The Last of the Great Star Power Players?
There was a time, early in the courtship between designers and stars, when a household face in the front row at a fashion show generated enough excitement to set flashbulbs popping. The paparazzi still surround recognizable style-watchers who attend the shows here. After all, photos of celebrities doing anything will sell.
Stars supposedly conferred glory on a designer, based on the logic that if Demi Moore cares enough to see Donna Karan’s clothes on the runway, they must be really cool. That trend reached its nadir last year when the couple setting off the flares was Woody Allen and Soon-Yi. They were tabloid darlings, but style icons? A cynical stench had contaminated the celebrity appearance.
And when the entire cast of “Central Park West” showed up to cheer on a designer of middling importance, one could envision a clever publicist pulling the strings, saying, “Want to get your picture in People? Wear the dress that’s sent over and get to Bryant Park by 7. Never mind who the designer is.”
Now, celebrities who go to shows are either true FODs (friends of the designer) or fashion sluts (and you know who you are); those actresses who change favorite designers as quickly as Madonna changes, well, favorite designers and will wear anything without a price tag.
The designer who most doggedly clings to the notion that stars sprinkle fairy dust on any gathering is Gianni Versace. At the Saturday night presentation of his lower-priced Versus collection and the party that followed, Courtney Love led an A-team of Will Smith, Prince and his wife Mayte, Jada Pinkett, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cyndi Lauper, Annabella Sciorra, Lauren Holly, Ed Burns, Jennifer Tilly and Lou Reed.
It’s difficult to assess whether star power packs any payoff. But as Sheryl Crow might say to Versace, “If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.”
Model Watch: The new girl on the scene this season is an unlikely 18-year-old named Karen Elson. The high school graduate from Manchester, the British equivalent of Bakersfield, first surfaced at the top collections in Milan and Paris last month, chaperoned by Mum and Dad. Karl Lagerfeld, ever a spotter of new talent, chose her for the next Chanel campaign, solidifying her place in the modeling firmament, and she’s worked the hottest shows here this week.
Monique Pillard, president of Elite Model Management, doesn’t represent Elson, but she smiled at the mention of her name. “The models now are girls the person in the street can relate to,” she said. “They aren’t as perfect as the supermodels were. It’s a new look that’s popular now, and they even walk differently.”
Elson’s walk can be shambling or stately, depending on what she’s wearing. Although she has a wonderful body for clothes, she has none of the scrawniness that some of the pathetically bony girls exhibit. (Editors regularly threaten to pin a “Feed This Child” sign to British model Jodie Kidd’s back.)
Besides perfect, pale skin, bee-stung lips and a bright red bob reminiscent of an 8-year-old who’s impulsively hacked her bangs too short, Elson’s most distinctive feature is a sense of humor. For her, the best thing about her job isn’t wearing beautiful clothes. “It’s performing,” she said backstage at the Marc Jacobs show, flashing a wide smile that she seldom gets to display on the runway.
And whither those perfect supermodels? Claudia Schiffer, Niki Taylor and Yasmeen Ghauri were in all their glory Tuesday at the Badgley Mischka show of magnificent evening clothes. Schiffer hadn’t walked any of the European runways this season. “People got tired of paying the rates those girls get,” Pillard explained. At their peak, the supermodels commanded $15,000 to $25,000 per show, and they’d rather work less than cut their fees.
