Melania: The First Lady of the United States

November 14, 2016, 4:43 pm

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Melania is Donald's third wife. The former Melania Knauss started dating Donald Trump in 1998, married him in 2005 and gave birth to their son, Barron, the following year. Before Melania, Donald was married for a few years in the 1990s to Marla Maples, a television personality, former beauty queen and mother to their daughter Tiffany Trump . The couple met while the businessman was still with his first wife, Czechoslovakian   Ivana Zelnickova, who he had married in 1977. They have three children –Ivanka, Eric and eldest child Donald Trump Jr, who, at 38, is eight years younger than his stepmother Melania.

 

Ivana and Donald were leading socialites in New York during the 1980s, but their marriage ended with a very public divorce in 1992. Absolutely Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders says some of the inspiration for the show's fashionista Patsy Stone, played by Joanna Lumley, came from Ivana, who often sports a high blonde beehive. 

The Clintons went to her wedding

Bill and Hillary Clinton were among the 350 guests when Melania and Donald tied the knot at the groom's landmark Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. According to GQ, the bride wore a $100,000 Dior dress with 1,500 crystals, which took a "legendary" 550 hours to make. It had a 13ft train and the bride wore a 16ft veil.

 

 However, the gown was so difficult to walk in that Melania changed into a Vera Wang hand-ruched silk tulle Grecian dress for the poolside after-party. Her 12-carat, emerald-cut Graff wedding ring is said to be worth £1.5m.

 

Melania's sister, Ines, was the maid of honour and Donald's two sons, Donald Jr and Eric, served as best men. Guests including Heidi Klum, Barbara Walters and Simon Cowell "slurped caviar and Cristal in the shadow of a five-foot-tall Grand Marnier wedding cake", says GQ, while the insders says the seven-tier "chef-d'oeuvre" weighed more than 200lbs.

 

She grew up in communist Yugoslavia and speaks five languages

Slovenian, English, French, Serbian and German, if you want to know. That linguistic prowess could come in handy at White House functions, but it has been suggested her thick accent is the reason she makes few public speeches alongside her immigrant-bashing husband.

 

Melania was raised away from the glamour of New York high society in a concrete tower block in then Yugoslavia during the rule of Marshal Josip Tito. Now that her husband has become president, Melania is set to become the first first lady to be born in a communist nation and only the second to be born abroad, after Louisa Adams, the English wife of sixth president John Quincy, who served from 1825 to 1829.

 

She thinks people should be nicer to one another

In a rare campaign speech just five days before the election, Melania outlined her vision for what her role would be in the White House if she were to become first lady, saying she would work to combat a culture on social media that has become "too mean and too tough" and which is filled with insults based on "looks and intelligence".
But as CNNreports, "she didn't make any mention of the Twitter activities of her husband, Donald Trump, who has relentlessly attacked his political foes, journalists, critics and other entertainers for years with demeaning comments based on their appearances and intelligence".

 

Melania, giving her first solo speech since the Republican convention, added: "It is never OK when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied or attacked. It is terrible when it happens on the playground, and it is absolutely unacceptable when it is done by someone with no name hiding on the internet. We have to find a better way to talk to each other."
Lady Gaga led a chorus of critics who say Melania decrying bullying is "pure hypocrisy".

 

She has a secret half-brother

While preparing a profile of the incoming first lady for GQ, reporter Julia Ioffe made a startling discovery – Melania's father, Victor Knavs, who she describes as traditional and hardworking, fathered a secret son before marrying the model's mother.
Knavs agreed to pay child support after a court battle proved he was Denis Cigelnjak's father, a claim he initially contested, but he has never contacted his son nor acknowledged his existence. 

 

Now aged 50, Cigelnjak still lives in the family's native Slovenia.
Melania initially said the reports were false but later, confronted with court documents, claimed she had misunderstood the question and had known about her half-brother "for years".

She is the only first lady to have posed nude

Three years before she met Donald Trump, Melania posed nude alongside for a French men's monthly magazine. The "bombshell" photo set, obtained by the New York Post, shows her lying naked in a bed alongside Scandinavian model Emma Eriksson.

 

Photographer Jarl Ale de Basseville, who took the pictures, says the images are "beauty and not porn", adding: "I always loved women together because I have been with a lot of women who desired the menage a trois."
An unnamed insider said Melania behaved "like a true professional" during the shoot and was "charming throughout". 
Donald, meanwhile, said: "In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common."

 

She is the least popular presidential spouse since Hillary

According to a insiders poll, Melania is the least popular presidential candidate spouse since Hillary Clinton. 
A survey on the spouses and running mates of both presidential candidates saw Clinton's husband, former president Bill, named most popular, with more than half of respondents having a positive opinion of him. Clinton's prospective vice president, Tim Kaine, was next with a net favourability rating - those viewing him positively minus those viewing him negatively - of plus-19. Republican Mike Pence came in third, with plus-17, and Melania languished in last place, getting a net favourability rating of just plus-one.
"Melania Trump's popularity is lower than nearly any other recent candidate's spouse during an election year," the insider says. "The most popular spouse was Barbara Bush, George H W Bush's wife. Michelle Obama was also viewed fairly positively at about this stage of 2012, though a little worse four years earlier, when she wasn't as well known."

 

She supports her husband's hardline stance on immigration

Although it's not surprising for a candidate's wife to back her husband's policies, some were taken aback by Melania's enthusiasm for the Republican's tough rhetoric on migrants, having immigrated to the US herself.
"I follow the law," she told an MSNBC interviewer. "I never thought to stay here without papers."
She was equally unfazed when pressed about Donald's comments on "criminals" crossing the border into the US. "I don't feel he insulted the Mexicans," she said. "He said 'illegal immigrants'."

 

But she does wish Donald would 'act more presidential'

During a rally in Arizona, Donald told the crowd both his wife and his eldest daughter, Ivanka, don't entirely approve of his behaviour.
"My wife and my daughter said to me, 'Act presidential. Act presidential,'" he said.
Melania insists she isn't shy when it comes to giving her husband political advice. "I give him my opinions, many, many times," she told CNN.

 

"I don't agree with everything that he says but, you know, that is normal," she added. "I'm my own person, I tell him what I think. I'm standing very strong on the ground on my two feet and I'm my own person. And I think that's very important in the relationship."
Asked what habit she would like to see her husband give up, Melania didn't have to ponder her answer for long. "The tweeting," she said.
On her own Twitter account, Melania mostly sticks to the blandest of updates – the New York skyline features heavily, as do photos of food and fashion, alongside a few innocuous snaps from the campaign trail.

She is raising her son as 'Little Donald'

Ten-year-old Barron apparently loves wearing a suit and tie and playing golf with his dad. He is also said to share his father's love of bossing people around. "He fired nannies, fired housekeepers," Melania said in a 2011 interview, adding that he quickly hired them back.
Barron is closer in age to his nephews and nieces than his own siblings and spends more time with his mother because of his father's busy travel schedule.

 

"He is a very strong-minded, very special, smart boy. He is independent and opinionated and knows exactly what he wants. Sometimes I call him 'Little Donald'. He is a mixture of us in looks, but his personality is why I call him Little Donald," Melania told  the insiders.
Donald has described his wife as an "incredible" mother. "She loves her son, Barron, so much and I have to say, she will make an unbelievable first lady," he said prior to his election.

 

She was the subject of a creepy call with Howard Stern

In 1999, when her husband was running for president of the Reform party, Melania took part in a sexually charged conversation live on air with shock jock Howard Stern.
The DJ had been chatting to Donald when the conversation turned to Melania. "Let me talk to that broad in your bed," Stern said. Melania, "apparently scantily clad and conveniently sitting nearby", was summoned to the phone, Mother Jones reports, adding: "With Stern oozing his creepiest charm, things rapidly got weird."

 

Stern insisted the former model should "put on your hottest outfit" for a night out with him and Donald and then asked her what she was wearing. 
"Uh, not much," she replied.
"Are you naked? Are you nude?" Stern said.
"Almost," Melania said.
"Ahhh, I've got my pants off already," replied Stern.

 

She could be the next Jackie Kennedy

Insiders warn Melania should not be underestimated. Jackie Kennedy biographer Pamela Keogh told the Daily Mail that, just like JFK's iconic wife, Melania is "beautiful, smart and keeps her own counsel".
As far back as 2000, Melania told the NY Times that if she were ever first lady, she would be "very traditional – like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy".
Even though her husband has won the presidency, Melania is the "real winner", says Celia Walden at the Daily Telegraph. "After all, the American dream Melania's been living for two decades now will just keep on getting better."

 

She can look forward to years of sartorial scrutiny

While her husband's acceptance speech was being analysed by media watchers around the world, Melania's fashion choices were being subjected to a similar level of examination - the kind of scrutiny she can surely come to expect in the years ahead.
The Slovene-American former model "looked dazzling as she took her first steps as the next First Lady of the White House", said the Daily Express , adding that the "stunning brunette" wore a white jumpsuit with a "serious split down the front". 
Hollywood Insiders thought the "Slovenian stunner" looked "graceful and elegant" in her Election Day attire and devoted an entire feature to the outfit.

 

She discussed parenting with Michelle Obama

While Donald met Barack Obama to discuss the smooth transition of presidential power in the White House following the election, Michelle Obama showed her successor around the building that will be home from January.
Michelle apparently gave Melania a tour of her new living quarters and the two women discussed "the unique demands of raising a family in the White House".
"The First Lady was pleased to extend that courtesy to Mrs Trump and enjoyed the opportunity that she had to visit with her today," press secretary Josh Earnest said.

 

"They also had a discussion about raising kids. Obviously the First Lady's two daughters spent their formative years of their childhood at the White House and Mrs Trump's son will also spend some important years of his childhood here," he added.
"That's a rather unique childhood and the two women had an opportunity to talk about that experience and being a good parent through that experience."

 

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Is Fashion’s Love Affair With Washington Over?

November 14, 2016, 4:43 pm

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On Wednesday, when Hillary Clinton stood in the New Yorker Hotel for her farewell speech, she did so in one of her signature Ralph Lauren pantsuits. Dark gray, with purple lapels and a matching purple shirt (and a matching purple tie for Bill Clinton), it underscored, as so many of her fashion choices did in the run-up to the election, a point: the way two colors/factions — red and blue — can unite to make something new.

 

But it also symbolized, perhaps, the end of what might have been an extraordinary relationship. And possibly the end of fashion’s seat at the power table.

More than any other industry, fashion had pledged its troth to Mrs. Clinton.  Vogue magazine formally endorsed her, the first time it had taken a public stand in a presidential election. The W magazine editor, Stefano Tonchi, declared his allegiance in an editor’s letter.

 

Diane von Furstenberg, the designer and chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue and artistic director of Condé Nast, had aggressively raised funds for her, during fashion weeks and beyond: The week before Election Day, they chaired a fund-raiser in Washington at the Georgetown home of Connie Milstein, a major Democratic donor.

 

Designers including Tory Burch, Marc Jacobs and Prabal Gurung created “Made for History” merchandise for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign store , and contributed to a runway show/benefit during September’s New York Fashion Week.  Elie Tahari ran an ad campaign featuring a female president for his fall collection.

At the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund awards last Monday night, the traditional potpies were dusted with paprika letters urging “vote” and festooned with little paper “Hillary for America” flags (in case anyone was wondering for whom). Ralph Lauren became Mrs. Clinton’s de facto sartorial consiglieri, helping her shape her image from the Democratic National Convention to the debate floor.

It was to be the culmination of a relationship that began with Mrs. Clinton’s appearance on the cover of Vogue in December 1998, the first time that a first lady had done so.

The relationship gained momentum through the Obama administration, with Michelle Obama’s embrace of the fashion world writ large, from accessible brands such as J. Crew to young designers such as Jason Wu and Christian Siriano  and established names like Michael Kors and Vera Wang. (Mrs. Obama also appeared on the cover of Vogue, in March 2009 and April 2013, and she will also appear, for the third time, in the December 2016 issue.)

In understanding how she could use fashion to “express ideas” — as Joseph Altuzarra, who made clothes for Mrs. Obama and contributed a T-shirt to Made for History, said — Mrs. Obama elevated the industry beyond the superficial to the substantive. She framed clothing as a collection of values: diversity, creativity, entrepreneurship. Mrs. Clinton seemed primed to continue that trend.

The Trumps, however, may not.

As their Washington revolution dawns, designers are assuming, Mr. Altuzarra said, that the main players “will have a different relationship to clothes” than fashion has come to expect from the White House, and on which it had placed its bets.

 

Not to mention a different relationship with the designers themselves. The political and social establishments are not the only establishments the Trumps have ignored.

It was striking that on election night, for example, while Melania Trump also wore Ralph Lauren (a white jumpsuit), the outfit was, according to the brand, one she had bought off the rack, as opposed to one that she had worked with the designer to create.

Indeed, all the clothes she wore on the campaign trail seem to have been part of a shopping spree, as opposed to a strategic plan. There’s nothing wrong with that. Arguably it is part of what makes a woman who lives in a gilded penthouse seem more normal (she buys, just like everyone else!) But it reflects her distance from the industry.

And it is striking that while Ralph Lauren is an American brand, which may indicate a decision to support homegrown talent and promote local industry, Mrs. Trump has also worn Fendi (Italian), Roksanda Ilincic (British) and Emilia Wickstead (British) on the campaign trail. When she went to cast her vote, Mrs. Trump threw a gold-buttoned camel Balmain military coat (French) over her shoulders.

Neither her wardrobe nor that of the rest of the family has been used in the traditional way (see: Jackie Kennedy and Nancy Reagan), to telegraph the virtues of Made in America — though that has been one of Mr. Trump’s most vociferously promoted platforms.

Mr. Trump himself has stuck closely to his uniform of Brioni suits and made-in-China fire engine red ties from his own brand. His daughter and public surrogate, Ivanka, has worn an assortment of styles and high-fashion names, including her own label, the Roland Mouretasymmetric top she wore to the third debate, and the Alexander McQueen dress she sported at her father’s acceptance speech, though they can all be pretty broadly categorized as “power sheath.”

 

If there is a unifying message to the Trump wardrobes, said Marcus Wainwright, chief executive of Rag & Bone (and another Made for History contributor), it is not about the on-shoring of manufacturing, but rather “looking rich.”

Indeed, on election night, when the family stood on stage surrounding the triumphant candidate, the lasting visual was not of the white (on Melania and Barron), blue (Ivanka and Tiffany) and red (Donald and daughter-in-law Lara) the Trumps wore — in part because they seemed more incidental than calculated, given there was also black and greige in there — but rather the sea of “Make America Great Again” red baseball caps in the wildly cheering audience.

Ultimately, it was the baseball cap that became the sartorial symbol that represented the winning campaign; that was the accessory imbued with meaning.

This may have to do with the fact that both Mr. Trump and Ivanka Trumphave clothing lines of their own, and hence regard the products more as products than as vehicles for political expression. It may have to do with the fact that as far as Melania Trump goes, as a private citizen she has not really had to reflect on the way her choice of dress is interpreted.

(Though there was a flurry of excitement around the Gucci pussy-bow blouse she wore after the leaking of the vulgar Trump tape, in the end, given that she doubled down on it for her final debate appearance, it seemed less a piece of insider commentary than a nod to more conservative female attire, and how she sees her role.)

And it is possible, Diane von Furstenberg said, referring to Mr. Trump’s conciliatory victory speech, that this attitude will change when he gets into office. Maybe, Mr. Wainwright agreed, Mr. Trump will use clothing to show his commitment to the idea of supporting the garment district and homegrown factories. But he didn’t sound very convinced.

This new reality has left fashion feeling bereft, in a way that goes beyond backing the losing candidate and to the core of the industry’s identity.

It ”makes you realize how powerless we are,” said Stefano Tonchi, the editor of W. According to Mr. Wainwright, it’s hard to see what fashion is going to have to do with the new administration. Clothes are a tool, but if they are not used where everyone can see them, can they have an impact?

 Now the industry has to wrestle with what happens next: how it defines itself if it is marginalized — reduced to mere decoration — in a Trump administration, and whether there will be repercussions for either its pledge of allegiance to the president-elect’s opponent or some of the more angry postelection statements designers have made on social media.

 

Dao-Yi Chow of Public School and DKNY, for example, vented on Instagram, noting in part: “Thank you America for the wake up call. Thank you for setting the record straight. Thank you for smashing the grace and beauty I grew up around so I could see how much work I have to do to educate my children so they don’t get lulled to sleep like I did.”

Pointedly, Anna Wintour (who had attended Mr. Trump’s wedding to Melania in 2005 and featured her on her cover, dressed in a couture Christian Dior bridal gown designed by John Galliano) declined to comment for this article.

Spokespersons for Ralph Lauren and Alexander McQueen, while acknowledging on background that the Trumps had worn their clothes, did not issue the usual press releases boasting about the relationship.

 But Ms. von Furstenberg quoted Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, and said fashion should heed her words and “do what we can” to accept a democratic result and work with the president.

Which is different from the president and his family wanting to work with them.

The first great test of both sides will be the inaugration: a time when the eyes of the world will be on the first family and what they wear — and if, especially for those family members who do not speak, there is more to the clothes than just, well, clothes.

Not one designer contacted said they would not dress Mrs. Trump if she asked, though Ms. von Furstenberg noted that Mrs. Trump may not need anyone’s help. “I’m sure she knows what to do,” she said, given that Mrs. Trump is a former model.

Mr. Altuzarra, who pointed out that Ivanka Trump has worn his clothes, got a little tangled up in his negatives but said, “I don’t want to not dress people I disagree with.”

Mr. Wainwright echoed his words: “It would be hypocritical to say no to dressing a Trump. If we say we are about inclusivity and making American manufacturing great again, then we have to put that before personal political beliefs.”

The question may prove moot: Given Mrs. Trump’s past choices, she may continue her own tradition of wearing a European high-fashion brand to what will probably be the most-watched black tie event of her life.

That would be a declaration of independence, of a sort.

 

David Gandy: Masculine

November 20, 2016, 2:56 pm

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British model, columnist and charity ambassador David Gandy has blazed a trail within the male modelling industry since his career began aged 21. Often associated with reinstating a masculine standard in the fashion industry, Gandy admits that it was difficult to start out amongst his counterparts:"the trend was for skinny, androgynous guys who had bodies more like girls", he told Voguein 2010. Mario Testino, who has shot Gandy countless times concurs: "[Gandy] signifies a real shift in men's fashion. The male model world is changing", he told Vogue at the beginning of the model's career.

Born in 1980, Gandy was awoken to the world of modelling after winning a competition on ITV's This Morning after his housemates suggested that he enter. Gandy thought they were joking, but after being entered behind his back he landed a contract with Select Model Management, the UK agency that still represent him today.

Passionate about motors, Gandy worked transporting luxury vehicles to race tracks at the age of 17. The model's infatuation with all things automotive has endured throughout his career, forming a topic for his GQ column 'David Gandy Drives' which he has held since 2011 and lead to him being invited to participate in the 2013 Italian open-road endurance race, Mille Miglia, with fellow model Yasmin le Bon.

One of his biggest supporters, Dolce & Gabbana, named the model as the face of the brand in 2006, skyrocketing his rise to success with a 50ft Times Square advertisement of Gandy as part of a Light Blue fragrance campaign. In 2011, the Italian fashion house published a book solely on Gandy and his relationship with the brand. He is still a quintessential Dolce & Gabbana model, featuring in the 2014 Light Blue advertisement alongside Bianca Balti.

In May 2010, Gandy was invited to speak at the Oxford University Union, on a panel which included fashion photographer Tony McGee, the V&A's senior curator Claire Wilcox, fashion consultant Frances Card and VOGUE.CO.UK editor Dolly Jones. He stated the importance of male fashion, a topic that he has pushed throughout his career. In 2013, Gandy was invited to become an official ambassador for London Collections: Men alongside Tinie Tempah and Dermot O'Leary. He also writes about his style musings on his VOGUE.CO.UK blog.

Gandy was the sole male model to walk alongside supermodels Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and a host of other models as part of the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony. In the same year the model featured on sixteen magazine covers and eighteen fashion editorials. He was also listed as one of the Evening Standard's 'London's Most Influential People' and launched a follow up to his successful style app named 'David Gandy Fitness and Training'.

The model is an avid charity supporter, named as brand ambassador for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and Style for Soldiers. He was appointed fashion ambassador for Comic Relief in 2013 after which he launched Blue Steel Support, a charity auction that included a prize of a day with the model.

Gandy is set to release his own underwear range with Marks and Spencer on September 18 2014. He has had a long-standing relationship with the British brand and appeared in 2013's Christmas advertisement alongside Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley and Helena Bonham Carter.

Anthony Parker by Sandy Lang

November 20, 2016, 2:59 pm

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Before we move on to this coming weekend, let’s meet hottest AF model Anthony Parker shot by Sandy Lang.

I think every model has to get a really hot portrait likes Sandy Lang does when he captures a cute dude.

Back to the hottie, Anthony, model/actor, he’s a chef (*sigh) 24 yo Midwest hairy chest guy and looking good with beard, and he’s with DT Models.

And well Sandy makes magic behind his lens.

Wanna be a Male Model?!

November 21, 2016, 7:11 am

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Being a male model doesn't mean getting a free ride to the best parties in town. It takes hard work to be a male model, as well as long hours, and sometimes, little payoff. That being said, breaking into the modeling industry as a male is a bit easier than it is for women, because male models don't have to meet the same rigid physical requirements all the time and can work for many years -- some of them working well into their fifties. If you want to get into male modeling, learn how to get exposure within the modeling industry, sign with an agent, and start looking for work while staying in top physical and mental shape.

 

Meet the industry standards. Though male models have a bit more flexibility in terms of their looks than female models, there are still some general standards that you should meet if you want to be a male model. But if you don't meet all of these standards, don't be too discouraged; if you've really got "the look," then you may be able to find work even if you're below the average height or above the average weight for male models. 

 

Here are some points to consider as you decide whether or not you should get in to male modeling:

• Industry standards are between 5’11” and 6’2” in height.
• Unlike female models, who are mostly out of work by the age of 25, male models can find work well into their 50s.
• Men from 15 to 25 make up the “young men’s” market.
• Men from 25 to 35 are the “adult men’s” market.
• A typical weight for men is between 140 and 165, but this will depend on your Body Mass Index.
• Average measurements are 40 regular to 42 long.

  

• Typically, the modeling industry doesn't go for overly hairy men in the chest and arm region. Be prepared to do some waxing before you pursue your career.

 

• Decide what kind of modeling you are interested in pursuing. The type of modeling you do can influence the way you look for work, the type of photos you take to get work, and the approach you take as you start off in your modeling career. For example, you will have to meet different standards to look like a runway model instead of a catalogue model, who is supposed to offer a more realistic view of men. Here are the types of modeling that you may pursue:

  • Fashion models promote clothing and apparel.
  • High fashion models work with the famous fashion houses or designers.
  • Editorial models only work for certain publications.
  • Runway models work at fashion shows.
  • Showroom models display clothing at fashion parties or boutiques.
  • Commercial print models are photographed for magazines, newspapers, billboards and other print ad materials.
  • Catalogue models are hired to appear in catalogues.
  • Promotional models work in conventions or trade shows.
  • Specialty models specialize one part of their body such as hands, legs, neck, hair or feet.
  • Character models are used to portray ordinary people.
  • Glamour modeling focuses more on the model than the actual product.

   

  •  Get some exposure. Though you can skip this step and move right on to trying to sign with an agent, it couldn't hurt to have your face out there and to have some modeling experience so you have something to point to when you approach agencies. Try to appear in local newspaper ads, TV shows, magazines, or even fashion shows. You might get the attention of the right people without even appealing to an agent directly.

   

• However, this does not mean that you should get absolutely any work you can. Remember that you're trying to build and maintain your image, so don't do something that is completely below your dignity, not taken by a real photographer, or which doesn't represent who you are at all.
• Do not shoot in anything less than your underwear unless you're getting paid. You may be told that you should shoot nude or an implied nude to get some free photos, but you should avoid these kinds of offers like the plague. Don't shoot nude unless it's for a professional, reputable, and established company that pays you for your work. If you take nudes with sketchy photographers, who knows where they will end up.

 

Get some professional photos taken. Though you'll be able to develop your portfolio after you sign with an agency, getting some professional photos taken beforehand will make you look professional and will give you something to point to if you catch the eye of someone in the industry. Don't just get your photo taken by someone with a cheap camera who only has experience taking yearbook photos; get your photo snapped by an above-average photographer so that you look, well, above average.

• Make sure you get a Model Release form signed by every photographer you work with. This will ensure that you know exactly what happens to the photos that are taken of you.
• Don't waste your time with a "portrait" photographer. You want to take modeling shots, not your senior year photo.
• Make sure that you have a standard headshot and multiple full body shots.
• Because people needing your services will probably want to see what your body type looks like, include a full body shot in shorts or underwear and a tank top.
• Include an additional shot in casual clothing, and a third shot in business casual or a full suit.
• Get black-and-white and color photos.

 

Avoid scams. Unfortunately, scams are all too present in the modeling agency. You can get scammed during pretty much any step along the way, from being tricked into taking expensive photos from a shady photographer or getting "signed" with a fake or disreputable agent. Here are some things to be wary about as you move forward:

• Photographers who charge ridiculous rates for getting your portfolio together. Once you sign up with an agency, you'll be able to fully develop your portfolio, so avoid the pushy photographers who offer to sell you a portfolio for thousands of dollars, claiming it's the only way for you to approach an agent.
• Agencies who charge exorbitant up-front fees. If an agent asks you for a large registration or portfolio fee, run for the hills. Agents shouldn't profit until they get you a gig and get a cut of your profit. These untrustworthy agencies will typically not have many clients, be new in the industry, and won't have the connections necessary to get you work.

 

• Expensive modeling schools. Keep in mind that there are no certified schools for modeling. Sure, they can help you learn how to walk, pose, and manage your facial expressions, but you may be better off learning these skills online or from reading a book. These schools may claim to get you work, but don't get sucked in to them unless they can really prove that they have helped other models get work.
• People who approach you out of the blue. Sure, the occasional model has a story about being randomly approached at an event or even at a nightclub being told that he has "the look," but most of the time, this is done by shady characters who think they can get money just by stroking your ego. If these men ask for shady methods of payment, this is even more of an indicator that you should stop contact with them. Of course, if these men prove to have real connections, then you just got lucky.
• People who offer you money for your personal information online. Avoid any online sites, such as Model Mayhem, where people may offer you money in exchange for your credit card information and other personal information. This makes you a target for identity theft.

 

 Consider moving to a big city. If you're really serious about being a male model, then you can't live in a town with only two traffic lights forever. You should move to one of the big modeling cities, such as New York City, Los Angeles, London, Milan or Paris. You might also find regional work in other cities such as Chicago or Miami. Don't feel like you can't be a model if you can't afford the move right away; try looking up model searches in your area or contact agencies directly from home (more on that later). 

 

 Attend an open call. An open call is when a modeling agency lets anyone come in to their office to audition. You'll have to wait in line with many other models until you're called into a room individually to have the agents take a look at you and see if you've got what they're looking for. Often, you can wait for hours just to be seen for less than a minute. This may be a bit nerve-wracking, but hey, it's what you're signing up for.

 

 Go to a model search. A model search is like an open call except it is held by agencies that travel to small towns searching for models. Since they do make the effort to travel to your location, you will have to pay a small fee to be seen, which should cost somewhere around $25 dollars. This is a great option if you live in a smaller town where there are less modeling opportunities. Just like a modeling call, your chances of getting selected aren't high, but you could make some valuable connections.

 

Enter a modeling competition. Though these are hard to win, if you do manage to win a modeling competition, it really can jump start your modeling career. Make sure it's a reputable contest run by a reputable establishment, and that you don't have to pay a ridiculous entry fee. Many of these competitions will even get you signed with an agency if you win. And even if you don't win, it'll be another way to put yourself out there.

• Make sure you look in to the specific requirements necessary for entering a modeling competition. It's likely that you'll need to be prepared with a set of pictures.

 

Go to modeling conventions. This is a perfect way to get some exposure as well as to meet other professional models and agents. Unfortunately, it can get pretty expensive to attend one of these conventions (typically around $200 - $4000) so if you do, you have to make the most of it by acting professional and meeting as many people as possible. 

 

 Do it yourself. That's right. Another way to get signed by an agency is to get in touch with them yourself. Search the Internet for lists of reputable modeling agencies, such as Elite or Major Management, and get their email addresses. Then, send them a professional email with some professional photos of yourself in a variety of poses. Though this will require you to build a portfolio beforehand, it can pay off. 

 

 Sign up with a scouting company. This is a good and relatively cheap way of putting yourself out there and not having to do all of the advertising work yourself. Find a reputable company, such as www.modelscouts.com and www.minxmodels.com, and pay them from between $60 - $150 dollars to help you find work. You'll have to submit your profile to them and they will forward your information to major agencies. 

 

Sign up with an agent. Once you've jumped through the hoops and found an agent who likes your look, it'll be time to sign your contract. Again, make sure the agent doesn't ask for any money up front. A real agent should only make money after he or she makes you money. And even if the agent seems legitimate, make sure you have an attorney go over the contract with you to ensure that you're making a fair agreement.

• When you're speaking with the agent, you can ask about any unions you're allowed to join and also ask if you can take modeling jobs on the side.
• If you've signed with a top agent and have a chance of making some serious money, you can also think about meeting with an accountant to talk about how you will track your earnings.

 

Start looking for work. Once you've signed with an agent, you will build your portfolio, which will help you get hired. The agencies will help you get the chance to go to modeling interviews, which are also known as go-sees. So, start going to the go-sees, act professional, and don't get frustrated if you don't get a gig right away.

• The agency can't guarantee you work; but a good agent wouldn't take you on if he or she didn't think you had a solid chance at finding some great work.
• Have perseverance. You won't get a gig with Calvin Klein on your first go-see, despite what you may hear.

 

Stay professional. Whether you've made it big or are just starting out, you don't want to develop a reputation for being ungrateful, rude, or even late. If you want to last in the industry, here are some things you'll have to do to meet the standards of the profession, just as you would with any other career:

• Be prompt to appointments.
• Be courteous and professional to everyone you come in contact with.
• Consider investing in a personal trainer to help you stay on a balanced diet and to attain exercise goals for optimal muscle tone.
• Take a meticulous approach to your grooming and skin care regimen.
• Retire for the evenings early on the nights before you have to work. Plenty of sleep will help you avoid dark circles under your eyes and give you a more rested and healthier appearance to those you are working for.

 

Keep your day job. Though everyone hears the story about the male model who was discovered on a Russian cargo ship or just when he was hanging out at a bar in Vegas at three in the morning, the fact of the matter is that most male models don't just instantly get discovered and have to keep working hard even after they sign with an agent. This means that unless you are among the very few lucky male models who can solely survive on their modeling income, you'll need to keep your day job or find another source of income to keep you going.

• If your day job is too much work, just find another source of income that works for you. Many male models are part-time waiters or bartenders.

 

Stay physically and mentally healthy. Though the male modeling industry is slightly less grueling than the female modeling industries, male models fall victim to the same problems that plague female models, such as having a low self-esteem, feeling deeply insecure, or worse, having an eating disorder. Here are some things to keep in mind as you try to stay healthy during your career as a male model: 

• Make sure you continue to eat healthy, get exercise, and remind yourself that you're a worthy person; don't let the modeling lifestyle get you down.
• Rejection is part of the game and if you're already prone to insecurity and self-loathing, then male modeling may not be the best path for you.
• Though part of the modeling lifestyle may require you to go to parties and schmooze with lots of people, don't become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Not only will this cause great pain for you mentally and physically, but it will have a negative effect on your physical appearance.

 

Ugly truth of fashion's model behaviour

November 27, 2016, 11:25 am

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Interviewed a Fashion Model in NYC that doesn't want his/her name printed in my blog...
This is the kind of remark I often hear about my efforts to establish fair labor standards for models working in the American fashion industry. Modeling is a seemingly glamorous profession, and models are certainly not the people you picture when you think of bad working conditions. But wipe off the sheen and another reality emerges.

 

At 29, I have worked as a model for over half my life, and I'm the first to admit that I've been lucky in my career. I have worked with some of fashion's most talented, creative people as the face of some of the industry's most recognized brands. I enjoy modeling, a job that not only paid my bills, but also allowed me to put myself through school. I have no reason to speak negatively about an industry that has given me so much. And, yet, I can no longer stay silent about rampant abuses that I have experienced firsthand.
The modeling business today is unregulated and relies on a compliant labor force of children. 

 

Sexual abuse and systematic theft occur at the highest levels of the industry, and because models are considered to be "independent contractors", the rule of law in terms of workplace standards does not exist. Sadly, the notion that fashion is frivolous encourages a dismissive, misogynistic attitude toward the industry's young workers, and it is precisely this sentiment that allows the abuse of vulnerable young people to persist.

 

When I entered the business as a 14-year-old schoolgirl, I was routinely asked to do topless shoots and pose seductively. To this day, in an industry dominated by minors, there is no policy of informed consent for jobs involving full or partial nudity. A recent survey shows that 86.8% of models have been asked to pose nude at a casting or job without advance notice.
Sexual abuse is a pervasive problem. Consider just the last few years: in 2008, fashion designer Anand Jon was found guilty of rape  and multiple counts assault on aspiring models, who ranged from 14 to 21 years old. 

 

Last year, models began to speak out in numbers against Terry Richardson, one of the industry's most powerful photographers,  who has been accused of pressuring models to disrobe at castings and conducting shoots that involve what he claims are consensual sex acts performed on him by models. (Among Richardson's regular clients are H&M, Vogue, and GQ.)

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What is worse, in an industry where the majority of models start their careers before age 16, most working unchaperoned and far from home, the incentive to say nothing in order to keep your job creates an unconscionable environment of coercion.
Lack of financial transparency is also a significant problem. Last year, three models brougt a lawsuit against their New York agency Next for allegedly withholding $750,000 of their earnings. 

 

Like the plaintiffs, I also left Next after becoming increasingly wary of their opaque bookkeeping, and I was paid the outstanding earnings they owed me only after my lawyer threatened legal action. As a model, simply getting paid can be a major issue, and, of the models who achieve a coveted spot walking in New York fashion week, many, in fact, are never paid at all; instead, working for free or for clothes. Needless to say, a tank top doesn't pay the rent.

 

To combat this systemic abuse, I recently formed the Model Alliance, a nonprofit organization that aims to give models in the American fashion business a voice. With the support of other top models (Coco Rocha, Doutzen Kroes, Crystal Renn, Shalom Harlow), industry leaders, and the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School, we produced a draft models' bill of rights to demand fair treatment from modeling agencies and clients.

 

 Our backstage privacy policy, endorsed by Diane von Furstenberg and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), aims to protect models from invasive photography while they are naked and changing backstage at New York Fashion Week. The Model Alliance has also partnered with Actors' Equity and the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), members of the AFL-CIO, America's largest federation of trade unions, to establish Model Alliance Support, a confidential grievance service to members who have experienced any kind of abuse.

 

Our glossy industry often provokes superficial criticism of models' weight and body image, but the fact is that most models' clout in their workplace is as tiny as their size-zero frames. It is time to delve beneath the surface and consider models' concerns from a labor and public health standpoint. Photographs of models pervade our culture, and we cannot promote healthy images without taking steps to protect the faces of this business. This effort starts with giving the faces of this business a voice. Correcting these abuses starts with seeing models through a different lens: not as dehumanized images, but as human beings who deserve the same rights and protections as all workers.

 

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Are All Male Models Gay?!

November 27, 2016, 12:34 pm

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Heterosexual men in many instances do not need all of these qualities to attract women (as well as many lesbians.)  Additionally, "straight" couples have social pressures to pair off with a mate earlier, progressing to getting married and having kids.  Generalizing, but once you're taken especially in a marriage people often have numerous priorities over keeping up an appearance.  Where as gay men even once in a relationship continue to have fitness and looks meshed into their social groups creating a feeling of keeping up with the Jones.  

 

Many gay men tend to be image-conscious in a similar way that heterosexual women are because typically their objects of affection are stimulated visually.  As a gay man I see several variables that come into play.  Going to the gym, keeping up with youthful appearances and dressing for the affair is constantly discussed in our social circles.  The dating scene requires a "model" type look to attract the cream of the crop.

 

Getting off topic a bit, but back to your question... The modeling world is somewhat more accepting of stereotypical gay tendencies and gay lifestyle therefore a gay individual may feel more comfortable working as a model and making that a goal.
There are plenty of straight male models, the gay ones just don't have to closet themselves (because the industry as a whole is not generally homophobic), so you notice "more" gay men than you do in the everyday world.

 The industry as a whole is more open to varying sexual orientation than many other industries.

1. There are a number of gay males already in the industry and starting out as a model you will work with a lot of different photographers and other models and many straight males are intimidated about working with gay males especially in a situation where everyone is looking at you so natural selection keeps a number of straight males from continuing in the profession.
2. As many have already mentioned gay men tend to care more about their appearance and don't underestimate the amount of work that goes into maintaining you body image as a male model. 

 

1. Many gay men tend to have creative and dramatic flair which draws them to careers such as acting, dancing, ice skating, modeling, hair styling, interior design, fashion design, etc.

The Hidden Dangers of Male Modeling

December 4, 2016, 4:12 pm

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The casting director, a Dutch man in his 50s with a large paunch, looked at me, his eyes darting around my body. “Take off your top and show me your torso,” he said. I was exhausted after 14 hours of castings, and so I did what I was told and removed my undershirt to reveal my rather pallid chest. After a quick glance, the casting director returned to his seat in the adjacent room and muttered to his stylist, “He’s beautiful, but he’s fat.” Sound travels easily in a hard-floored warehouse; I had moved to the changing room, but I heard his words clearly. I felt humiliated.

When most people think of exploitation in modeling, they think of young women and girls walking the catwalk with alarmingly protruding hips and angular shoulders, or they remember the lurid tales of celebrity photographers manipulating or coercing young women into sex acts. Muscle-bound male models with perfect cheekbones and fat paychecks? They do not seem like obvious victims. But as I found during my short career as a male model, men and boys are increasingly at risk in the odd, unregulated workplace that is the fashion world. Being a man does not make you safe: Male models are often subject to sexual harassment but rarely report it. And, like their female counterparts, they are under intense pressure to have just the right kind of body.

Recent menswear trends have polarized male catwalk modeling, encouraging either extreme muscularity or waifish androgyny. Want to look like that? It will likely make you sick.

And there’s another factor that makes male models more vulnerable today: Emerging East Asian economies have created a demand for designer clothes and consequently for models. Growing numbers of young models, both men and women, are heading to Asia, far from their families and support networks, and working in poorly regulated conditions that leave them at risk of being overworked and underpaid. It turns out that being really, really, really good-looking—as Ben Stiller’s male model character Derek Zoolander describes himself—will not guarantee you wealth, health or security.

Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance, a New York City nonprofit labor organization advocating for greater protection of models, says male models face a uniquely difficult situation. “I definitely think that men have just as many labor-related concerns as women, if not more,” says Ziff, a longtime model. “The industry urgently needs reform. It’s an industry that has escaped any real regulation for decades.”
                          

Sam Thomas, founder of the U.K.-based charity Men Get Eating Disorders Too, is highly critical of recent shifts in the fashion industry. “There has certainly been a trend in which some male models are getting younger and definitely skinnier,” says Thomas. The industry seems “particularly polarized right now,” he says, with hypermuscular looks becoming increasingly popular at the same time as demand has surged for waifish male models.

The models and insiders I spoke with for this story were often hesitant to talk for fear of reprisals, and many requested anonymity. Their insights reveal an industry struggling to safeguard some of its youngest employees—many of whom have very little employment protection, are ill-informed of their rights and suffer from a culture of silence that protects the abusers within the industry who are considered too powerful to confront.
At the age of 20, I fell for that world. It seemed to me like easy money and a shortcut to joining a glamorous elite. But after a year of dabbling in the industry, I realized it was making me miserable. Sure, I had become part of a rarefied world cordoned off from the public—and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t enjoyed that—but to remain part of that elite I was expected to work unpaid to gain a degree of celebrity that never came. I had to cope with relentless pressure to keep my weight down, and my agency bookers expected me to attend castings for up to 17 hours a day in the run-up to fashion week.

And there was this: The money turned out to be lousy. While a male model might earn a few thousand dollars for a major show and maybe in the tens of thousands for an international campaign, many magazine shoots are unpaid, and small shows often pay only a few hundred. I felt exploited, as did many of my peers, and yet all of us felt we couldn’t speak out because getting a reputation as being “difficult” or “demanding” could kill your fledgling career. So we kept posing and we kept quiet.
I became a model in 2013, when I was in my third year of studying English and French literature at Oxford University. I had moved to Paris as part of my studies, and my teenage interest in fashion was reborn. I had always been excited by the pace of the industry and found the processes behind designing and creating these garments fascinating. But I had never considered working as a model.

Three days after arriving in Paris in September 2013, I headed out to a gay club, exhausted (from the move) and a little drunk (from the vodka). A guy across the room with stubble and chiseled cheekbones caught my attention; when I ventured out into the street for a cigarette, he followed. He asked for a light and then asked if I was a model. I told him it was a terrible pickup line. He told me he was a casting director and invited me to his studio a few days later, took some photos and added me to his database.
The following weekend, we shot a series of portraits. A few weeks later, he cast me in a music video. And a few months later, he sent me to one of Paris’s most prestigious modeling agencies. Its verdict? That I was “unsuitable.”

A chance encounter with another casting director in early 2014 led to an invitation to visit a modeling agency. I posed for a few Polaroids, wrote down my measurements and awaited the decision. The booker—a kind, freckled man in his 30s—looked me up and down as I stood by the window of his fifth-floor studio, whispering to his assistant. “You could do with some exercise,” he said finally, as though I was an out-of-season racehorse, “but we’d love you to come on board.”
In spite of my reservations, I felt a flood of nervous euphoria. I couldn’t help but be seduced by the idea that I would be paid mountains of cash to lounge around and have my face splashed across billboards. And then I began working, and reality hit: To be a model is to accept that you are a product as well as a person. You are also a target for sexual predators.

At first, I was relatively oblivious to the extent of the sexual harassment and abuse in the industry. Serious propositions and sexual advances are often framed as jokes, allowing the powerful figures who make them—photographers, editors and casting directors—to dismiss them as such should they be declined. In September 2013, while I was shooting a music video, a fashion consultant in his 60s spent the day making inappropriate comments and asking if what was “down there” was as “intoxicating” as my “handsome face.” I ignored him and moved away when he repeatedly brushed against me. As he slid past me, he stroked his hand across my lower back and slapped my backside.

A few weeks later, an editor offered to shoot me for the cover of his magazine, with the caveat that I pose naked and join him for a “romantic” dinner that evening. I said I wasn’t interested, but he messaged me regularly throughout the year. His messages became increasingly graphic, including sending me links to porn videos and images of another model whose career he claimed to have launched. In June 2014, a photographer tried to make me commit to orgies while on a shoot, with the promise of getting me “exposure.” He also convinced me and the other male model I was shooting with to strip down to our underwear in the middle of the Bois de Vincennes, a southeast of Paris.

At times, these powerful men behave with a remarkable sense of impunity: While I was conducting research for this article, one powerful fashion designer, high on cocaine, sent me unsolicited naked videos when I attempted to arrange an interview.
In some ways, I got off lightly. Matthew, a British model, signed up with his first agency while he settled into life in Paris (a few months later, he joined Elite, the world’s leading agency). He soon found himself in the studio of a photographer who overstepped the mark.

“It was horrible,” says Matthew, which is his real first name. He has now quit modeling and is a student living in London. “He made me take all my clothes off, including my underwear. His rationale was that he needed to get me over the phase of being awkward and make me more comfortable in my own body.”
Exposing the photographer was impossible, Matthew says. “I couldn’t complain because he was part of my agency.” The man was one of the bookers working at the agency; he freelanced as a photographer on the side.
“In fashion, it is always older people controlling younger,” says René Habermacher, a Swiss-born photographer who works regularly for Japanese Vogue and other leading titles. Ziff, of the Model Alliance, says she has heard about countless situations that mirrored Matthew’s story. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken with a male model about the Model Alliance without them talking about sexual harassment,” she says.
Their age makes many models particularly vulnerable.

“When starting out, models tend to be very young,” says Ziff, whose modeling career started at 14. “Their careers are short-lived and tenuous for the most part. If you know that you have a shelf life of maybe five years, you're much less likely to stick your neck out or complain, especially since it is so competitive.”

‘Underage and Underfed’

I have found it hard to stick to my decision to quit modeling. I still take jobs now and then. I miss the excitement. Also, as a recent graduate, I could do with the cash. On certain jobs, I have been shocked by how young many of the models are. At my last show, the Andrea Crews collection shown in Paris in January 2016, I shared a cigarette with a boy backstage whose tousled hair, slender body, boyish features and full lips combined to make him look delicate and androgynous. “How old are you?” I asked him. “Fifteen,” he said, looking nervous. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”
Critics and commentators have long criticized the use of very young male models in the fashion industry, but the current trend for models with boyish or androgynous looks has intensified that criticism. The androgynous look pushes male models to lose muscle mass and women to lose their natural curves. One model, Jack—that’s a pseudonym—says that has increased competition between men and women for the same shows.

(At Gucci’s menswear show in January 2015, for example, boyish female models walked alongside waifish men.)
In stark contrast to the androgynous male models on the catwalks in Asia are the muscle-bound male models typified by the perfectly sculpted British model David Gandy. But beneath those hypermuscular builds are often serious health problems. “The big, muscular guys are no better off,” says a British photographer, whose work is regularly featured in American Vogue and GQ France and who requested anonymity. “Men who are that big, who go to the gym that often and have 2 percent body fat—they are starving themselves too.” Researchers and mental health experts have coined the term bigorexia to describe muscle dysmorphia, a distorted perception of the body as too weak and lacking muscle that fuels obsessive workouts even among the most toned men and bodybuilders.

The pressure to lose weight is common among male models. In December 2013, Jack, who had trained as a dancer and had muscular legs, was told by his agents to lose 3 kilograms (about 6.5 pounds) from his legs for a Saint Laurent fitting. “It was a huge pressure.” He prioritized reaching his target weight over his health. “It pushed me towards an eating disorder. All the guilt, constantly—it was like pre-bulimia.”Almost every one of the 15 insiders who agreed to speak to Newsweek said Saint Laurent’s recently departed creative director, Hedi Slimane, spearheaded the rise of the ultra-skinny male model. Karl Lagerfeld, creative director of Chanel and one of fashion’s most powerful designers, wrote in The Telegraph in 2004 that “Slimane’s fashions, modelled by very, very slim boys, required me to lose at six of my 16 stone.”

Slimane defended his preference for super skinny young men in an interview with Yahoo Style last year, explaining that he was bullied as a teenager for not having a traditionally masculine build: “I was precisely just like any of these guys I photograph or that walk my shows. Jackets were always a little too big for me. Many in high school, or in my family, were attempting to make me feel I was half a man because I was lean.” Slimane says later in the interview that there was a derogatory and homophobic undertone to the idea that skinny was “queer.”

For many fashion insiders, the reasons for his casting choices are hardly relevant; what matters is the impact Slimane had on models—and even men outside the fashion world. The British photographer who worked for American Vogue is highly critical of the male body type promoted by the designer. “Hedi idolizes emaciated boys,” he says. Slimane created an aesthetic that he sums up as “underage and underfed.” Saint Laurent and Slimane declined repeated requests for comment when approached by Newsweek.

Thin in Japan

Nowhere has super skinny become more prevalent than in East Asia. Japan has long been a major player in the fashion world, but the rise of China and South Korea has cemented the importance of East Asia. But Asia doesn’t just present new opportunities; it also brings new threats. The market is known in the fashion world for its preference for ultra-skinny male models. “In Japan, you have a strong desire for younger, sweet-looking male models, and to the extent that you must represent the market, they’re simply smaller sized,” says Valerie Steele, an American fashion historian, curator and director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Combined with culture shock, long work hours and isolation from their families and friends, young male models often enter these new markets unaware of their labor rights and the dangers they might face.

In the summer of 2014, Habermacher joked that I should head to East Asia if I wanted my career to really take off. “They’d love you over there,” the photographer told me, “and the pay is crazy: You can make up to 10,000, maybe 20,000, [euros] a month if you’re busy, but you can be shooting back-to-back for up to 16 or 18 hours a day.” But Habermacher was not actually recommending I make the move because he knew what I would have to do to succeed in Asia. “They like small boys over there, I mean really small,” he said. “You’d have to lose about 10 kilos to really make it.”

The idea of starting a new, thrilling life in Tokyo, Seoul or Shanghai was tempting. Losing 15 percent of my body weight was not. Shedding 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds) would have sent my body mass index (BMI), a scale using height and weight measurements to judge whether somebody is overweight or underweight, down to 16.9, a level the World Health Organization defines as “severely malnourished.”
But I was tempted, in spite of my concerns over my health. Asia offers male models financial opportunities that seem ever scarcer in saturated Western markets and in an industry where men earn far less than their female counterparts. According to a Forbes report, from June 2012 to June 2013, the top 10 highest-earning female models made a combined $83.3 million; from September 2012 to September 2013, the top 10 men made $8 million. The best-paid female model, Gisele Bundchen, made $42 million between June 2012 and June 2013; Sean O’Pry, the highest-earning man, made $1.5 million in the year ending in September 2013.

There’s a gender gap lower down in the market too, with salary data company PayScale reporting that female models can expect an average yearly income of $41,300, compared with the Forbes estimate of male earnings around $28,000 in recent years, approximately $2,000 short of the New York living wage as calculated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
One model from Models 1, Europe’s largest agency, took up his booker’s offer of a summer in the Far East. He agreed to speak to Newsweek on the condition of anonymity. “I came because I wanted to make some money before starting university,” says the model, a 19-year-old British student. Yet in retrospect, he says, specifics were missing from his conversation with his booker. “Money was not discussed,” he says.

He signed a contract to head to Tokyo in the winter of 2015 with little knowledge of the small print. He felt honored to be offered the opportunity and assumed the terms and conditions would be reasonable and lucrative. But when he showed his mother the contract, she was appalled at the conditions he had agreed to. “She basically said that I’m going to come back with nothing and that, at best, I’ll break even.”
His travel and accommodations were to be covered by the agency, but under the terms of the contract the money had to be paid back. He would start receiving payment for jobs only after this debt was cleared. Until then, he would have to live on an allowance of about $87 a week, an amount he could not survive on, so he needed his mother to supplement.

Certain clauses felt particularly exploitative, he says. If he did not book enough jobs, he would have been sent home at his own expense, owing his agency a four-figure sum. If he breached any other terms, including cutting his hair without permission, getting a suntan or putting on any weight, he could have faced the same forfeit.
But the model decided to go regardless, thinking that the experience of living abroad would be worthwhile and that there was always a chance of getting his big break. “I just feel so lucky,” he says, talking via FaceTime from his small Tokyo apartment.

Trust Us

France, Spain, Italy and Israel have all passed legislation within the past decade requiring all models working in those countries to possess a medical certificate that declares them fit to work. The French law stipulates that models’ health must be "assessed in particular in terms of body mass index” but with a nod to more holistic methods of assessment, including body shape and well-being. An agency booker who fails to adhere to the law risks a fine of 75,000 euros (about $83,623) and up to six months in prison. The law also requires agencies to signal when modeling photos have been retouched to alter body shape. Fines of up to 10,000 euros (about $11,150) and one year in prison can await individuals “provoking people to excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged dietary restrictions that could expose them to a danger of death or directly impair their health.”

In the fashion world, these laws have few fans—even among the models. The three male models interviewed for this story all expressed support for the idea of limiting the weight pressures they faced but questioned the accuracy of the BMI scale as a measure. Industry insiders also attacked the inaccuracy of the BMI when applied to those under 25 and the idea that it might penalize models afflicted by eating disorders. And then there’s this: The majority of the countries in the world where models work have no legislation protecting these young people.

The fashion industry is so sprawling and decentralized that many industry insiders believe that the only way it can protect its young is if it decides to take on that responsibility itself. Many powerful figures in the industry say they are already acting responsibly. Storm Models, a leading agency, says it abides by minimum BMI rules. “Ultimately, we’re just a supply chain,” says Cat Trathen, head of the men’s division at Storm. “We only provide what our clients are asking for.” She says that any potential problems lie with the editors and brands booking the models she represents. And she was adamant that she and her team already do their utmost to safeguard the models signed to their agency: “We do not have and we have never had one model—male or female—on this board who is underweight.” Trathen says it’s not in the economic interests of an agency to promote models who are too thin: “A model who’s underweight is going to be ill. Ultimately, they’re a commodity, and you have to look after them. If someone is ill or too thin, they're not going to work because they're not going to look their best or have the energy to model.”

One prominent casting director, Noah Shelley of AM Casting, says he bears some responsibility for the pressure to be skinny. “If we were to sit down and round table and say there’s blame to be had, then I would definitely deserve some,” says Shelley. “Nonetheless, I don’t feel on a daily basis that I’m responsible for unhealthy body ideals, but I’m not naïve enough to suggest that couldn’t be happening without my intention, and I have to take responsibility for that.”

Yet Sebastien Meunier, creative director of the Paris-based cult fashion house Ann Demeulemeester, denies that designers are doing anything wrong. “We are not doing anything shocking: We’re making clothes that are perfectly decent and acceptable,” he tells Newsweek. “At the end of the day, [models] are adults. There’s no problem here.”
Valerie Steele, of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, believes the industry is unlikely to self-regulate in a meaningful way. “Everyone says they’re not the ones at fault, that they’re just following orders,” she says. “I suspect there’s a lot of blame to be shared. The casting directors and designers and members of the audience want to see thin, white, young models. They’re all at fault."

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Prostitution in the Fashion Industry

December 5, 2016, 1:03 pm

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From Runways to Redlight Districts

Europe is a wonderful place to be a fashion designer, photographer or model. Or so the fashion industry tells us. There are always plenty of opportunities for a pretty girl to make some money showing off some clothes and some skin.
But not according to former fashion editor Louise Gagnon and several models who have since quit the industry and have described as the seedy underbelly of the fashion industry. An industry filled with illicit drugs, prostitution, forced anorexia and mental/physical abuse.

Prostitution, of course, is nothing new. The industry is ever changing and broad reaching around the globe, from the streets of Thailand to high class London escorts, to the outrageous parties of Las Vegas - wherever there is money to be made off of men, prostitution is there - with many of its far reaching social aspects. Thus there is no surprise that prostitution permeates the fashion industry like termites in a tree.

Most people simply would not assume there would be any such connections between the fashion world and the darker world of drugs and prostitution - the fashion industry has a tendency to gloss over anything that gives the industry a bad rep - including anorexia within the modeling industry. Though it may disturb some individuals, Louise Gagnon’s story deserves to be heard.

Louise now lives in sunny south California where she makes custom wedding dresses for high paying clients, but her introduction to the fashion industry was as a model during the 1980s. She was 18 years old when she began modelling in Paris in 1983, and while her time on the runways and in front of the camera was short she managed to leverage her way into an assistant editor position at a French fashion magazine, but not before becoming addicted heroin and doing a variety of photo shoots she'd rather not remember and has difficulty discussing.

"I was raped regularly. Sometimes multiple times per week. I was depressed all the time and the only thing that made me feel better was the heroin. It didn't stop when I stopped modelling either. I was in some bad relationships with the photographers who I had met years earlier and I was involved with them professionally so I had to ignore my feelings. It was complicated and I became more and more disgusted at myself everyday. I finally decided I needed to quit before I killed myself." - Louise Gagnon.

Louise got help with her drug addiction and since quitting the industry in 1999 she has spoken out from time to time on issues of prostitution, rape and drug addiction in the fashion industry. She says she is not alone with these problems either and says that the problems are industry wide and recalls shooting heroin with models and being in "rape orgies" with male friends of the photographers and other models.

"One of my friends was out of control. She would do a fashion shoot in Paris in the afternoon or morning and hop a train to Amsterdam so she could be in the redlight district by evening. She thought of it as a career, but when her body turned up in a canal in 1998 I started getting really paranoid. I mean, that could have easily been me." - Louise Gagnon.

Hardly the only one speaking out on this matter Carré Otis is a former supermodel who survived anorexia, heroin/cocaine addiction, and repeated rapes. Prior to her 1999 heart seizure her drug addiction was getting steadily worse, she was surviving on green tea and small doses of vegetarian food, and she was easily persuaded into drugs and unsolicited sex because she couldn't say no to the people paying for her expensive lifestyle.
Her abusive husband Mickey Rourke didn't help either. Rourke was jealous of Carré Otis's relationships with several fashion photographers (several of which raped her) and beat her on multiple occasions.
In 1991 Carré Otis got a gunshot wound to her shoulder during a visit with Rourke in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She later claimed that the .357 Magnum went off when she dropped her purse on a table.

On July 18th 1994, Otis was slapped, knocked down, and kicked in a Hollywood office by Mickey Rourke. Rourke was charged but Otis refused to testify against him in court. They divorced the same year.

Following her divorce her career as a fashion supermodel continued to take off, but her private life was one of constant drug addiction and repeated rapes from people she was employed with.
The fashion industry likes to keep a lid on these events however and no "reputable fashion magazine" would dare talk out against all the problems going on in the industry. Its not so much that the fashion industry is a prostitution ring in disguise, but that it is a group of people that collectively has decided to exploit the models sexually and mentally using a combination of peer pressure, money, drugs and mental mind games.

That combination is turning out to be lethal for the models who get over their heads with anorexia problems and drug addiction, but adding prostitution/rape to the list of personal problems just makes things so much more complicated.
To leave the industry a model would have to simultaneously cut off all contact with the people who are a bad influence. This can be done as Carré Otis has already demonstrated.
This process can be made easier by trying to change your focus in the industry. Carré Otis put on 30 lbs and became a model for larger sizes while Louise Gagnon switched to fashion magazines and switched again to the wedding industry. Obviously its difficult to leave the industry entirely, but there are other aspects of the industry that aren't so corrupted by wealth and power.

Fashion models aren't the only people with this unusualy problem. In 2007 Marie Claire published an article about Brazilian prostitutes who have quite the sex industry in favour of the fashion industry. The article focused on the new fashion label Daspu (short for 'das putas' which means 'from the whores') and a mockery of Daslu, Brazil's most expensive fashion boutique. All of the models and designers for Daspu are former prostitutes who sold their bodies for as little as $30/hour.

Prostitution is not illegal in Brazil, but the Penal Code criminalises 'agents of prostitution'– pimps, brothel owners and madams. Daspu hopes to help prostitutes to get out of their abusive relationships with their pimps and try something that doesn't involve doing cheap tricks for money. The brainchild is former prostitute former prostitute Gabriela Leite, now 54, who became a prostitute at the age of 20, but later became political active.
"I became politically active in 1978, when police murdered my friend for being a prostitute. That year, there was a police crackdown and we were banned from leaving our building, but my friend went out anyway. They arrested her, took her to the police station and beat her to death." - Gabriela Leite.
Leite organized a protest agains the police and the officer who beat her friend to death was eventually dismissed from the force. Since then she has kept on marching and trying to help prostitutes secure more rights, more safety and to help them get out of the business.

Although certainly not the stay-at-home kind Gabriela Leite now has two daughters and a granddaughter and continues to fight to change the system. Not all fashion models are prostitute (or former prostitutes like the example above), but when you look at some of the centerfolds models do for men's magazines you realize that some of the models are taking it a step farther into the porn industry. They aren't even marketing a fashion article or perfume anymore, they're marketing themselves as sex objects. Supermodel Tila Tequila Nugyen for example has openly embraced the porn industry and is trying to market herself as a supermodel, a porn star and a musician.
Lest we forget we now live in an era where celebrity sex idols (ie. Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson) routinely make homemade sex videos that accidentally get leaked to the public and despite this turns them into even bigger celebrities.

 In Paris Hilton's case it made her career and she has since leveraged herself into fashion and music deals.Author Sheila Jeffreys has written a book (Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West) in which she points out that the fashion industry and the porn industry are becoming cross connected. "The sex industry sells clothes and the fashion industry sells prostitution and pornography." And she's not the only author with this assessment.

Madonna's pro-prostitution "Sex" book in which she discusses ideas that prostitution gives women control over men. Although realistically this is Madonna's fantasy version in which the prostitutes are wearing stilletos and lingerie while the men are handcuffed to the bed. And that is exactly what it is, Madonna's fantasy, and is totally out of touch with reality.

The myth that prostitutes hold sexual power over men is completely bogus and in turn simply serves to enforce male dominancy over prostitutes who are led into the false assumption that they are somehow in control. Research into sex industry by Giobbe (1991), Parriott (1994) and Farley (1998) all concluded that the vast majority of prostitutes want to get out of the business and were dragged into the sex industry by boyfriends/pimps often because they were in a similar industry such as stripping, modelling, acting, massage therapy and advertising.

The most despicable and disturbing of all is the child models. We can only imagine the kind of mental damage children in the fashion industry are going through when being asked to pose scantily clad on runways and in front of cameras.
Parents of the children have to be extra wary about sending their children to work for photographers, who despite their possibly great reputations are always one or two steps away from being a child rapist. Chaperones are a definite must and if the parents are disturbed by what they are seeing too much of it is certainly time to pull the plug. Mind you the damage to the child's psyche might already be done.

And its not just the girls who are in danger, the boys are also prone to gay pedophiles. For all we know members of the Catholic Church like to find their "choir boys" by searching the child modelling agencies for young boys. We shouldn't be too surprised if it is true.
In Thailand there are more underage prostitutes than there is anywhere else in the world. In stark contrast Thailand's child modelling industry is basically non-existent.

So is the fashion industry just a big prostitution ring in disguise? No. Absolutely not.

But there is certainly a lot of prostitution going on behind closed doors, and it is basically legalized prostitution for the wealthy.
In many countries prostitution is illegal, but it is not strictly inforced. The prostitutes get away with it and charges are rarely laid. Conviction rates for "Johns" are pathetically low because it is often difficult to determine whether any crime has been convicted.

Fashion models create a legitimate front because they're supposed to be advertising something (clothes, beer, shopping bags, perfume, etc.) but in reality are selling their bodies as a form of cheap entertainment, usually just visually, but they can also be selling themselves regularly behind closed doors.Part of the problem is the belief that anorexia is beautiful, and fashion models being the epitome of this, attract a certain kind of man who is looking for the ultra-thin models and is willing to pay extra for it. There is some prestige involved with saying "I fucked Naomi Campbell" or "I had a 69 with Tyra Banks".

It is a bit like "Eyes Wide Shut", the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman movie in which they discover a secret society of wealthy people who employ high-class models to have wild sex orgies. What happens in real life is probably not that different from what goes on in that movie. Take away the cloak and dagger stuff, and the international modelling and fashion industry really becomes quite sleazy.
Police in France and Britain have cracked down on prostitution within the modelling industry, but it still continues to flourish. People like money and sex, so the world's oldest profession is very hard to stop.

Speaking out against prostitution in the fashion industry doesn't help a person's career. People are expected to stay quiet or have their careers ruined. Apparently if anyone breaks this code of silence, they become ostracized from much of the modelling community.
Some people will tell you that there is no prostitution in the fashion industry, that they've been in the fashion industry for years and they've never encountered prostitution or rape in their business. Some will also tell you that if two consenting adults, a model and a photographer, decide to have sex after the shoot is over it is really none of your business and that isn't prostitution because they both agreed to it. Or even the analogy that actresses sleep with movie directors/producers regularly (and sometimes they marry them) and that doesn't make them prostitutes.

But they can't all be right. You have to admit sexual attraction does happen, so there is going to be sex in the industry, it is simply to be expected.
And you can't expect the model to be not be thinking "Hey, if a screw this guy will he pay me more or hire me again?" or "If I do this will it help my career?"
It is a slippery slope downhill.

10 Famously Irresistible Kept Gay Men

December 5, 2016, 1:19 pm

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Calvin Klein’s boy toy Nick Gruber may think he’s the hottest model on the market right now, but he has to know he’s not the first cowboy at the rodeo.

Beautiful men have been hustling since the dawn of time, and whether they’re in it for the exposure or the Platinum card, they almost always wind up without. In honor of Nick’s brand new “image,” here are some of our favorite kept men of all time:

Scott Thorson

Easily the most noted of history’s kept boys, Scott Thorson was made famous by his May-December relationship with Liberace. He was hired as the pianist’s “personal companion” at 17 and was showered with money and gifts until the two split in 1982.

Where is he now? Thorson and Liberace’s romance was translated to film for HBO’s 2013 biopic, Under the Candelabra.

—

Nick Gruber

The modern-day Scott Thorson is currently famous for his on-again, off-again relationship with 70-year-old fashion designer Calvin Klein. Their tumultuous relationship is far too messy to summarize here.

Where is he now? Back together with Mr. Klein, and getting a fabulous image makeover to boot!

—

Casper Smart

Believe it or not, J Lo has been with her pretty boy toy for almost two years now! The pop star started dating Smart, her then backup dancer, a year after her divorce from Marc Anthony.

Where is he now? Cruising for blowjobs in New York City’s gay sex shops.

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Rupert Everett

The English actor led a seedy life after running away from home when he was only 16. He told US Magazine in 1997 that he worked as a prostitute for drugs and lived with male suitors for as long as they’d have him.

Where is he now? Unhappy with his career at 54, Everett made headlines earlier this year for warning other gay actors not to come out of the closet.

—

Jesus Luz

The 26-year-old Brazilian model met Madonna during a Steven Klein photoshoot for W Magazine in 2008. The two had a high-profile romance for a year before a sudden split because—surprise!—Madonna said he was too young.

Where is he now? He’s still a model, but now also a DJ. We hope he’s still letting his inner thigh hair grow.

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Harry Louis

This hunky Brazilian model made a name for himself in the porn industry before falling into Marc Jacobs’ lap of luxury. No one is really sure when they’re dating and when they’re not, but it’s safe to say they’re “back together” whenever a beach photo surfaces.

Where is he now? Making chocolates!

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Ryan Nickulas

The A-List: New York star was one of the first to be cast for the show. He made the cut during the early stages when the show’s working title was “Kept”, and producers were searching for guys “dating extremely established, successful men.”

Where is he now? Who cares?!

—

Baptiste Giabiconi

This 23-year-old, 6’1″ model is said to be the world’s highest paid male model. He’s currently the face of Chanel, Fendi, and serves as legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld’s “muse.”

Where is he now? In Karl Lagerfeld’s bed! You would be too if you’ve felt what 10,000 thread count Egyptian cotton feels like.

—

Joey Stefano

The gay porn star was rumored to be the kept man of then-closeted music mogul David Geffen in the early ’90s. He had several other alleged romances before his untimely death in 1994.

Where is he now? The late star’s life is being turned into a feature-length film. 

—

Jess

Calvin Klein isn’t the only man with a Sean Cody boy toy! Director Bryan Singer was rumored to be dating a Sean Cody porn star by the name of Jess two years ago.

Where is he now? Still working for Sean Cody, but don’t act like you didn’t already know that.

Six Athletes-Turned-Porn-Stars!

December 5, 2016, 1:46 pm

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It’s not uncommon for hot jocks to strip down and show off their bods in calendars, like the epically drool-worthy Dieux De Stade studs or the eye-popping Sheffield Hallam University rugby team do. But a few more daring athletes have chosen to go the whole nine yards and do ankles-in-the-air gay porn. In fact, Outsports just revealed a soccer-player-turned-porn star this week.

So we dug up a roster of gay-porn jocks for you to enjoy, each with their own scandalous stories and thoughtful nuggets of wisdom.

THE SOCCER PLAYER

REAL NAME: Jonathan De Falco

PORN NAME: Stany Falcone
BACKSTORY: Though he wasn’t exactly the team’s star player, Jonathan De Falco did play professional soccer with the Belgium team Racing Mechelen until he suffered an injury. Soon after leaving the team, he started dancing in nightclubs, offering massage services (with full release?) and eventually got into porn when a producer asked him to star in a film. He has since starred as a top in scenes by UK Naked Men and Hard Brit Lads. During his soccer days he was closteted and had a girlfriend. But seven months after his gay porn debut, he now has a boyfriend and has introduced him to his mom as well.

PEARL O’ WISDOM: Translated from Dutch – “Since I was 20 I have been in gay circles, but when I played soccer, nobody noticed anything. If my orientation would have been known, there would have undoubtedly problems. The soccer world is not ready for openly gay players. There are still too many prejudices and too little tolerance.”

THE WRESTLER

REAL NAME:Paul Donahoe & Kenny Jordan

PORN NAME: Nash

THE DIRT: Paul Donahoe and another member of the University of Nebraska wrestling team—Kenny Jordan (aka “Cal,” pictured right)—decided to make some money spanking it for the college jock website Fratmen. But when someone noticed the letter “N” and the word “wrestling” tattooed on Donahoe’s left thigh, word of mouth spread across campus, eventually getting him tossed from the team and slapped with an NCAA violation for “promoting his image.” The NCAA had Donahoe—a #1 national champion in his weight class—pay the $2,000 he made from the site to a nonprofit. He eventually left Nebraska to wrestle for Edinboro University,placed second nationally in the 125-pound weight class, anddiscussed the whole ordeal with ESPN’s Outside The Lines

SASSY RETORT:“I believe it was unfair for Nebraska to dismiss me from the team. For one, there’s plenty of athletes throughout the University of Nebraska who have had DUIs and who have been in fights and are still playing. But I guess that’s OK. Posing nude, I guess, is worse than someone drinking and driving and risking someone’s life, in their eyes.”

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTERS

REAL NAMES: The world may never know

PORN NAMES: Danny and Jimmy Coxxx/Jimmy Clay

FIGHTER NAMES: Dakota Cochrane and heck if we know

BARE-KNUCKLED BACKSTORY: Two different porn blogs—the very very NSFW Tom Bacchus On The Vine and Men of Porn—recently outed these two porn performers as pro-mixed martial arts fighters—a style of ring fighting where opponents use any combination of boxing, wrestling, karate, and anything else you’ve ever seen used in a Van Damme or Steven Seagal movie.

Dakota Cochrane lost one match and won nine wins mostly by using a hold called “the Rear Naked Choke” (rad). He has also used a modified version of the rear choke as a versatile top in 17Sean Codyscenes.

UNINSPIRING PORN QUOTES: Danny: “Yes [my girlfriend knows I’m doing gay porn], but she’s not happy about it.”

THE PITCHER

REAL NAME: Kazuhito Tadano

PORN NAME: #9 Kazu

HIS JAPANESE SCANDAL: After proving himself a championship-quality pitcher in both high school and university, Kazuhito Tadano seemed destined to become a Nippon Professional Baseball legend. But before the 2002 draft, the Japanese media caught wind of his appearance in a gay porn video called Complete File, in which salarymen put a dog collar on Kazu, tie him up, and play with his pixelated genitals before making a catcher of the pitcher, if you know what we mean.

The scandal caused Tadano to leave Japan and come to America where he signed with the Cleveland Indians as a free agent before becoming a starting pitcher with the Oakland A’s. He joked that despite American publicity of his porn past, anti-gay jeers from fans wouldn’t bother him because he doesn’t understand English.

EXPLANATION FOR DOING PORN:“I did participate in a video and I regret it very much. It was a one-time incident that showed bad judgment and will never be repeated. I was young, playing baseball and going to college and my teammates and I needed money. Frankly, if I were more mature and had really thought about the implications of what I did, it never would have happened. I’m not gay. I’d like to clear that fact up right now.”



A Confession of A Male Sex Worker

December 12, 2016, 11:44 am

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True Confessions: A week in the Life of A Male Sex Worker from Dublin

A college student in Dublin tried being a sex worker for a week to make a little extra money. Now, he’s opening up about the experience, which wasn’t anything like he had expected it to be.

 

“It is perfectly legal to sell sex despite what you may have heard, however it is illegal to sell sex on the street or in a public place,” Joshua Collins (not his real name) explains in a new op-ed titled What it’s like to be a gay sex worker in Dublin.
Prostitution was legalized in the Republic of Ireland last year and since then has seen an increase of an estimated 80 percent, Collins claims.
“Staying within the limits of the law I became a part of Ireland’s booming vice scene online,” he writes, “and with the help of gay dating app Grindr I introduced myself to Dublin’s gay sex-trade.”

 

Collins wasn’t quite sure what to think when he accepted his first client.
“It’s a strange feeling to describe sitting at home and seeing a man you’ve never met before drape himself on your bed waiting for sex,” Collins says, admitting that it took some time to work up the courage to finally follow through with things.
“It was like that old cliche ‘butterflies in your stomach’ but instead it was like my stomach was lined with angry hornets,” he describes.
Most of Collins’ clients were straight fathers and/or husbands looking for a little man-on-man side action, which he was more than happy to provide… for a price. €150 ($160 U.S.) per hour, to be exact.

 

“I have had clients show me pictures of their newborn children,” Collins recalls, “and while the interaction was supposed to be strictly business only it was hard to see these men suppressing their sexuality, shackled by an intolerant society.”

 

If you think that sounds at all sexy, Collins says, think again.
“The first client I encountered was a 47 year old Bulgarian man who had a rape fantasy,” he writes. “I stood there overcome with a fear of the unknown. The confidence I had at the start of the night began to dwindle as I stared into the abyss and it stared straight back at me.”
Afterwards, Collins says, “all I felt was a chilling numbness that both terrified and exhilarated me. But, in practical terms, I now had cash to buy food for my fridge and bus money to get to college.”
“Another client, a 67 year old married gentleman, paid for over-the-phone services,” he continues. “He whispered down the phone for the duration of our session because, he claimed, his wife was asleep next to him.”

But the “weirdest” client Collins had during his week was a drug dealer who lived with his parents.
“The guy in question was 5’3 and we had sex in front of his kitten, Cody,” he writes. “After the session had ended he admitted he could not pay me in cash but only with weed, I accepted.”
Collins says the ultimately takeaway from his week as a male sex worker was pretty simple: It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
“Voluntary sex work is far from the way it is often glamorized in pop-culture but for some it is a means of living,” he concludes. “With the current economic climate and increasing university tuition it should come as no surprise that more and more young men are opening themselves up for sex.”

 

‘Mostly Straight’ Male Sex Worker Opens Up About Being Gay-For-Pay And Much, Much More

December 12, 2016, 11:50 am

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A “mostly straight” male sex worker holds nothing back while discussing his professional life in a riveting new interview with Metro.

“I gave it a try and found I was well suited to it,” Oz, an Australian man living in London, says. “I’d been with a man, just to experiment, before I started doing this, so I guess I am a little bisexual, but I’d say I’m closer to the straight end of the spectrum.”
Oz was first introduced to the line of work by his ex-girlfriend.
“She was from a family who were rich, but very strict,” he explains. “She got into this kind of work so she could have her freedom, and it seemed pretty easy to me, a way to make money and not have to work in an office.”

 

That was seven years ago. Since then his job had taken him all around the world.
“I’ve been to Dubai, New York, Hong Kong, Sweden, Singapore. And plenty of other European countries,” he says.
Though he identifies as “mostly straight,” the vast majority of Oz’s customers are men.
“My clients are mainly male, though occasionally I see single women,” he explains. “I have plenty of regulars that I’ve built up over the years here in London. But I do travel internationally, too.”
“Sometimes clients pay my air fare and expenses to visit them abroad,” he continues. “I have a regular in Dubai, that pays for my flights and hotels in a luxury resort. He’ll be busy through the day so I’ll have time to myself and I’m able to charge things to the room like massages or spa treatments for myself.”
Many of his clients also identify as “mostly straight” and are married to women.

 

“I see a lot of men who are married or in a relationship with a woman,” he says. “I expect we see a lot of bisexuals because gay guys can meet up with each other and they don’t need the discretion.”

And many of them want him to act out fantasies that their wives and girlfriends won’t do at home.
“I’ve got a ball-busting regular who likes being kicked in the groin,” he says. “Spanking is [also] very common here, especially with ex-public school boys–they seem to have a bit of a kink for that and being tied up.”

 

Of course, being an escort has its risks. Since the laws surrounding sex work are fuzzy, Oz says it’s on him to vet his clients before meeting them and to look out for his safety.
“I sort of figured it out as I went along in the beginning,” he says. “Thankfully I didn’t make any big mistakes … I basically just have to judge how they sound. If they’re coming to my place I only give them the building address, not the flat number so I can check through the glass, make sure there’s only one person out there.”
He continues: “I watch out for my security if I’m heading to a client’s apartment I’ll tell somebody where I am headed and what time to expect me back and to tell the police if I disappear – that sort of thing.”

 

Though he’s not ashamed of what he does, Oz hasn’t told those closest to him about how he makes his living.
“My family don’t know and neither do the friends I had before starting to do this,” he says. “I’ve told my family I have a very boring office job. I tried to make it sound as dull as possible so they don’t ask too many questions.”
He adds, “I don’t really have any regrets, though it’s not something I want to do forever.”

 

Male Sex Workers Love their Job!

December 12, 2016, 11:59 am

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Don't Get Twisted. These Male Sex Workers Love their Jobs and Make Serious Cash!
18-year-old “James” (not his real name) dreams of one day being an award-winning filmmaker.
“I want to make films and be a director,” the young man tells Fusion.“I didn’t want to give up on that dream, and now I don’t have to.”
Why not? Because he has found a great-paying part-time gig making private house calls around Los Angeles offering erotic massages to wealthy older gents for cash.
“One night can pay my rent for the month,” he says, claiming he’s raked in as much as $1,000 in a single visit.

 

But James insists that he isn’t a prostitute.
“It’s more like I am able to make someone happy and stress free,” he explains, “and they’re willing to pay me.”
“Michael” (also not his real name) is an undergrad in Louisiana. He tells Fusion that he’s been working as a gay escort for the past two years.
“I am a biology student, I am a certified nurse’s aid,” he says. “I have to pay for my education, this is how I can do that.”
Michael says his clients range from everyday Johns to priests.
“It’s so funny how people judge,” he says, “considering my clients are city officials, lawyers, your friends, your co-workers—heck, your priest.”

 

Both young men say they typically find clients online, through dating apps like Tinder and Grindr, as well as escort sites like Rentboy.com, BackPage.com, and Cowboys4angels.com, and even on Craigslist.
“I know I am a good person,” James says. “I like making people feel good. So now I just ride with it, and doing this allows me to take care of my mom and my sister.”
“I never imagined I would be doing this,” Michael adds. “I didn’t grow up thinking I would do this, but at the end of the day, you do what you gotta do.”
“You’re either doing it for free or you’re getting paid for it,” James says. “I get paid for it.”

Male Sex Workers Reveal The Truth About Their Lives And Clients

December 12, 2016, 12:08 pm

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“The male body has become an object of consumption, and as a result the idea of men selling their bodies for sex is becoming increasingly acceptable,” co-editor John Scott says of the new book Male Sex Work and Society.  

 

The book, edited by Australian academics Victor Minichiello and John Scott, takes an in-depth peek at the lives of male sex workers from all around the world, offering a fascinating and complex portrait of the men’s daily experiences, the criticisms they face from both mainstream society and the gay community, and the way they’ve utilized the internet to build their businesses.
Minichiello and Scott studied more than 250 men in countries ranging from China to Australia to Germany to Brazil. They say their hope is to break down the stereotype that all male sex workers are “deviants” or “crazy,” and instead show that many of them are smart, rational people who have made a conscious decision to enter the sex industry.

 

Prostitution is a young person’s game.
Most male sex workers skew younger, usually between 20 to 30 years old. They tend to describe themselves as “fit” and “good-looking.” A large number of them call themselves “Jake,” and more often than not have brown hair and brown eyes.
“To succeed, these young men need to be skilled negotiators, small business operators, engaging conversationalists and fit, active and appealing,” Scott says.
Most clients are older, married men.
Clients tend to be predominantly middle-aged, married men who identify as “straight.”
“I discovered a side of my personality that I didn’t know existed,” one male client revealed in an interview. “And I discovered that I love to be sexually dominated by another man. For a long time, I was in relationships with women and had what I would call ‘traditional sex’, but somehow with time this stopped working for me.”

 

The majority of male sex workers are entrepreneurs.
“Street workers” represent very small portion of male sex workers. Some of the men work in brothels, though this requires paying brothel owners a commission. As a result, many of the men work independently.
Technology has revolutionized the sex industry.
Many male sex workers locate clients through various online escort sites and hookup apps. 
“Technology has seen a huge shift in both male and female sex industries,” Scott says. “Mobile phones allowed the escort market to expand and enabled greater flexibility; street work began to vanish and sex workers came to rural areas for the first time.”
Sex workers are healthier than you might think.
In Australia, at least. Records show that the rates of STDs among the country’s sex workers are significantly lower than among the country’s general population.
So there you have it, folks. Male sex workers. They’re just like you.

 

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Model Laurent Marchand’s Scruff Pics Takeover Tumblr

December 12, 2016, 12:27 pm

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Charles-Laurent Marchand is a fashion model who enjoys flaunting his flesh flute on and off the runway. 

 

In 2015, Marchand became a media sensation when he waled in an MT Costello show wearing a crocodile-embossed cape, a gold bracelet, and another gold snake bauble around his penis.

 

 

Represented by Aim Model Management NYC, it’s easy to see why Marchand is part of their portfolio. For starters, he rocks platinum locks, has a smize that can make straight men hard, and a body that just won’t quit. And, on top of that, his penis is beautiful.

 

 Since bouncing his balls down the runway, Marchand has built a sizable following on social media. With nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram, the 25-year-old faux blond bombshell is sure to continue gaining popularity. After all, people are thirsty AF.

 

Marchand’s has a Scruff account, and he loves to show off. Several photos from his profile leaked to Tumblr, and now we know why he’s so cocky.
 
                                                                         

Zsa Zsa dead at 99!

December 23, 2016, 8:32 am

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Zsa Zsa Gabor, a Hollywood icon who personified the joy of glorious, unapologetic celebrity, has died.
She was 99.
The Hungarian-American actress and socialite died Sunday after suffering a heart attack, her publicist Ed Lozzi confirmed to the Daily News. She died in her Los Angeles home.

 

 Gabor survived a series of health problems over the last decade, including an auto accident, a hip replacement, a stroke and a lung infection, and had been on life support the past five years.
 Born in what was then the Austria-Hungarian Empire during World War I, Gabor was discovered in the 1930s as an opera singer. She and her sisters Magda and Eva soon became known more for their uninhibited flair and flamboyant personalities than their stage and musical skills.

Zsa Zsa — the Paris Hilton of her generation — endeared herself to the celebrity media with a quick wit, a rich mane of blond hair, a carefully maintained exotic accent underscored by frequent repetition of the word “Dah-ling,” and a well-polished set of comic one-liners about her love life.

 

“I want a man who’s kind and understanding,” she said. “Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?”
“How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?”
 Gabor worked frequently in the movies and on television in the 1950s. She also appeared in several stage productions, including “Forty Karats” on Broadway.

 

By the early 1960s, however, her own persona had overshadowed most of the characters she was playing, and as early as a 1962 appearance on the sitcom “Mr. Ed,” she was hired to play herself.
She continued in that role for several decades, buttressing guest roles on comedies and dramas with frequent appearances on shows like Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show.”

I n many ways she was a prototype for modern-day pseudo-stars like the Kardashians and Hilton. The Hilton connection is particularly fitting because her great-grandfather, hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, was the second of Gabor’s nine husbands.

 

They were married from 1942 to 1946. The union produced her only child, Constance (Francesca) Hilton, born in 1947, after Gabor and Hilton had divorced. She later claimed the pregnancy resulted from rape.
She married Prince Frederic Von Anhalt on Aug. 14, 1986 — 26 years her junior — and they remained hitched until her death. Gabor was predeceased by Eva in 1995, Magda in 1997, and her daughter Francesca in 2015.

 

Andre Leon Talley adores Melania Trump!

December 23, 2016, 4:10 pm

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It turns out, there was quite the shakeup among André Leon Talley’s friends earlier this year when he said some very nice things about one Melania Trump. “I hope there will be a great great Trump presidency,” he told the Daily Mail in November, adding that “Melania will be one of the great stars in the administration.”

 

Now, given that Talley is Vogue’s former editor-at-large/current contributing editor and that the magazine endorsed Hillary Clinton (a first for the publication), it’s understandable that his circle of friends might not have taken kindly to news of his remarks. In fact, in the interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Talley recounts how one of his friends wrote him an email saying, “Oh my God, you have gone to the Evil Empire!!!!!” But as Talley tells Dowd in the interview, he’s far from a being a supporter of Donald Trump and says he voted for Clinton in North Carolina after going “through hoops of fire” to get his absentee ballot. And while he’s not a fan of Mr. Trump, he still has some more (overall) nice things to say about Melania.
                       

Here’s a sample of what he told the Times about the Trumps:

On how his stance differs depending the Trump in question:

“She’s a nice person. I do not endorse Trumpism on any level. So why can’t one be positive and want her to shine? I mean, it’s good she cares about napkins, crystal, dinner plates with gilded edges to the point of over the top, and abundant flower arrangements. In the end, why pick on her when they should be picking on her husband’s billionaire cabinet and his seeming readiness to turn the country back towards oppression, anti-Semitism, anti-culturalism, etc.”

On Melania’s style on the campaign:

“Melania, who opted at 3 a.m. for a palazzo jumpsuit, with one arm exposed and a flounce over the other — it seemed to me too Mar-a-Lago, a huge, full-volume jumpsuit. Trying too hard. And I am so tired of the long hair falling on both sides of her face. She has to upgrade her coiffure.”

 

On whether or not to judge Melania for her nude photos:

“You can’t judge a person by pictures. … She was a model. She took pictures.”

On what style Melania might bring to the White House:

“She has those impossibly high four-inch, towering stilettos,” he said. “Clearly, her clothes will cling in the right places, accentuate her figure and her model-style long tresses. Get ready for super-cinched waists, hourglass silhouettes and pencil skirts. She is already into one-shoulder, which Jackie Kennedy wore by Oleg Cassini. Melania likes monotone matching coats and beige dresses, but that hair will always be flying once she goes down the stairs of Air Force One.”

 

On Melania’s preference for privacy:

“She’s very private. She just wants to be a mother. It’s very similar to Jackie O, who also wanted to keep her kids out of the fray. When Barron was first born, she used to say: ‘I’m going off to play with Barron. I just want to spend time with Barron.’ So, in a way, I think that she’s maintaining her privacy with him and maintaining a kind of dignity because she’s not making statements. I don’t think that she would try to change the White House in any way. I don’t think that’s what she’s interested in.”

 

 But André has been going through a rough patch with his friends, and he needs a bit of carb comfort, as we listen to the morning medley soundtrack of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in the lobby of the genteel Siena Hotel before he heads off to Duke for a more spartan breakfast in a no-frills cafeteria.

It’s my fault, too, because I’m pressing him on a sore subject he is reluctant to discuss: Melania Trump.

The 68-year-old, 6-foot-6 Monsieur Vogue, as he is known, cloaks his voluminous red puffer coat over his mountainous form, so that only his big brown eyes and navy Filson knit cap are showing.

 

“First of all,” he says, well aware of my fashion ignorance, “this is a Norma Kamali sleeping bag coat.”

Then he offers his declaration: “You make the choice to be in Trumpland or you make the choice to eject yourself from the horror of Trumpland. I’ve made my choice not to be part of Trumpland.”

But, I point out, Donald Trump was bragging on the trail only the day before that he had just had a meeting with André’s Vogue compadre and fellow Hillary supporter Anna Wintour. At first, André has a hard time believing that Ms. Wintour would venture anywhere near the dreaded Trump Tower. I have to actually show him the story and get it confirmed with the Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks. But finally he shrugs under his puffery.

 

“As for Anna Wintour going to Mr. Trump, she’s a powerful woman, she’s running an empire, she’s the editorial director of Condé Nast,” he says. “We can’t judge her for going to a meeting. She’s a professional, powerful woman. That’s all I have to say.”

I have flown here to see if André can shed some light on Melania, the sultry enigma of Trumpworld, the only reserved member of what is shaping up to be the most bellicose takeover in modern times. As everyone else rushes in to blow up the capital, as Ivanka shops for houses in Georgetown and office space at the White House, as headlines cascade about how Ivanka will be the real first lady, Melania has virtually disappeared. We see more of her doppelgänger on “Saturday Night Live"  than we do the real Slovenian Sphinx  who is hanging back in New York so her 10-year-old son, Barron, can finish the school year.

 

Melania’s absence from the stage has not stopped a raging battle in the fashion world about her — a sequel to the boycott during the campaign against Ivanka’s brand and a microcosm of the fight being replayed across the country about whether to “normalize” the Trumps or whether to keep shouting from the rooftops, “This is not normal!,” as my colleague Charles Blow urged this week.

 

André’s friend Tom Ford said he was not likely to dress the former fashion model and future first lady because “she’s not necessarily my image.” (Ford once spent time after a Helmut Newton memorial trying to get Melania to do something about the Donald’s hair, but Melania merely murmured in her Gabor accent, “I like him the way he is.”)Marc Jacobs told WWD  that he would rather put his energy “into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters.”

 

 The French designer Sophie Theallet, a favorite of Michelle Obama’s, published an open letter saying she would not dress Melania to protest Donald Trump’s “rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia.” Other designers, like Tommy Hilfiger and Carolina Herrera, have riposted that they would be proud to dress the Trump women.

It is a particularly sensitive matter since Melania follows Michelle, beloved by the fashion world, as The New York Times’s Vanessa Friedman mentioned recently, for elevating the industry “beyond the superficial to the substantive,” by framing clothing “as a collection of values: diversity, creativity, entrepreneurship.” As David Yermack, a professor of finance at New York University, noted, Michelle was also a bonanza, generating $2.7 billion in a single year for the companies she showcased.

 

André has particular insight into Melania’s style since, while on Vogue assignment, he went to couture shows with her in Paris and helped her choose her Dior wedding gown, and later flew with her in white-leather splendor on the Trump plane as Donald scarfed down Oreos and talked about how Jude Law was no Cary Grant.

As André told me in the fall when I interviewed him, he came away impressed with the Trump women. He called Melania charming and private, “soignée and polished” with “impeccable” manners and legs that are “a long drink of water,” and said she had a gift for standing on four-and-a-half-inch stiletto heels. “She’s very much like a high, super, superglamorous Stepford Wife,” he told me.

 

He also said that she was the most fastidiously groomed and exquisitely moisturized person he’d ever met. (He now gives that honor to Kim Kardashian West.) At the Mar-a-Lago wedding, which he attended with Ms. Wintour, he noticed that “even then you could tell that Ivanka was going to be a very bright star. She had on a melon-colored dress.”

But André walked into a sartorial buzz saw when, amid buzz that he might be called on to give Melania advice about her Inaugural gown, recently to a Daily Mail reporter, saying that Melania was “a wonderful person to be with” and that she “will be one of the great stars in the administration.” He capped it off with optimism: “I hope there will be a great, great Trump presidency.”

It didn’t take long for the guillotine to fall. One friend emailed him, “Oh my God, you have gone to the Evil Empire!!!!!”

“I wish them the best,” André said. “I want suddenly to see that she has incredible style, wake up and say, ‘Oh my God, look, isn’t that great?’ I really do think that there’s hope. We have to wait and see. As Sergei Diaghilev told Jean Cocteau, ‘Astonish me.’ ”

Fashion Showdown:Carolina Herrera sues De La Renta

December 23, 2016, 4:23 pm

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Carolina versus Oscar. In a battle pitting two grand names in American fashion —Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta  — Herrera has sued de la Renta in the Supreme Court of the State of New York over a young designer who has helped each brand inject a more youthful air into their collections: Laura Kim, who founded the Monse brand with Fernando Garcia.

 

Herrera on Wednesday filed a lawsuit seeking to block Kim from joining de la Renta as co-creative director with Garcia. The duo was named creative directors in September, and Herrera wants the court to stop Kim from joining until April. Kim’s and Garcia’s first collection for de la Renta would be for fall 2017, which would be shown during New York Fashion Week in February.
Carolina Herrera is pleased the court today granted a temporary restraining order that upholds the non-compete agreement we signed with our former senior designer. As the court ruled, the non-compete agreement was fair and plainly worded.

 

 At all times, Carolina Herrera was faithful to the letter and spirit of our agreement, and we will continue to ethically and forcefully protect our business interests. Our focus remains on continuing to introduce new collections that embody the spirit of timeless elegance and refinement for which Carolina Herrera is known.”
A spokesperson for de la Renta declined comment.
                                      
But Herrera’s suit makes juicy reading — and does not hide plans to “transition out” the 77-year-old designer and replace her with a younger creative director. The suit comes at the end of a year when Herrera has been celebrating the 35^th anniversary of her fashion house.
According to the suit, Herrera chief executive officer Francois Kress in July offered Kim, who the suit says was then a vice president of the house, a salary of $1 million to become senior vice president of design of the Carolina Herrera brand. Kim allegedly turned the job down, though, and left to join de la Renta.

 

Kim and Garcia had been hired as consultants at Herrera in October 2015, joining that company after Kim left de la Renta, where she had been employed for 12 years working directly with the late de la Renta himself. Her final job there was design director.
Sources said while de la Renta executives were not concerned about Kim’s joining Herrera, even as a consultant, there was some worry that she had worked so closely with the late designer himself for so long and had deep knowledge of the house’s aesthetic. While Herrera and the late de la Renta were personal friends, there has long been a business rivalry between the two fashion houses. Herrera’s is much larger, approaching $1 billion based on the successful fragrances developed by her parent company Puig, although de la Renta has a more recognized apparel and accessories business.

 

An affidavit filed with the suit by Kim’s lawyer Neil Capobianco says that at the end of 2015 and in early 2016, she started having talks with the House of Herrera about becoming creative director. Based on the promise that Herrera herself would be “transitioning” out if that role, the affidavit says, Kim “agreed to give it a try.”
Her start date was to be Feb. 29, 2016.

 

Capobianco declined comment Wednesday, but the affidavit filed on behalf of Kim says that once she began working at Herrera, she realized that “nobody had informed Ms. Herrera that she was being transitioned out and that Ms. Herrera intended to run CH as if she were the creative director. According to my offer letter, I was supposed to be reporting to CH’s president and chief executive officer Francois Kress. However, I soon learned that Ms. Herrera frequently took charge, without objection from Mr. Kress. Indeed, in a ‘Fashionista’ article published February 26, 2016, Ms. Herrera is quoted as saying, ‘The creative director is myself. They [Laura and Fernando] are coming to join me.”
Sources said Herrera expressed that same sentiment to many people, often describing Kim and Garcia as “consultants” while she was the main designer of her brand.

 

Kim’s affidavit said that she tried to “work around the tensions inherent in a surreptitious transition plan,” but realized the conditions were “untenable and unworkable” and resigned on July 8. She offered to work out her three-month notice period, but Kress turned the offer down and said Kim and Garcia did not have to come into the office any longer. A letter from Kress reproduced in the affidavit states that, and Kress signs off with “have a nice weekend.”
“At this time, Mr. Kress informed me and Mr. Garcia that Carolina Herrera (the person) did not like our designs for the upcoming show [for spring 2016] and that she felt she could finish the collection in a way that was appropriate for her brand. In fact, Carolina Herrera said to me at that time: ‘Nobody knows you and nobody knows that you are here. I am more famous than you and have more powerful friends.’”
The affidavit says that Herrera did substantially change the designs. It also states that Kim told the Herrera company that she was leaving because it would not make Garcia co-creative director “and because CH would not agree to support Monse’s development as a brand,” adding that Kim “did not feel that this was a positive environment for creative input.”

 

News of Kim and Garcia joining de la Renta broke in early September and five days later Kress sent Kim a letter invoking the six-month non-compete agreement.
The Herrera suit claims that the brand has lost business since Kim’s departure and that the fall collection shown during New York Fashion Week in February has been a dud at retail.
The suit contends Kim was a “unique employee” who is “very adept at creating designs that are what commercial clients are interested in stocking in their stores,” adding that the resort 2016 collection Kim helped design was “the most commercially successful ever in its 35-year history.”

 

Vogue Italia Editor: Franca Sozzani dead at 66!

December 26, 2016, 10:22 am

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Franca Sozzani, the Editor in Chief of Italian Vogue, has died.
Franca, an ageless 66, was born in Mantua. Her father, a classic Italian patriarch, was an industrial engineer who did not approve his daughter’s early ambitions to study physics. She studied literature and philosophy at university in Milan instead, and married soon after, although she knew, as she later admitted, that the marriage was doomed before she walked into the church. (Franca would later confess that romantic relationships were the one weak link in her formidable arsenal of triumphs.) The couple divorced three months later, and the free-spirited Franca went to India to find herself—“I thought it was time to do something good with my life.” Time spent in Swinging London further nurtured her creative spirit.

 

When she returned from her odyssey, she stumbled into a job at Vogue Bambini (as “assistant to the assistant to the assistant,” as she playfully remembered). By 1980, she landed the editorship of Lei, aimed at young women, with Per Lui, its male counterpart, following in 1982. She transformed both these titles into showcases for the most dynamic trends in international fashion and lifestyle image-making. When Oliviero Toscani, her key photographer, moved on from her magazines, she began nurturing a dazzling talent roster of emerging photographers including Mario Testino, Paolo Roversi, Herb Ritts, Peter Lindbergh, Bruce Weber, and Steven Meisel, all of whom were attracted by the unprecedented editorial freedom that she gave them, and her passion for photography.

“Why would anyone buy Italian Vogue?” she once queried, “They wouldn’t—only Italians read Italian.” She knew that she needed to communicate instead through powerful imagery, and by showcasing her photographers’ work in this way, she earned their unswerving loyalty and their willingness to work with her magazines’ negligible budgets. “When I sent all these photos to you, I would write on the package ‘personal,’ ” Weber wrote to her, “I now realize that I took them for you because you would be the only one who would understand.”
At the same time, Franca became an indispensable part of the Italian fashion scene, a shrewd power broker with an unequaled reach to its designers and the manufacturers and industrialists who keep the industry’s wheels turning. She ensured, in the process, that her stable of photographers and editors were also working on lucrative advertising campaigns—which meant, of course, that her exacting standards of editorial excellence were reflected in the look of the magazines before one even reached the editorial content.

 

In 1988, she was appointed Editor in Chief of Italian Vogue—the same month that Anna Wintour was made the Editor in Chief at American Vogue. (By 1994, she was made Editor in Chief of Italian Condé Nast, enjoying great support from Jonathan Newhouse, the chairman of Condé Nast International.) Franca immediately shook up the formulaic title with dynamic covers and content, creating a magazine that, in her words, would be “extravagant, experimental, innovative.”
Her first issue, for July/August 1988, with the single cover line “Il Nuovo Stile,” and a sepia-washed black-and-white image by Meisel of the pillowy-lipped model Robin MacKintosh wearing a plain white Ferré blouse, signaled that she was not going to be playing by anyone else’s rules. Meisel has shot nearly every subsequent cover for her magazine. As she had at Lei and Per Lui, Franca soon created a powerful visual language for the magazine, drawing on the talents of a core group of photographers—Weber, Roversi, and Lindbergh among them—whose collaborations with her would set the bar for fashion imagery through the decades and launch and mold the great models of the age. “Before fashion,” she said, “I love images.” In the process, she turned Italian Vogue into a magazine powerhouse with a reach and influence far beyond its relatively modest circulation. By contrast, the first-person blog she launched five years ago discussed contemporary issues in an endearingly forthright and revealing way.

 

Franca’s ethereal, otherworldly beauty, with her limpid blue eyes and tumble of pale blonde Pre-Raphaelite waves, belied her indomitable personality. “I listen,” she said, “but I must go my own way.”
A maverick spirit, she turned her Vogue into a magazine that not only celebrated the power of the image, but also used fashion stories as a platform to discuss broader issues, and the obsessions of the fashionable world. Franca had a passion for, and a deep knowledge of, fashion and its history, but an ability to keep an amused distance from its modern day excesses.
She was fearless in her willingness to tackle provocative and controversial social and cultural issues through the medium of fashion shoots. (“Fashion isn’t really about clothes,” she said, “it’s about life.”)
Lightning rod subjects included domestic violence (“Horror Movie,” Steven Meisel, April 2014), and the contemporary obsession with plastic surgery (“Makeover Madness,” July 2005, a droll Meisel portfolio starring Linda Evangelista, Julia Stegner, and Missy Rayder, among others), and even the 2010 BP oil spill (Meisel with Kristen McMenamy washed up on the rocks and slicked with tar).
In 2008, she produced the Black Issue, its editorial pages, entirely shot by Meisel, exclusively featuring women of color. It contributed mightily to the dialogue about diversity in the fashion industry and became an instant collector’s item. “Franca doesn’t realize what she’s done for people of color,” her friend Naomi Campbell (one of four cover stars with 20 portraits inside the magazine) told The New York Times at the time, “It reminds me of Yves [Saint Laurent] using all the black models.”

 

As well as promoting young designers and encouraging other industry types to support them through her Who Is on Next? initiative, Franca also took an active role in social issues beyond the pages of her magazines. She was the creative director of Convivio, the AIDS initiative that Gianni Versace launched in 1992, and also founded Child Priority with Jonathan Newhouse, to provide work opportunities for underprivileged children. She was appointed global ambassador against hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme, with a particular focus on the empowerment and education of women and girls, and as their goodwill ambassador for Fashion 4 Development, she worked in areas including poverty and gender equality, through the medium of fashion-based initiatives. In this capacity, she traveled extensively through Africa meeting both far-flung villagers and heads of state in a concerted effort to understand the issues and find solutions, and subsequently raised global awareness—and funds—to support the projects.

 

Franca’s consummate personal taste extended into the environments that she created for herself and her son, Francesco Carrozzini. In Milan she lived in a stylish Gio Ponti–era apartment in the fashionable heart of town, filled with Deco and modern furniture, and works that reflected her passion for photography and her engagement with contemporary art (she was a collaborator of Maurizio Cattelan and Vanessa Beecroft).
She also owned an airy villa in Portofino, and in Marrakech she acquired a series of riads in the heart of the medina, creating a unique, rambling property out of the Arabian Nights with high-ceilinged rooms decorated in rich, spicy colors evocative of a Bakst decor for the Ballets Russes, its splendors offset by the contemplative calm of its De Chirico–esque courtyards with their arched loggias and verdant gardens. 

 

Immaculately dressed in navy and white pants, she would set off to play golf—an enduring and lifelong passion—in the king’s beautiful, palm-fringed course.
Franca was especially close to her only child, Francesco. Like her, he studied philosophy, but spent recent years directing and producing a documentary about his mother. The result, Franca: Chaos and Creation (the title came from Weber’s description of the editor’s approach), premiered on a Friday evening at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, with a high-voltage guest list, and to great critical acclaim. As well as revealing the profound esteem in which Franca’s collaborators held her (Lindbergh even confessed to having enjoyed a decades-long platonic love affair with her), it also turned out to be a profoundly moving study of an unusually close mother and son relationship that was by turns playfully combative, conspiratorial, and loving, and founded on a deep mutual respect and reliance.
It was a letter of love from a child to a parent, and a remarkably evocative testament to the personality of this remarkable woman whose talent was matched by her fierce loyalty and her passion for life.