Archive for August 21st, 2007
It would be naive to say models are getting younger:Gemma’s first Prada ad came at fifteen; Gisele’s been booking since junior high.
Still, with the renewed talk model health and the restrictions of teenage girls on the runway, it’s amusing to see how many huge girls are still taking algebra.
The most obvious example is Tanya D., who was allowed to walk at fifteen because she had a chaperone backstage (and who, let’s face it, was born for this). Likewise to Chanel Iman, who finally turned seventeen this season.
But in September, there will be some new kids in the hall – sorry, we mean tents.
Anabela Belikova (left) just turned sixteen – and just got promoted from IMG Development to their Women’s Board. Her work has earned it, since she snagged a Balenciaga campaign and a Marc Jacobs crush – not bad for a beautiful girl born on the ’90s.
Also promoted to IMG Women: Irina K, the waify cutie that British Vogue weirdly called out to signal The Return of the Woman. Not quite – especially since Irina is also still prom-aged.
Stay tuned for them on the catwalk next month, and if you see them backstage, maybe offer to help them with their homework?
August 21st, 2007
Amid concern over the frenzy of entertainment internet blogs and tabloids competing for inside information on Gibson’s tirade during a drunk-driving arrest and Hilton’s days in jail, state lawmakers have taken steps to clamp down on some forms of chequebook journalism.A bill currently going through the Legislature will – if passed – make it a crime for law enforcement or court employees to profit by releasing confidential information gathered in criminal investigations or unauthorised photographs of people in custody.
The proposed legislation – which was requested by controversial Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, whose staff dealt with Gibson and Hilton – has outraged the media in the golden state. Tom Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association said the measure would whittle away press freedoms for the convenience of celebrities.
“It’s the Paris Hilton and Mel Gibson Protection Act,” he told The Los Angeles Times.
“Fundamentally, it attempts to regulate news gathering and criminalise it.”But proponents said outlawing celebrity leaks and punishing public employees who take cash from the media was a necessary move to restore faith in the state’s justice system following allegations of law enforcement officials providing prohibited information for cash
Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, who introduced the bill at Sheriff Baca’s request, said the digital media age and obsession with celebrity news made the law a necessity. “I felt it was important to help law enforcement to maintain the integrity of the criminal justice system,” she said.
“So-called traditional media (have) obtained information and pictures through official channels and via the Public Records Act.
“The new Internet media and others have recently been attempting to circumvent the system by offering law enforcement officials money for information and pictures of celebrities.”
Ms Brownley said the bill would not quash acts protected by state whistle-blower laws, including the release of information involving allegations of improper activity by government agencies or officials. Sheriff Baca’s office is investigating the leak of Gibson’s police report to LA celebrity news agency blog TMZ after the star’s arrest in July last year – which subsequently made headlines around the world.
“When we arrested Mel Gibson we lost control of the information and it ended up on a blog,” Baca said.
“The question is whether that was done for profit or gratuitously.”
The investigation has not found evidence that police documents and information in Gibson case was released to TMZ for financial gain.
TMZ published parts of a deputy’s account of the actor-director spouting anti-Semitic remarks as he was being arrested for drink driving in Malibu.
The bill would make it a misdemeanor for those entrusted with such material to receive financial gain in exchange for confidential information obtained in a criminal investigation or to solicit or offer financial compensation for such information.
The ban would include “any unauthorised photograph or video taken inside any secure area of a law enforcement or court facility”.
Sheriff Lee Baca said the law was a necessity in an age when a photo of a jailed Paris Hilton could have reportedly fetched up to $US500,000 ($A620,00).
“It was like putting a bounty on her,” Baca said.
No photographs have been published of Hilton in her cell during her 23-day sentence at LA’s Century Regional Detention Facility Hilton for violating the terms of her probation on alcohol-related charges of reckless driving.
Sheriff Baca said he was concerned about confidential information being sold even if it was not about celebrities.
“We in law enforcement have a tremendous amount of information (and providing it to anyone) for profit is wrong,” he said.
Recently allegations of California law enforcement officials releasing confidential information have made headlines in the US.
Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano, who was recently charged for illegal wiretapping, alleged that he paid members of law enforcement agencies for confidential information while doing background checks in cases involving celebrities, including comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon.
In another incident, an Los Angeles Police Department investigation determined last month that one of the agency’s officers used a mobile phone to shoot video of the rapper known as The Game as he was held in a jail cell after being arrested.
The video, provided to TMZ, showed the entertainer bragging and waving a wad of money.
TMZ posted the video May 12, the day after police arrested the rapper at his Glendale home on suspicion of making criminal threats.
Investigators said the unidentified officer insisted that he provided the video to TMZ for fun and they had not found any evidence that the officer was compensated.
By Peta Hellard in Los Angeles
August 21st, 2007
Hotel heiress Paris Hilton launched a post-jail media make-over, vowing to shed her party-girl image and prove she is a changed person after serving three weeks behind bars for violating probation in a drunken-driving case.
“I’m a good person. I’m a compassionate person. I have a big heart. I’m sincere, and they’ll see,” Hilton told People magazine in excerpts published on Wednesday from her first interview since getting out of jail Tuesday in Los Angeles.
Appearing later on CNN’s Larry King Live show, the 26-year-old multimillionaire said she felt bad that many of her former fellow inmates would end up back on the streets, and back in trouble, because they lack family or support systems.
“I want to help set up a place where these women can get themselves back on their feet … kind of a transitional home,” she said. “I know I can make a difference.”
Hilton acknowledged she has long enjoyed the Hollywood party scene but added, “it’s not going to be the mainstay of my life anymore.”
“I’ve definitely matured and grown a lot from this experience,” she told King. “I could be a more responsible role model.”
She spoke in both interviews about why she was briefly released to home detention after just three days in jail — a move swiftly overruled by a judge after a public outcry over whether she was given special treatment.
“I was basically in the fetal position, basically in hysterics … and having severe anxiety and panic attacks,” Hilton said in the People interview.
She told King she has suffered from claustrophobia since childhood, and in jail was forced to just “deal with it.”
“I read letters, I wrote in my journal, and I would just close my eyes and pretend I was somewhere else.”
Michelle Nichols , Reuters
August 21st, 2007
Supermodel KATE MOSS threw a diva-like strop when she saw GIRLS ALOUD star SARAH HARDING on her table in the VIP section of the V Festival.
Indulging in the kind of hissy fit only a supermodel can throw, Kate then reportedly moaned: “Who are these people?
“There’s too many of them. I’m not going in there, no chance. Get them out.”
The Daily Mirror then claims Kate’s staff removed
Sarah and her friends so Kate could sit where she wanted.
A source told the paper: “Sarah looked really upset and scurried off to lock herself in the toilet.”
However, Kate was not done throwing a wobbly and stormed off herself after spotting an official photographer around the table. Swearing “like a trooper”, the model then disappeared with her entourage.
Once staff managed to coax Sarah out of the loo and back to the seat she managed to calm down, according to insiders. Kate returned later but the two were kept apart on separate tables.
The source added: “Organisers made sure there was always a table between them and Sarah was kept away from Kate who was giving her evil looks all night.”
August 21st, 2007
Naomi Campbell, who rose to fame in the international fashion world after appearing on the cover of Vogue at the age of 17, has accused magazines of “sidelining black beauty”.
Campbell, 37, said she was so dismayed by the dearth of black models on the front of glossy magazines that, two decades after her Vogue debut, she was planning to set up an agency in Kenya to redress the imbalance.
The model, from south London, became one of the fashion industry’s most famous faces in the Nineties and appeared on the front of British Vogue seven times following her debut shoot in 1987.
But since she appeared on its front cover in August 2002, no other black model has been similarly promoted. Speaking during a trip to Nairobi, Campbell said: “Black models are being sidelined by the major modelling agencies. It is a pity that people don’t appreciate black beauty.
“Even myself, I get a raw deal from my own country in England. For example, I hardly come on the front pages of the London Vogue magazine. Only white models, some of whom are not as prominent as I am, are put on splash pages. I don’t want to quit modelling until I find that black models get equal prominence and recognition by the world media,” she said.
Adenike Adenitire, editor of the women’s supplement for New Nation, a newspaper for Britain’s black community, said she felt models with light skin were more likely to advance their careers. In 2005, the singer Beyoncé Knowles was caught up in a controversy after appearing on the front cover of Vanity Fair, when some accused the magazine of airbrushing the image to make her skin appear lighter, an allegation Vanity Fair vehemently denied. Adenitire said: “I would say a lot of black girls do not get certain breaks, not because they are not great models but because they are black. You don’t really see black models on the front covers of mainstream magazines in Britain, especially darker-skinned models. The black models you do see tend to have features that are less ethnic, more Anglicised. It is far more common to see black faces on front covers in America and women who have very ethnic features.”
Anya James, 20, a black model from London and a former contestant on channel Five’s reality show, Make me a Supermodel, said Campbell’s words rang true. “From my experience as a black model, I have to work 10 times as hard. For example, at castings, I make sure I look 110 per cent and that I’m on my best form. You hardly ever see a black model in the public eye, but no-one seems to be speaking up about this imbalance,” she said.
Select Model Management, owned by Tandy Anderson, who is among the top 50 most influential black businesswomen in a list published by New Nation next week, said: “We have some very successful black models on our books such as Nadine Willis, who was the first black girl to get a Gucci contract. Nell Robinson, another of our top black models, has appeared in campaigns for Victoria’s Secret and Rimmel and is shooting for H&M.”
Top black models
* IMAN
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia and married to David Bowie, she is the daughter of the Somali ambassador to Saudi Arabia and was recruited by the American photographer Peter Beard.
* TYRA BANKS
The Californian talkshow host came to prominence at 17 when she was put on the books of Elite modelling agency. But she was rejected many times before making her breakthrough in commercial modelling. Now known as a judge of the reality television show America’s Next Top Model.
* ALEK WEK
From the Dinka tribe of southern Sudan, she came to England with her family seeking political asylum. She studied fashion technology in London and was discovered by the Models One scout Fiona Ellis while attending a party.
By Arifa Akbar
August 21st, 2007
