Lorenzo Martone and I are in complete agreement on one thing: it's time to bring back the Supermodel with a capital S. I grew up on a steady diet of Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Christie Brinkley, Kristen McMenamy, Stephanie Seymour and Elaine Irwin--and still turned out relatively well-adjusted. With his agency Arc NY Talent PR, Lorenzo and fellow founder Ryan Brown aim to take a model's career to that "super" status. (It was announced the next day that their client Irina Shayk was the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover girl.)
I think supermodels are what the fashion world needs now because they have voices and personalities and interests and lives and often unique, distinctive features. One random fact that has stuck with me since my teens (back when journalists still wrote lengthy profiles about models in magazines) was that Cindy Crawford was the valedictorian of her high school class. (And, I just learned on her Wikipedia page, received a scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern. Well then!)
So, in other words, I knew something positive about the person behind the hair, the bathing suits, and the "Freedom" video. I knew that she was a real person. This kind of identity doesn't exist among the current crop of blank-faced 15-year-old models. How could it? They haven't even fully developed physically, let alone emotionally or intellectually.
So it was in that vein that Lorenzo and Ryan and their model clients Jeisa Chiminazzo and Linda Vojtova hosted a dinner honoring Andre Leon Talley and celebrating "The Return of the Supermodels Era" on Sunday night.
I sat across the table from Jeisa, who had just walked in the DKNY show earlier that day. Jeisa and I (and Huffington Post blogger and Vogue Italia editor-at-large Sabine Heller) talked about vulgarity among the Kim Kardashian generation, the virtues of covering up once in a while, and our shared passion for eating well and eating alone (because 1. You are your own best company, and 2. It's easier to enjoy your food). Turns out Jeisa is quite the foodie, and she'll hopefully blog for the Food section.
The food talk reminded me of another client of Arc: Alessandra Ambrosio. Lorenzo had recently told me that the night before she opened a Victoria's Secret show they ordered delivery and shot got a cheeseburger and fries. Which reminded me that the one time Alessandra blogged for us, it was partly about her bacon egg & cheese sandwich for breakfast. These are interests I can get behind.
Unfortunately I didn't get to talk much to Mr. ALT as he was sitting at another table, surrounded by friends. He did come up to me and Sabine toward the end and said "Are you the ladies I'm supposed to take a picture with?" I'm flattered that he momentarily mistook us for Jeisa and Linda Vojtova, and I was especially relieved when the 6'7" icon sat down for the snapshot.
Photos by Clint Spaulding/PMc.
