In-Person Peek at a Model of Perfection
Charmaine Bade, a 15-year-old sophomore at Granada Hills High School, spent the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday hanging out with the Miyazaki sisters. That would be Marissa, 15, and Annie, 13.
They didn’t go to the mall. They went to their neighborhood Target. They were on a mission, though not exactly a mission from God.
They, and about 500 other people like them, had come to see Claudia.
Why?
“Just because she’s a famous person,” Charmaine said. Her smile revealed orthodontia-in-progress.
Well, not just famous, the sisters added. Claudia’s what they want to be. She’s beautiful, glamorous, rich . . .
“And late,” Annie muttered.
Claudia Schiffer, “supermodel” and poster girl, was supposed to dazzle us commoners from 2 to 4 p.m., and here it was 26 minutes past 2. Then, a few minutes later, there were gasps of “There she is!” and “Here she comes!” We turned and watched as one of the most fabulous babes of our time, blond and smiling and over 6 feet in heels, wafted past within a circle of security and P.R. people.
Late, but fashionably late. “Her body’s shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle,” Charmaine said. “Just perfect.”
Perfection happens to be Claudia Schiffer’s marketing theme, with her representing the female embodiment thereof. Charmaine clutched one of Claudia’s new exercise videos, “Perfectly Fit Abs.” The Miyazaki sisters, who, like Charmaine, both have orthodontia as well, had a copy of “Perfectly Fit Buns.” Other videos promise perfect legs and arms.
“We just got it because we want her to sign it,” Marissa said. “We already have Cindy’s workout video.”
That’s Cindy as in Crawford, rival supermodel. The girls from Granada Hills are on a first-name basis with them all--Claudia, Cindy, Elle. All have produced work-out videos, having traveled that trail blazed by aerobics pioneer Jane Fonda. Somebody wondered whether Cheryl Tiegs had ever come out with a video.
“Who’s that?” Charmaine asked.
The line started to move. Claudia smiled and signed autographs. By 3 p.m, more than 450 people had queued up for a moment within her aura. There were plenty of grown-ups, but most seemed to be adolescent girls and boys. Camera crews from “Entertainment Tonight” and “A Current Affair” and local news stations added to the excitement.
The number of fans didn’t surprise Ana Gilman, store manager. Since radio promotions started airing a week ago, the store had received calls from as far away as San Diego. A P.R. woman on the model’s marketing tour said more than 600 people had turned out in suburban Chicago. In Dallas, she pitched her video at Nieman-Marcus.
Damon Wheeler and Josh Lester, both 14, urged the TV crews to take their sound bites, with some success. They had waited more than two hours for Claudia’s arrival. When their moment came, they said, they were going to propose marriage, despite her engagement to illusionist David Copperfield.
Claudia, they said, told them maybe--to call her when they turn 18. They told their stories to different TV crews. “I’m going to be on ‘A Current Affair,’ ” Josh boasted.
But the possibility of being on TV, Josh said, was secondary to his time with Claudia.
“Just to see her is, like, amazing. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. Josh just hopes Claudia realizes that “David Copperfield is nothing compared to me.”
Then he asked: “Where are you from? . . . When is this going to be in The Times?”
Boys, it seemed, just want to have fun. Girls, however, seem to take this supermodel stuff more seriously.
Linda Lubke, a 16-year-old cheerleader, is as tall as Claudia and has done a little bit of modeling. Her parents had driven her and sister Gina, 13, up from Orange County.
Linda seemed star-struck.
“I told here it was an honor to meet her.”
Really? Why?
“She’s not some bimbo. I really think she’s a special person.”
But why?
Linda shrugged and giggled. “I don’t know.”
Rest assured, Claudia, they don’t hate you because you’re beautiful. And--who knows?--maybe your pulchritude isn’t just skin deep. Maybe your soul and spirit are even more beautiful than your Coca-Cola-bottle body.
This hero worship may be profitable, but is it healthy? Not everybody can grow up to be a supermodel, after all.
It was heartening to hear that Linda Lubke, no bimbo she, wants to be a physician. “I’m in the honors classes.”
For that matter, it was good to learn than Annie Miyazaki also dreams of becoming a doctor, and that her sister Marissa wants to be an architect and their friend Charmaine wants to be a dentist.
Of course, such professions do not preclude the possibility of perfect legs, arms, abs and buns. And so they too seemed honored that Claudia Schiffer found time in her busy schedule to hustle videos at their neighborhood Target.
“Well, she didn’t really say much,” Marissa reported, holding her autographed video. “But she was, like, glowing.”
“She’s 10 times prettier in person,” Charmaine said.
“I looked at her ring,” Ana said. “Her ring is huge!”
Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311. Please include a phone number.
