Made*In*Italy*On*Line
Newsletter - Summer 1995
Claudia talked about her aversion to being photographed as a child (!): "I thought I looked horrible, skinny, at 13 I was the tallest in my school, even taller than the boys....today I eat fruit, salad, and once in a while, chicken. But in Italy I eat pasta and caprese salad." As a child Claudia dreamed of becoming a lawyer like my father, I admired him a great deal and often went to the courthouse with him."
Asked why she posed nude with Sylvester Stallone? "First because the photographer was Avedon, second because I liked to let people think they
were seeing something but they really didn't see anything." But, commented
the journalist, the REAL star of the evening was guest Fiorello, pop singer
and host of a popular Karaoke TV show, who brought the house down when he
imitated the top models on the runway, some with smiles, some poker-faced.
However, some of the protagonists refused to take part in the fight: Pat Cleveland, queen of the runway models in New York in the seventies and eighties told Il Giornale: "Models and actresses are the same thing, they both represent the triumph of beauty."
Carla Bruni, considered the most intellectual of the models, skipped the Milan collections this season, but was quoted from Germany where she was working
on a TV ad: "I'm very happy to cede my place on the runway to actresses who can't wait to appear in person on stage. Also because there's less and less talk about Italian cinema. I'm not interested in being an actress and in any case I don't think I have the talent for the movies."
Glimpses of the SuperModels
Gianfranco Sacchi from the Riccardo Gay agency ranks the models:
Going up: Gianne, thirteen-year old Brazilian model. Sandra
Chutzinsky, an impossible name but a fabulous figure. Rosemarie Wetzel,
called Cindy's double because of her identical mole, but she feels very
different.
Going down: Claudia Schiffer, too busy doing other things. Naomi,
her record's a flop, she didn't write her book, can she still be a model?
Helena Christensen, not because she's not beautiful and capable but
because she's overexposed.
Stable: Carla Bruni, she didn't come and you don't talk about the
absent. Greta Cavazzoni, the beautiful Italian who looks like Linda
Evangelista with a Bolognese accent. Kate Moss, very quietly she appears
in the most prestigious shows.
Giorgio Armani avoids using the flashy top models in his show,
preferring attention to be focused on his clothes, but he acquiesed to
the request by Naomi Campbell to attend his show, held in a former steel
mill, Ansaldo.
Sometimes a model breaks the heel of one of her shoes on the runway, so she
just takes them off and goes on with the show, but just before Krizia's
show Shalom Harlow, the popular twenty-year-old Canadian, banged her head
against a wall and passed out. She was immediately taken to a hospital but
fortunately X-rays showed that no real harm was done, although doctors
recommended a day's rest.
French makup artist Francois Nars, 34, was in Milan to do the makeup
on the models for Gianni Versace's show. He told Corriere della Sera:
"Claudia asks me to make her eyes bigger and more intense. Naomi loves to
have her face sculptured. Carla Bruni likes to play around with blusher
and eye shadow but cares most about her eyes. I love Shalom, Nadja
Auremann, Linda Evangelista and Madonna because their beauty is extreme and
their strong personalities can be emphasized even more. The most important
asset of a makeup artist is fantasy, because makeup is an accessory like
the others and should be changed often."
The revelation in Milan was thirteen year old Brazilian model Gianne, whose youth and milky-white skin has enchanted designers like Armani and Ermanno Ronchi (ErreUno). She was discovered a few months ago in her home town of
Sao Paolo when a photographer approached her while she was shopping and
asked her to pose for some pictures.
Before taking to the runway for Erreuno she crossed herself four times,
and found herself signing autographs right after the show.
"I'm nervous before the show, but there is such a rush it helps, and I tell
myself just get to the end of it. I only work as a model for two months a year so I'll finish school with my class. I don't have any favorite top models and I don't want to resemble anybody. I'd like to continue this work, I'm having fun, I hope they want
me again."
Model agent Riccardo Gay, who found her photograph at a small
model agency and persuaded her to come to Milan with her mother. "She's
not paid much compared to the top models," says Riccardo Gay, "but it can
go up. Naomi and Claudia are always beautiful but the fashion world needs
new faces."
"The new models make me feel old already," said Carla Bruni, 25,
referring to Georgianna and Jean McKaan. Unfortunately at the very moment
that a model is at the apex of her success, with covers onmagazines
everywhere, it's possible for her to be considered "overexposed." The new
supermodels are waiting in the wings: Brandy Quinones, Beverly Peele,
Tyra, Georgianna, Shalom, Amber Valletta, and Bery Smithers are just a few
of rising stars.
The series of advertisements that Claudia Schiffer shot several months ago for Valentino evoking the days of La Dolce Vita and causing a few near-riots (carefully orchestrated by the Valentino staff!) have appeared in Italian newspapers in double-page format. Some show her in front of the Bulgari store on Via Condotti (Paolo Bulgari presented her with the limited-edition plastic Bulgari watch for her trouble),
sitting in the back of a convertible on Via Veneto with the ubiquitious Vespa-rider
zipping by, and wading in the fountain of Trevi a-la-Anita Ekberg in
hip-deep boots covered by a black slip evening dress.
The Arthur Elgort photos are elegant and spontaneous, and the operation garnered an incredible amount of free newspaper and magazine and TV space for Valentino, including a brief clip on CNN. Valentino was one of the first Italian fashion houses
to catch on to the value of event-as-publicity, starting with the large do they staged several years ago to celebrate his twenty-five years in the business.
According to publisher Mondadori's press office, Claudia's book sold
over 30,000 copies in a week, a lot for any book published in Italy.
The Fashion Cafe in New York was inaugurated with lots of flash and the appearance of super models Naomi Campbell, Elle MacPherson, and Claudia Schiffer, but nobody knows if they own a piece of the action or are entitled to a slice of the profits. Tommaso Buti, evidently the owner of the restaurant, hasn't answered rumors that he gave them 10 percent of the place, but Giorgio Santambrogio, owner of the Milan model agency Fashion, is not amused. He already owns two places in Milan called Fashion Cafe` and says he doesn't want to make waves but he's not happy. Claudia Schiffer, who works for him when in Milan, made a diplomatic phone call, and Santambrogio says: "Claudia isn't just one of my models, she's also a friend."
Amber Valletta is being called the new Marlene Dietrich, and a series of photographs by Peter Lindbergh commissioned by Giorgio Armani are helping things along considerably. In recognition of Armani's passion for films ("It's the form of artistic expression that attracts me the most,") the organizers of Kino-Movie-Cinema, an exhibit opened April 7 at the Martin Gropius Bau Museum of Berlin to honor 100 years of films asked him to contribute an homage to Marlene Dietrich. He accepted with enthusiasm, and selected outfits from past collections he felt reflected her image and dressed model Valletta in them for a series of photographs which appear in Berlin along with clothes Marlene actually wore.
More about Claudia Schiffer: She took advantage of the Milan collections to promote her new book, just published in Italian. She made several television appearances, including one on the "Maurizio Costanzo Show" a venerable Italian talk show. Taping started half an hour late to wait for her arrival from Milan, accompanied by eight (yes, eight) bodyguards. She took a few minutes to do her own makeup, select one of three suits from Valentino's latest collection (she chose the green one) and was presented to the other guests on the show who included several politicians.
Newspapers have to find controversy to write about, even when it doesn't exist, so many papers ran articles that said the supermodels were upset that so many designers had invited actresses to parade down the runways wearing their clothes. It always gets a bit of extra publicity for the designers, and an excuse for the papers to run yet another photo of a top model.
Isabella Rossellini, who modeled for the shows of Dolce & Gabbana and
Maska, told Le Figaro: "Lancome didn't want me any more so I had to find a
new job." After having been Lancome's "face" for years she is now Vice
President for International Marketing in New York for Lancaster. "Meryl
Streep once told me - you run your house and your children, you're already
a manager."
The Italian press is fascinated by the first Eskimo to become a top
model, Irina Pantaeva, 21, whose long thin legs and widely-spaced eyes are
her trademarks. She's the model wearing a blue-green dress floating on her
back in water, her long black hair fanned around her face, that you see in
the Missoni ads. She was born near Lake Baikal in Ulan Ude, Siberia, and
speaks Russian with her husband, photographer Roland Levine, born on the
Baltic Sea. They live in New York. She was launched in 1994 by Yves St.
Laurent, and did 18 shows during the latest New York Fashion week.
Angie Everhart, seen often at the side of Sylvester Stallone, has
transparent skin, brown eyes, and comes from Akron, Ohio. The model with
flaming red hair is 25, at the top of her profession. She was first
noticed in the 1991 Levis TV ad as the stockbroker who slipped on a pair of
jeans, yanked off her skirt, and hopped on the back of the Harley Davidson
driven by her flame. "I don't know if it's the Stallone effect but she
gets $8,000 per fashion show," says Paolo Tomei of Fashion Model.
Photographer Marco Glaviano loves to work with her: "She's good and she's
stubborn. And in front of the lens she always gives a bit more than you
ask. And that flaming red hair makes her unique." Says Stefano Gabbana:
"It's wonderful working with her. She's always smiling, she works hard.
And she has a special charm, halfway between a big cat and a perverse
woman."
Every season during the Milan collections a star is launched, and this March it was the turn of thirteen-year old Jianne Albertoni, a Brazilian with Italian grandparents. Six feet tall, she made her debut at Erreuno's show wearing a long white jacket and thigh-high boots, decorated with a fox stole. Italian magazines reported that she earned in a day what her father, an urban policeman, makes in a month. The green-eyed, blonde model from Sao Paolo then did shows for Armani, Versace, Ferretti, Biagiotti, Chiara Boni, Tivioli, Prada, and Max Mara. She has contracts in the US for Versace and Calvin Klein. She is always accompanied by her mother Maria
Teresa Vincente, who won't let her be absent from school without the principal's permission. She was born July 5, 1981 in San Paolo and has a 16-year-old brother named Kleber.
(Compiled from reports in Italian newspapers and magazines)
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