non-beautiful make a mistake if we look to it for promises or reassurances about our own looks.”
