MODEL

THE UGLY BUSINESS OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

by Michael Gross ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1995

This intelligent and intermittently absorbing history of the modeling industry offers a group portrait of playboys, party girls, and a few genuine talents.. From its start in the early 1920s, the modeling industry has made photogenic teens into flash-in-the-pan stars. Gross—a senior writer at Esquire and a former New York Times fashion reporter- -doggedly interviews the major players, past and present. He profiles models: Dorian Leigh, who got started in 1944 and went on to run two agencies; her sister Suzy Parker; Jean Shrimpton; Lauren Hutton; Twiggy; and Cindy Crawford. And photographers: Avedon, the master; David Bailey and his group of early '60s London renegades, whose scene was depicted in Antonioni's 1966 film Blow-Up; to unrepentantly imitative Steven Meisel and his bratty ``Trinity''- -Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Linda Evangelista. And then there are the agents: controlling Eileen Ford, whose showy ``mothering'' of her models is secondary to her ruthless business acumen; and playboy John Casablancas, whose sexual exploits were so extreme as to cause one observer to comment, ``John can look at a girl, and in five minutes the girl takes her underwear off.'' Sexually exploitative men are everywhere in this seamy industry, and the models who fall prey to drugs and ill-advised affairs and marriages are so numerous as to add up to tedious reading. The few who emerge into second careers—like '60s star Veruschka, who now makes serious art that comments on the objectification of the female body—are the happy exceptions. Gross downplays the dishy, insider-gossip stuff that could have made his history more of a page-turner, choosing instead to emphasize business dealings and first-person reminiscences, sobered by hindsight. Model wannabes will be well advised to read and reread these cautionary tales—and to hide this volume from their parents. (50 b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: May 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-688-12659-6

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION