IT IS WHAT IT IS

HAPPY NEW YEAR..BACK AND AVAILABLE

2010-01-03T02:44:00.007-05:00

HI EVERYONE...

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND..HERE I AM

HAPPY 2010 EVERYONE..2009 WAS A BITCH, WASNT IT? IM HAPPY ITS OVER LOL

I HAVE ALOT TO BE THANKFUL FOR ( AND I AM) AND I HAVE ALOT TO FIGURE OUT( WHICH I AM)..

IVE GOT AMAZING FRIENDS
LOVE IN MY LIFE
FAMILY WHO LOVE ME
3 AMAZING NEPHEWS
TRULY THE BEST MODELS WORKING TODAY..IM BLESSED
AND A GREAT CAREER

BUT HOW I WISH I CAN WIN THE LOTTERY AND BE A MAN OF LEISURE..RIIGHT?

R.I.P GILBERT STAFFORD, LEGENDARY EVERYTHING..A TRUE AND RARE CLASS ACT

SPENT NEW YEARS WITH BEN AND CO AT THE BOOM BOOM ROOM AT THE STANDARD TO HEAR COURTNEY LOVE PERFORM AT 12: 01 AM ..SHE WAS SURPRISINGLY REALLY REALLY GOOD. HAD FUN , DANCED TO SOME GREAT TUNES AND WAS IN BED BY 130 AM.

SPENT THE NEXT DAY HUNG OVER ON MY COUCH, PONDERING BUYING THE MOST MAJOR SOFA EVER AT ABC HOME...IT MAY BE TOO RICH FOR MY BLOOD BUT I AM LIVING FOR IT...ITS MAJOR MAJOR.

I BOUGHT A TON OF BOOKS AS A GIFT FOR MYSELF AND FINALLY HAVE STEVEN MEISELS FIRST BOOK ( HIS BOOK OF VOGUE ITALIA COVERS) LOOKING THRU IT WAS LIKE LOOKING BACK AT A TIMELINE OF MY LIFE..FROM SHANA ZADRICK TO NICOLE BEACH TO CHRISTIAN WILLIAM TO MS AMBER VALETTA THEN TO THOSI ALL THE WAY DOWN TO JOHNNY ZANDER TO NATE NESBITT AND BLAINE COOK..ITS A REAL TREAT..SO HAPPY TO HAVE IT IN MY MITS.

LOOKING FOWARD TO GETTING BACK TO THE GRIND...I LOVE THE HUSTLE AND FLOW OF IT ALL..BUT DAMN, WITH FACEBOOK, CELL PHONES, TEXTING ,BBM..THERE IS NO WAY TO SHUT IT DOWN..LIKE MOST AGENTS I WAS WORKING ON X MAS EVE, BACK ON IT THE DAY AFTER X MAS, AND BOOKING THINGS EVEN TODAY. THERE IS NO REST FOR THE WICKED IT SEEMS.

PLEASE RUN OUT AND BUY BRUCE WEBERS NEW BOOK ON ROBERTO BOLLE BOOK " AN ATHLETE IN TIGHTS"..ITS SO GORGEOUS.

THINGS IM OBSESSED WITH:

GLEE
WICKED SOUNDTRACK (IM LATE ON THIS)
CAJMERE "BRIGHTER DAYS":
MOTHERS FINEST "BABY LOVE"
FARMVILLE ON FACEBOOK..ITS REAL AND ITS DEEP
GIRLFRIENDS RERUNS ON WE

THINGS IM OVER:

THIS FUCKING WIND WITH THE COLD AIR..ENOUGH
20 SOMETHINGS WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHATS WHAT
SMOKERS...REEL IT IN
SIDE LINE CRITICS..GET IN THE GAME OR SHUT UP
BEING FAT (ON GOING DRAM)

OH, I HAVE A NEW GOD SON..SAGE IMAZAKI NAKAYAMA..SEIJO AND JOY HAD A BABY..THE CUTEST LITTLEBOY..ILL POST A PIC HERE

ANYWAY, ILL BE BACK
LOVE AND LIGHT

J

THINGS I AM LIVING FOR..IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

2009-10-04T22:46:00.002-04:00

MY FRIENDS..THE BEST ON THE PLANET..JILL JENN CAMERON BENNY AND DARRYL

MY MAN, THINGS HAVE GOT BETTER. IVE ALSO BEEN LESS OF A CUNT WHICH MADE IT EASIER FOR HIM TO BE HIM

VOGUE HOMMES JAPAN
MAD MEN
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
THE CHANGE OF SEASONS
THAT I STILL HAVE MY AUGUST TAN
MOTHERS FINEST "BABY LOVE"
MADONNA AND GAGA ON SNL

RECONNECTED WITH ADRIAN ALVARADO, MARIA BROWN AND CANDI CANNCEL

BACK TO BACK VOGUE ITALY WITH SIMON NESSMAN AND STEVEN MEISEL
THE WORK OF JOE LALLY & GREG VAUGHAN

GLEE MAKES ME HAPPY

GOING TO PARIS IN JANUARY
I CANT WAIT TO BE AT THE HOTEL COSTES WITH THE PEOPLE I LOVE THE MOST

MY SUMMER IN FIRE ISLAND PINES
MY NEW FRIENDSHIP IN ROSS

I FEEL LOVED...I JUST WANT MORE OF IT ..IS THAT WRONG? IS IT TOO NEEDY?

IM LOOKING FOWARD TO AN AMAZING SEASON FOR THE GUYS]
THIS IS THE BEST ROSTER WE HAVE HAD TO DATE...FANS OF MAJOR LOOK OUT FOR RYAN KONING..HE IS OUR NEXT BIG THING..IF YOU RECALLI PICKED NATE GILL ,AND THEN TRAVIS HANSON BEFORE THAT..(I KNWO WHAT IM DOING YALL)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KERRY DEGMAN..HE TURNED 21 TODAY, AND CELEBRATED BY FLYIING FROM SPAIN TO NY AFTER A BOOKING ABROAD..

LOVE N LIGHT

RANDOM PICS

2009-10-04T20:39:00.004-04:00

I TURNED 40

2009-10-04T20:32:00.002-04:00

HI

ITS BEEN SUCH A LONG TIME SINCE IVE BLOGGED AND SO MUCH HAS "HAPPENED"

WHAT DO YOU WANNA KNOW?

I TURNED 40
THE AGENCY AND MY BEST FRIENDS THRU A ONCE IN A LIFETIME SOIREE FOR ME
I WAS OVERWHELMED, TOUCED AND APPRECIATIVE

I SPENT PART OF MY SUMMER IN FIRE ISLAND PINES, AND HIT THE GROUND RUNNING FOR SUMMER 2010 FASHION SHOWS IN NYC

IM GOING TO PARIS IN JANUARY

IM ALWAYS TIRED

EMAIL ME YOUR QUESTIONS..ILL ANSWER THEM

JASON@MAJORMODEL.COM

VOGUE ITALY SIMON NESSMAN STEVEN MEISEL

CHARLES DEVOE BY JOE LALLY

2009-07-27T16:38:00.003-04:00

A CERTAIN KIND OF LOVE..THANKS ARETHA

2009-07-01T22:13:00.000-04:00

He's the kind of guy that would say
'Hey baby let's get away let's go some place, huh''
Well I don't care
He's the kind of guy that you give your everything
And trust your heart, share all of your love, till death do you part

I want to be what he wants when he wants it, and whenever he needs it
And when he's lonesome and feelin' love starved
I'll be there to feed it
I'm givin' him a little bit for each day
He turns me right on when I hear him say

(Hey baby let's get away, let's go somewhere far
(Baby can we')
Well I don't care
(Hey baby let's get away, let's go somewhere far
(Baby can we')
Well I don't care

I wanna be what he wants when he wants it
And whenever he needs it
When it comes to bein' feelin' loved starved I'll be there to feed it
Lovin him a little bit more each day
It turns me right on when I hear him say

(Hey baby let's get away, let's go somewhere far)
(Baby can we') Well, I don't care
(Hey baby let's get away, let's go somewhere far)
(Baby can we') Well, I don't care

(Day dreamin' and I'm thinkin' of you)
(Day dreamin' and I'm thinkin' of you) hoooo
(Day dreamin' and I'm thinkin' of you)
(Day dreamin' and I'm thinkin' of you)
(Look at my heart, floating away)]

(Day dreaming) day dreaming of you
(Day dreaming)
Thinking of you
fades-
Day....dreaming
Day....dreaming

BRYCE DRAPER UPDATE BY GREGORY VAUGHAN

2009-06-30T22:58:00.003-04:00

SIMON NESSMAN 'S TAKING OVER THE PLANET

2009-06-30T22:12:00.001-04:00

MAJOR LOVES GREGORY VAUGHAN

2009-06-30T22:10:00.000-04:00

IVE GOT AN EYE FOR THINGS

2009-06-30T21:04:00.001-04:00

FARRAH FAWCETT BY FRANCESCO SCAVULLO

2009-06-26T12:36:00.001-04:00

THE BOYS WITH THE MOST CAKE

2009-06-26T12:31:00.003-04:00

PATRICK KAFKA AND NATE GILL

SEIJO IMAZAKI FOR RODEO MAGAZINE COVER

2009-06-13T12:24:00.003-04:00

NEW YORK SAME SEX MARRIAGE IS A HOT ISSUE.

2009-05-31T11:07:00.001-04:00

FROM CNN.COM

Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, and her partner, Kim Catullo, talk to John King.
1 of 4

NEW YORK (CNN) -- As she lobbies members of the New York Senate these days, the politician in Christine Quinn can understand what the gay rights activist in her sometimes cannot.

"The fear of the unknown," is how she describes it. "This is a vote they've never cast before. And they don't know how people are going to react. You are in a position where people's reaction to you is the key to your success. And the unknown creates fear and fear often creates paralysis."

Quinn is the openly gay speaker of the New York City Council, and a proponent of legalizing same sex marriage in New York state.

"It is really encouraging to see what's happening around the country in places where you really wouldn't expect it, like Iowa," says Quinn's longtime partner, Kim Catullo. "To be in a place like New York and not have it just doesn't seem to make sense."

The New York Assembly passed legislation allowing same-sex marriages earlier this month, and the question now is whether there are enough votes in the state Senate to pass the legislation before the legislature adjourns for the year. Go behind the scenes with John King as he discusses his report from New York

Quinn, who spent time in Albany this past week meeting with undecided senators, is cautiously optimistic.

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"It was amazing how much openness there was," she said of private meetings with lawmakers who are undecided and even a few who have said they are likely to oppose the legislation. "We just all have to create a moment for them to step forward. So I really think it is going to happen this month, before the legislative session is over."

Maggie Gallagher sees the Senate math quite differently.

"We are now working in 24 Senate districts," says Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriages. "We know we have generated thousands of phone calls to legislators. I don't think they will be passing a gay marriage bill this session."

The New York legislation is part of a growing national debate, and one which will gain even more attention because of the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy and the nomination of federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill it.

"Not tomorrow. Not likely in the coming year unless the courts move dramatically faster than we are used to seeing them move," is how Columbia Law School Professor Suzanne Goldberg answers when asked when the issue of same-sex marriage is likely to make the Supreme Court docket. "But certainly some time in the next couple of years we're likely to see the Supreme Court issue a position or two on this issue."

Goldberg knows Sotomayer well; the judge is also a lecturer at Columbia.

"We've never spoken about the issue," Goldberg told us. "I have no inside information about her views. What I would say is that she is both a wise person and a thoughtful person and being wise and thoughtful are the right ingredients for reaching what to me is the right answer on this issue, which to me is that equality applies to all people."

The likelihood of the issue reaching the Supreme Court in the next year or two raises the stakes in the state battles.

'State of the Union'

John King reinvents Sunday talk: more time for more politics.
Sunday, 9 a.m. ET

see full schedule »

Opponents of California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage vow to try again in 2010 in hopes of a different result. A new federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 was filed this week and could well be among the cases that make it to the Supreme Court eventually.

Five states now allow same-sex marriage: Maine, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the states with active debates include California, New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire.

In an interview in their apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York, Quinn and Catullo agreed the ideal solution for them would be federal recognition of the right of same-sex couples to marry.

But the federal Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Clinton defines marriage as between a man and a woman. And President Obama says he supports civil unions and other benefits for same-sex couples but opposes marriage.

"He's not perfect on this issue and I want him to be perfect," Quinn said of Obama. "And I'm fairly certain that pretty soon he will be perfect on this issue and what we just have to do is keep talking to him and keep educating him and keep working on him."

"It doesn't help," Catullo says of Obama's opposition. Still, like Quinn, she hopes eventually, "he can evolve."

Gallagher, of the National Organization for Marriage, is worried more about the high court than any pressure on Obama from gay rights activists.

"Well I don't believe David Souter was on our side on the gay marriage issue although we don't know for sure," Gallagher said. So in her line of speculating, swapping Sotomayor for Souter isn't likely to swing the court in any major way. Her major worry is if one of the more conservative judges decided to retire in the near future.

"I don't think this one is going to tip the balance," Gallagher said. "But we're very close. We're probably only one Supreme Court justice away from a nationally imposed right to same-sex marriage whether we like it or not. That is the ultimate game plan of the gay marriage forces."

Catullo would prefer a conversation less political.

"I really do believe that if someone lived next to us or really knew us, it wouldn't be an issue at all," she said. "I mean we are good people. We're law-abiding. We're taxpayers. We're just an eight-year couple that's been together a long time and we do a lot of the things that a normal couple does. There's a lot more things in the world to worry about than the fact that we want to be married."

WHO I IS AND WHERE I BE (HE IS I AND I AM HIM)

2009-05-30T13:46:00.006-04:00

I FEEL GOOD, IN FACT I FEEL GREAT..BETTER THEN I HAVE IN YEARS. GROUNDED, AND FEARLESS. IM FALLING IN LIKE WITH MYSELF, MAYBE IT WILL TURN INTO LOVE,LOL. IM DOING THINGS FOR MYSELF AND NOT FEELING GUILTY FOR IT. IM NOT OBSESSING ABOUT THINGS THAT REALLY ARENT MY PROBLEM..USING THEM AS DISTRACTIONS WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS. FIRE ISLAND PINES IS MAGICAL. IM PUSHING 40 AND FEEL AGELESS..I FEEL YOUNGER THEN I HAVE IN 25 YEARS. I SEEM TO HAVE WON THE BATTLE AGAINIST MYSELF AND WON "ME" BACK. BABY STEPS, WITH BIG LEAPS IN BETWEEN. VERY CONNECTED TO MY FEELINGS. WORKING FROM A PLACE OF SOUL..ALWAYS HAVE, BUT NOW FEEL AMAZING ABOUT IT. HAVE MADE SOME GREAT NEW FRIENDS, AND CEMENTED OLD ONES. PROUD OF MY FAMILY ( GO SAM!) ..PROUD OF MY PEOPLES.

I USED TO WORRY, SO MUCH. AND I WORRIED ABOUT THE WRONG THINGS. WHAT PEOPLE WHISPERED..HOW THEY VIEWED ME..AND IT SHAPED ME..PUT ME INTO A BOX,UNCOMFORTABLY. I CANT BE CATEGORIZED OR MARGINALIZED BY ANYONE OR ANYTHING . INSTEAD IM EMBRACING THE LOVE, THE CHEERING ME ON, THE PROPS I GET (AND NOW GIVE MYSELF) FOR BEING WHAT I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ..FLAWED BUT PERFECT. AND I CAN LIVE WITH THAT.

IM SURE ILL TAKE TWO STEPS FOWARDS, A COUPLE OF STEPS BACK..HERE AND THERE..BUT I WONT LET IT KEEP ME OUT OF THE LIGHT. IM FULLY CONNECTED THERE. I FEEL THE LIGHT KISSING AND NUDGING ME CLOSER TO IT..MORE THEN EVER.

I WISH THAT FOR ANYONE WHO LOVES OR HATES ME. BUT CERTAINLY MORE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE.

PEACE AND BLESSINGS

J

JASON MORGAN BY GREGORY VAUGHAN

2009-05-16T11:53:00.003-04:00

TWO OF MY DEAREST FRIENDS..BEN AND ABI

2009-05-16T11:47:00.000-04:00

MORE ANTHONY GALLO

2009-05-16T11:46:00.000-04:00

KERRY DEGMAN RUGBY

2009-05-16T11:44:00.004-04:00

Meet the Models: Kerry Degman

By now you surely know his face: Kerry Degman has been one of Rugby’s main-stays since practically the beginning. Hankering to know more about what lurks behind that tough-guy façade? Yeah, we figured. After the jump, get some up-close and personal anecdotes on Kerry’s life and times, culled from our Fashion Editor’s day with him on set for our Summer 2009 shoot.

Though he looks like the ultimate East Coast guy, Kerry actually hails from the Midwest — if not straight from the cornfields, then close enough, calling Iowa home. He was recruited to play college baseball, and while a knee injury might have halted a career in sports, it helped motivate him to get into modeling. He’s no longer getting dirty on the baseball diamond, but he hasn’t lost his sporty side: The skateboard you sometimes see with Kerry in his shots? Not a prop. “My mom made me promise to never ride one,” he told us, “But I have been since the 3rd grade. It’s a good way to keep a kid with ADD busy.”

The other main focus of Kerry’s attention is his adorable beabull puppy (that’s half beagle, half English bulldog, for those of you not in the know), Jackson (above). “It’s like having a child,” Kerry says of the 10-month old pup. “I have had Jackson his entire life and he is the best thing that ever happened to me. I never like being anywhere without him. And he was born in Iowa, just like me.” Midwesterners like to stick together, clearly.

And when it comes to Rugby style, Kerry takes things very personally: “Why do people call Rugby “preppy”? This isn’t preppy! I mean, there’s a skull and crossbones on almost everything! It’s funky prep!”

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

MICHELE GRAGLIA BY JOE LALLY

2009-05-02T12:43:00.001-04:00

SUMMER

2009-04-28T10:42:00.002-04:00

I LOVE THE HEAT, BUT I HATE NY SUMMER.
THE CITY SMELLS, AND IT JUST LOOKS LIKE A SWEATY ARMPIT.

PEOPLE'S HYGIENE, ADDS TO THE GENERAL ODOR.

ITS WHY I LOVE MIAMI BEACH SO MUCH...ITS HOT, BUT YOU HAVE THE OCEAN AND EVEN WHEN ITS STEAMING YOU GET A BIT OF A BREEZE.

ITS BEEN A WHILE SINCE IVE BLOGGED..I HAVE REALLY NOTHING TO SAY. MY LIFE HAS BEEN PRETTY BORING. IM JUMP STARTING THE GYM AGAIN(I KNOW) AND FINALLY HAVE AN IPOD OF SONGS THAT I ACTUALLY LIKE SO IT MAKES CARDIO MUCH EASIER...IM LIKING THE BOOM BOOM POW SONG FROM THE BLACK EYES PEAS..ITS SORT OF MOTIVATING

MY MAN IS BACK IN TOWN. WHY AM I NOT EXCITED? I WAS FOR A DAY OR TWO AND NOW WE ARE BACK TO THE SAMENESS. OR AS I SEE IT THE SAME LAMENESS. FORGET GAY MARRIAGE, I FEEL LIKE I AM IN ONE AND ITS HORRIFYINGLY BORING. I STILL HAVE THE LOVE FOR HIM BUT IT SIMMERS NOT BOILS ( AS IT ONCE DID)

IM LOOKING INTO BUYING A WEEKEND HOME TO ENJOY. FOUND SOMETHING UPSTATE, POOL, LAND THE WHOLE NINE..I L KNOW MORE SATURDAY.

WORK HAS BEEN GOOD. MY BILLINGS ARE THE SAME AS LAST YEAR. BOOKING ALL THE USUAL SUSPECTS. NO REAL SURPRISES. WITH THE ECONOMY IN THE SHITTER IM GETTING ALO TOF USAGES ON THINGS RATHER THEN RESHOOTS, SO IT HS BEEN A GOOD THING FOR ME. TWO FRAGRANCES WERE RENEWED SO THATS ALWAYS GOOD. EASIER TO KEEP THE IMAGE THEN RESHOOT .

ANYWAY, IM OUT..TIME TO GET IT GOING

XO
J

NOW REPRESENTING OLD NAVY SUPER MANNEQUINS

2009-04-26T22:42:00.002-04:00

THE HOTTEST THING SINCE GISELE

BEA ARTHUR R.I.P

2009-04-26T17:29:00.003-04:00

TAKEN FROM DLISTED. Bea Arthur really did tango off to heaven yesterday. My soul is still weeping. Mostly because it hit me out of nowhere. And also, Bea was a true talent in every sense of the phrase. The simple fact is that Bea just wanted to entertain and didn't give ten shits about being famous. A born performer who didn't take herself too seriously. There really aren't many like her left.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCAS KERR AND CHANNING TATUM

2009-04-26T09:59:00.004-04:00

FOR YEARS, I USED TO THROW THEIR BIRTHDAY PARTIES TOGETHER AS THESE TWO CLOSE FRIENDS SHARE THE SAME BIRTHDATE AND AGE. NOW THEY BOTH LIVE ON THE LEFT COAST. SENDING THEM LOVE ON THEIR B DAYS..PLEASE DO THE SAME

KERRY DEGMAN

2009-04-26T09:56:00.003-04:00

PH:GREGORY VAUGHAN
IN LONDON SHOOTING WITH MERT ALAS AND MARCUS PIGGOT TODAY

GO SHORTY

NOW REPRESENTING ANTHONY GALLO

2009-04-22T18:42:00.002-04:00

INTRODUCING NICHOLAS BOEHMKE BY GREGORY VAUGHAN

2009-04-21T21:21:00.000-04:00

MICHELE GRAGLIA BY GREGORY VAUGHAN

2009-04-16T17:45:00.005-04:00

GAWKER'S GENIUS RECAP OF THE HILLS

2009-04-15T00:37:00.001-04:00

What drama! What intrigue! What mystery! What emotion! Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about my trip home for Easter. Now where were we? Oh, right. The Hills. Yes. Spencer and Heidi are no more.

If we are to believe that they ever really were. Or if we're to believe television, which has been lying a lot to us lately. But Heidi and Spencer may be the grandest lie of them all. Was this muddled, factory-cut couple ever really a couple? Or were they simply drawn into each other's hungry orbits by the pull of MTV's dark gravity? Did they see in each other a collection of warm pockets in which they could entrust their hearts and other body parts, or was it merely a cold transaction, like buying deli meats at the supermarket? I suspect it was probably somewhere in between—their relationship was probably akin to that of organ grinder and monkey assistant. They love each other a bit, yes, but mostly it's about the work, about the money. Plus one of them is covered in fur.

The episode began as most horrible episodes do, with Spencer the Fleshbeard chatting glumly with his horrible sister, Spencerina. Because this show has been straining for plotlines ever since Audrina hopped aboard that stagecoach made of spiderwebs and flew off into the night sky, the producers have been forced to shove the malformed Spencerina front and center. There she dances hideously in her soiled tutu, scary sideways accordion music playing, an old woman loudly sobbing somewhere unseen. "Aren't... I... a pretty... girl?" Spencerina plaintively asks through hacking coughs and toothless whistles. Her glass eye falls out and plink plink plinks down the hall. "Love... me?" she asks, as dust comes wheezing out of her ear holes.

Actually she talks to Spencer about his disappearing girlfriend and about how she was in Colorado and a boy named Cheddarblock was eying her like my dog eyes the stockings on Christmas morning; not much to look at on the outside, but what mysterious treats might lie within... So Spencer was like "evs" and Spencerina didn't seem to find anything wrong with playing both sides of this muddy, shit-filled field so MTV nodded its head and said "OK."

Meanwhile there were goings down at Fashion. Lauren, our wistful wind-blown heroine, had a meeting with the very scary Kelly Cutrone. Now that Whitney has been gone for a long time and she's already had her whole show "happen" and the world has forgotten her entirely, Kelly decided that it was time to have a meeting about "How do we replace Whitney?" Lauren suggested teaching one of those moving-eye cat clocks to talk, and Kelly admitted that it was a very good idea and a very close approximation to the real thing, but she still needed something else. After affixing googly eyes and a wig on a large ham, and finding that not quite right either, they decided to hold interviews. "Do you know anyone?" Kelly asked, bored and looking off into the distance almost as if she knew what Lauren would say next. "Spencerina," Lauren whispered into the quiet room. "Bring her in," Kelly mumbled. Then everyone—Kelly, Lauren, the camera crew, the people outside on the street, me, probably my dog in Boston—began weeping profusely.

So Lauren met with the shitty thing and told her that they were looking for interns. "How would one... hypotechnically ... go about... getting... a .... jorb... at... Fashion?" Spencerina asked, an earwig crawling around in her hair, her wooden leg mildewy and graying. "Like any other job," Lauren said. Like any other job that you get while being on a TV show. So Lauren got Spencerina an interview and she rushed home to iron her best Grown Up Girl clothes and write her little resume. "Work Experience..." she typed with one little be-Lee'd fingernail. "One time I helped gramma move some boxes to the attic. Another time I moved my friend Belinda's car out of Ryan McKenzie's driveway because Liam needed to take Marcy home because she was tripping but Belinda was too drunk to back her car out herself. The neighbors weren't too mad about the mailbox. Or the cat."

Back at Mordor, Spencer came home from God knows where—following a divining rod around looking for Patron, reading a finance book by Donald Trump upside down while some day-shift hooker bounced up and down on his lap, ominously lurking near a schoolyard fence whispering someone's name—and Heidi bellowed from the sex-making room "Spennnceerrr? Is that youuuu?" It was Spencer. And he lunked into the bedroom and they got into a fight because of Cheddarbob and because of Stacie the Waitress and Heidi was mad at Spencer for making her feel feelings when he knows that hurts her face so and Spencer was mad at Heidi for being mad because it was really harshing his mellow or something so they just stormed off in opposite directions, Spencer out the door, Heidi into the wall, which she hit and fell over, her legs and arms still moving as she lay on the floor. All around them buildings collapsed and cars and hydrants and people were sucked into the ground. The La Brea mammoth got up and walked away East, out to the Inland Empire, where he could disappear into that vast, empty desert.

Spencerina woke up and Hoku's "Perfect Day" was playing on the radio and she knew that the interview would go well. She put on her Big Girl trousers and her Believe In Yourself blouse and got into her car. After about twenty minutes she realized that she wasn't getting anywhere. So she went back into the house, got the keys, and went back to the car. When she showed up to People's Revolution, she was very nervous. She clutched her little resume and Lauren beamed at her bemusedly and said "I like your Successful Sistah shoes." Spencerina said "Thanks. A homeless woman threw them at me." So they sat there awkwardly for a while, elevator muzak playing, Spencerina flipping absent-mindedly through a copy of Ranger Rick. "I love this magazine, but the articles are just too long," she said to no one in particular. Finally it was time to go see Kelly. Spencerina gulped and headed up the stairs, whispering to herself "the penitent man shall pass, the penitent man, the penitent man... the penitent man... KNEELS!" and she deftly avoided the spinning blades that would have lopped her head off.

After almost dying several other times on the way to Kelly's office (at one point Lauren cried out at her desk "But in the Latin, Jehovah is spelled with an I..."), she finally pushed open the large doors and there was Kelly, sitting there in chain mail. "I brought... resume..." Spencerina stuttered. And it was all downhill from here. She started chatting aimlessly and dumbly about how she wanted to be a handbag designer and about how awesome Kelly's PR was and things were awesome and, um, handbags? Kelly gave her the hairy eyeball and said "So you want to come here and exploit my clients and techniques to make handbags?" Spencerina said, "No, I meant like long term handbags, like in ten years!" Kelly laughed and pressed the button under her desk that typically sends the interviewee up into a pneumatic tube but she forgot that the repair guy wasn't coming until Thursday and oh fuck this.

The thing about the handbag thing... Didn't Spencerina just seem so dumb at that moment? Like, the thing always seems like a hopping idiot, but this was special. Dumb because, really, this girl has clearly not taken one fucking honest hour's worth of her time to just sit down and think about what she wants to do with her life. So here's dumb, fattened, aimless youth, everyone. This hideous thing yipping about handbags as if that's a job. It's not a job. Neither is "I'm going to have my own skin care line," idiot on Real Housewives of Orange County. None of that is real. But more importantly, don't act like anyone owes you these ridiculous non-jobs. You aren't owed shit. You owe us. You, Spencerina the Brave Mumbling Idiot, you owe us.

As she left the interview, a car drove by, Hoku's "Another Dumb Blonde" playing softly on the radio.

Anyway, sorry. So Kelly decided to bring the potato sack onto the team, with a caveat issued to Lauren that if (when) she fucks up, Lauren has to fire her. Because Kelly don't play that. She bopped Lauren over the head and trotted off and as I watched her head back upstairs to her office I shook my head and thought to myself "She chose... poorly."

Then it was time for the real blowdown. Heidi was having fish dinner with Handbags and they decided to find Spencer out at the clurb. Miraculously, Handbags knew just where to find him. It was this totally off the hizzy new club called H.Wood, which is short for H. Wood Jeblome, a prominent Los Angeles financier and restaurateur. So there indeed was Spencer. He was lounging on a couch with the wicked bitch Stacie the Waitress and her two idiot friends who will look back on this experience one day and think "Oh god, oh god oh god oh god," their trembling hands clutching long cigarettes, the last desperate light of the day clinging to the sad red rocks of Sedona. "Where did I go?" they will think, their vodka lemonades just a little too strong, but they'll drink it anyway and they'll just chug a lug here in this pocket of Arizona, hoping that some vortex will one day work its magic and soothe this strange, clawing pain.

But in the present, there they were on couches with Spencer and his friend, Barney Rubble. Stacie is a really creative girl so she said she wanted to request "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by that great band "The 80's", and Spencer grinned and said he hoped that meant sexy dancing on bars and stuff. Stacie said of course it did, but sadly she didn't get the opportunity to prove it, because Heidi and Handbags showed up, their milk pails sloshing and the cows behind them mooing, their braids blowing softly in the Alpine winds. "What are you doiiiiiiiiinggggg?" Heidi bellowed. Spencer removed his penis from Stacie's mouth and was all "Nothing, stop getting mad, what the fuck, fuck." Handbags then called Stacie and her friends sluts, and Stacie got involved and everyone just started bickering at each other until Heidi fired a gun into the air and everyone went silent. "This... Ends... Here!!!" she yelled. She was done. It was over. She dropped the gun on the floor and ran out, Handbags flapping away in tow.

The next day it was time to rehearse the play, Manhattan Beach Memoirs: Heidi & Spencer Break Up: This Time It's Personal. They met at some airy outdoor cafe, safe and open, lots of witnesses, you know the drill. Heidi, having had a really dumb conversation with Handbags the night before, said that maybe the couple should try therapy. Hint hint, went the elbows and you could just see MTV's reality version of In Treatment with fucking Dr. Drew or something forming in the mind of some horrible programming exec, a bulge forming in the crotch of this lame 41-year-old's skinny jeans. But it was not to be. Spencer didn't understand why someone who went to "one extra year" of school should tell him how to live his life. Spencer, therapists have to do more than one year of college. Which is what I assume you meant. Because one more year of school than you would be freshman year of college. So. There you go.

But Heidi made it an ultimatorium: either therapy or we are over, Spence. Spencer just sat there glowering. And then The Hills did something I've never actually seen them have the balls to do before. They hired an extra to play a waiter, who, with convenient timing, came over and asked the warring couple: "Can I get you anything else?" Heidi shook her head, overcome by, but secretly proud of, all of this swelling drama, and said "No. We're done." And they were! She got up and walked off, her dumb butt swaying down the filthy LA street.

But of course they're not really done. Nothing is ever really done on this show. They'll get back together and continue to bicker and Handbags will try desperately to keep them together because otherwise she has no reason to be on the show and then she might actually have to try to get a real job and be a real person and enter into the world and in thirty years she'll hop in the LeBaron and leave Bakersfield behind and she'll drive all night to Sedona and there will be those two slutty whores, sitting on a deck, overlooking a Red Robin parking lot, and they'll drink grapefruit juice and vodkas and they'll smoke Dunhills that some old boyfriend brought back from Europe, years and years ago, and that will be a few afternoons. And when she dies, there will be a small break in the clouds, out above some stony mesa, and you'll know that some glimmer, a logo, a designer nametag, some tiny bit of soul has escaped this earth.

In the meantime though, she'll sit and watch the ocean pound the surf, over and over again, and wonder where all the little bits of sand came from. If they were always there, or if it just took a long time for some large thing to break down, to bust, to burst, to scatter bravely into pieces.

Handbag wishes, to you and yours.

ITS WORKING!! STEVEN MEISEL MAY VOGUE VIA STYLE.COM

2009-04-14T19:20:00.001-04:00

Over the years, Steven Meisel has developed an extraordinary body of work, an almost impenetrable mystique—and an uncanny knack for finding fashion's favorite faces.
By Jonathan Van Meter. Photographed by Steven Meisel.
Once, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away—early-nineties, supermodel-mad Manhattan—I went to a party at music producer Shep Pettibone's midtown apartment. It was a sultry July evening, and he lived in a penthouse with a huge terrace. The party had a decadent feeling: Everyone smoked; there were well-stocked bars inside and out; the crowd was by any definition a beautiful one. I got the sense that things would still be going on long after I had gone to bed.

At one point, I noticed that Steven Meisel and his tight little clique—which on that evening included a tall, cute blond guy and Naomi Campbell—were languidly slouching about, smoking. I had just run out of cigarettes, and so I turned and asked the group if I could bum one. Meisel, who had a bandanna covering his head and dark sunglasses on, did not even glance up.

The encounter—the first of many times in my life when I would not meet Steven Meisel—left an indelible impression, which was one of intimidating inscrutability. The fact that for so many years he has worn what amounts to a hip-gay-male version of a burka has only added to my perception of him as a creature of mystery. He is always covered up! Even when it's blazing hot out, he's got on some sort of headgear and layers of black clothing. It is a look that is designed to obfuscate and to keep people away. And it works.

Over the years, Meisel has become ever more reclusive, rarely going to fashion shows or parties, almost never giving interviews. There have been no retrospectives or gallery openings or lush coffee-table books published, nothing that would require him to face the public. His friends—to a one—say that he is shy and especially reserved around strangers, and they insist that his mysteriousness is not a cultivated affectation; it is just part of his nature.

"I think that he almost has to be that way to protect himself," says Amber Valletta. "He's so extremely sensitive."

Linda Evangelista, who is one of Meisel's closest friends, sees it a bit differently. "He's just private. He's not a media whore. I bet he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do this story. But it's got nothing to do with being mysterious. Fame and glory are not going to bring him satisfaction in life."

Even Madonna agrees that there is, indeed, "a great sense of mystery" about Meisel—so much so that after all these years she feels she still doesn't really know him very well. "I know that I love him," she says. "You get sucked into his aura. He knows things."

She learned this from one of their first collaborations, which was for the cover of Like a Virgin. "Before I worked with Steven," says Madonna, "I just showed up in the clothes I was wearing, stood in front of the lights, and got my picture taken. With Steven, a team of people descended on me, started to undress me. Someone grabbed my hair, another grabbed my face, another started helping me try on various bits of clothes, and they all seemed to be speaking a language I didn't understand—the language of Steven Meisel."

To hear Madonna talk about working with Meisel is like being let in on a long-held secret. She goes on, "Steven had a vision. He had done his research. He had very specific references. I really respected the care that he took with his work, how seriously he approached it, but at the same time he has a great sense of irony. He made me feel like I was part of something important. He treated each photo shoot like it was a small film and insisted that we create a character each time we worked but then would make fun of the archetypes we created. He was the first person to introduce me to the idea of reinvention." Who knew that Madonna, the goddess of reinvention, learned it from Steven Meisel.

Meisel's nearly 30-year career as a fashion photographer has been distinguished by two things: his unusually collaborative relationships with women and an almost perverse dedication to constant change, which, come to think of it, is a good description of fashion itself. In his work for, among others, this magazine, Italian Vogue (for which he has shot every cover since 1988), and innumerable fashion-ad campaigns, he has mastered so many different styles—from stripped-down studio shots of models in action to high-concept social satires, from lush couture shoots to high-glam camp—that it can be difficult to pin down whether there is a distinctive Meisel style at all.

"One of the reasons the world has been slow to recognize his contribution is that he is an absolute chameleon," says Charlotte Cotton, the photography curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Cotton, who considers Meisel the commercial photographer of our time, says he belongs in the pantheon of image-makers with Avedon, Penn, and Newton. "It's a remarkably risky position to take. It's like starting from scratch every time you go on a shoot, because it's based on whatever influences you've cherry-picked from the culture at that moment."

In preparation for this month's exhibition, "The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion," Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, has been poring over Meisel images from the eighties and nineties. In doing so, he has realized that there are a couple of things about a Meisel photograph that come close to a signature. For one, Meisel is a true postmodernist. "He samples only those things from the past that can be electrified by a contemporary aesthetic," says Koda.

The other quality that characterizes Meisel's work is a strange kind of precision. "The thing that looks like Steven is an obsessiveness with an almost chilly perfection," says Koda. "Even if the models are meant to look tousled, they are perfectly tousled," he says. "There's never a moment where there isn't this intrusion of the photographer into a very controlled image."

He brings up Meisel's infamous Versace campaign, shot in over-the-top mansions in Beverly Hills with Amber Valletta and Georgina Grenville, who are made up and posed to look like the most glamorous sixties Stepford wives imaginable. "I think that's Steven at his best, when he has inserted his own imagination of reality into the photograph and it becomes this kind of hyperreality," says Koda. "I really see a directorial role in the way he takes photographs."

If Steven Meisel is like a film director, then his movie stars are, of course, the supermodels. The term was coined by an agent in the 1940s, but if we are to give one person credit for our idea of Supermodels, capital S, that credit would have to go to Meisel. Christy, Linda, and Naomi—no last names necessary. Of course, there were famous models before, but none who permeated every aspect of the culture—and embodied it—in quite the same way.

As Koda says, "He really is a kind of a Svengali in terms of being able to take a range of beautiful women and transform their particular look into the look of the moment. And he has the business savvy to be able to create careers."

I spent a goodly part of my winter tracking down many of the women Meisel "made." Naomi rang from a car as a fellow named Yuri drove her around Moscow (she yelled at him only once during our talk). I interviewed Linda while I was sick with the flu. (She offered to have chicken soup sent over.) Christy almost didn't call me at all, because she was busy studying for her master's degree in public health at Columbia University. I found Carolyn Murphy living nearly off the grid somewhere in Southern California; Liya Kebede in New York; Coco Rocha in Australia; Amber Valletta in Santa Monica. Stella Tennant called from Scotland, and Kristen McMenamy from a closet in her house in London, where she had to hide so her kids couldn't hear her.

The first thing you realize is how similarly articulate, funny, and intense these women are. The second thing you notice is that they all view Meisel as the opposite of inscrutable—as a nurturing father figure. "He makes you feel so safe," says Linda. Carolyn Murphy describes Meisel as a "proud papa. He pays attention, and you know that he's really interested in you." Valletta says, "He always inspired me to care about what I was doing."

McMenamy believes that Meisel empathizes with women, models in particular. "I think pretty much all models have got a hang-up about one thing or another. I have a huge hang-up about my looks. I was always the outcast growing up. When I first worked with him, he made me feel beautiful and comfortable. And there's this certain magic in that he makes you feel part of the team. He makes you feel as important as he is."

"He has this incredible gift for being able to find the diamond in the rough," says Liya Kebede. "He sees you when you first arrive on the set and you look unpolished, and then he finds the girl inside."

All of the women say that they "owe their careers" to Meisel. "It's a very strange thing," says Stella Tennant. "He's a bit like my fairy godfather, I suppose." She laughs. "But it was like that! You shall go to the ball! And you shall be on the cover of American Vogue! Because that's quite a power to have. There are other photographers who have it to some degree, but I don't think any other photographer can project a model so far and so high into the business." Meisel's most recent muse, Coco Rocha, agrees: "If he says it's so, it's so. And that makes your career. He's the Godfather of all models."

Full disclosure: I have never met Steven Meisel. I have been to a few of his photo shoots over the years, where he works literally behind a scrim. A couple of years ago, I think I might have clapped eyes on him as he scurried from the designated hair-and-makeup area (where I could hear gales of laughter coming from Pat McGrath and Garren) and then ducked back behind the curtain. At a Linda Evangelista shoot I went to, he was working inside what seemed like a black box. I could hear his voice, a barely audible murmur, as he gave Linda direction or expressed his pleasure over something she was doing with her upper lip or her hand.

When I first contacted his office, he agreed to a phone interview, which we decided should be an hour long. We picked a Tuesday at noon and then, weirdly enough, stuck with Tuesdays at noon for several weeks, like it was ironclad and I was his shrink whom he couldn't bear to see in person.

Meisel was surprisingly forthcoming on the phone—willing to entertain pretty much any question. But he was also brusque and impatient—sort of perpetually annoyed with the idea of doing an interview at all. Because he has such a thick outer-borough New York accent, I sometimes felt as if I were talking to a cranky but very funny old Jewish grandmother. I noticed that he seemed to want to take control of the interview; for example, he would answer one of my questions and then ask himself a follow-up question. And then answer it! At other times he completely relaxed into the process and just talked.

I began to enjoy this unusual process, partly for its novelty but mostly for its strange intimacy. There's something lovely and old-fashioned about talking on the phone once a week for a month. Who does that anymore?

Turns out Meisel does. "I used to spend hours on the phone with him," says Anna Sui, who has known him since they went to Parsons together in the seventies. "He loves that." Turlington also mentions their marathon sessions. "I would talk to him on the phone as I would to a girlfriend in high school, both watching the same TV show, talking through the whole thing."

It's clear that, as with everything he does, Meisel likes to be in charge. He insisted on taking me through things chronologically. If I jumped ahead in time, he would stop, put a mental marker on the subject, and then address it when we'd arrived at the appropriate place for it in his story.

Steven Meisel was born in Manhattan in 1954, but he was essentially raised on Long Island. His parents, Sarah and Leonard, moved him and his sister, Robin, to Port Washington when he was about three. (When I ask if his parents are still living, he says, "Still alive! Still married!") Leonard is 95 ("still cantankerous!"); he is of Russian-Jewish descent; Sarah, who is Irish-English, is 85 and still comes into the city once a week to have lunch with her son.

Though he didn't appreciate it at the time, he was introduced to a sort of glitzy nighttime world at an early age. His maternal grandfather was Nat Simon, the songwriter whose standard "Poinciana" was a hit for Bing Crosby. Meisel's mother was for a while a big-band singer; she went to Hollywood for a screen test, hoping to sign a contract with one of the film studios, but Leonard didn't like the idea, so she quit and became a housewife. ("My grandfather never forgave her," says Meisel. "He always hated my father.")

Leonard worked for London Records. "Artists would come from Europe, and my father would take them around the city to concerts and radio stations," says Meisel. Tom Jones once stayed at their house for four days. Leonard would sometimes take young Steven to Jilly's, where they would see Frank Sinatra at the bar, or to the Copacabana, where he remembers sitting so close to the stage the night the Supremes performed that he could practically touch them. When the Beatles came to Shea Stadium in 1965, the Meisels went backstage and met them before the show. "Now I see that it was very glamorous," he says.

Meisel's cousin was Diane Rothschild, the legendary advertising executive. When Meisel was about twelve, she took him to an advertising shoot the fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky was doing for a fabric company. What he remembers most is that he watched the models—not the photographer—because he knew who they were from his constant reading of fashion magazines. "I was obsessed even then," he says.

His mother and sister were stunners in their own right. Sarah, who took Steven along when she had her hair colored at Kenneth, was an icy-blonde beauty—in old photographs, she looks like she could have stepped out of a Meisel shoot. His sister, who shared her brother's dark good looks, let him experiment with hair and makeup and photograph her. He went shopping with them every Saturday to Saks and Bergdorf and then later to boutiques like Paraphernalia and Abracadabra on the Upper East Side. "I had to go to the stores!" says Meisel. "It seemed like the world that I was looking at in the magazines come to life."

Meisel soon figured out that he wanted to attend the High School of Art & Design, on East Fifty-seventh Street. It was quite a scene. In the back of the lunchroom there was a table where, according to Meisel, "the groovy crowd" sat. Meisel eventually worked his way into the group, one that included the model Pat Cleveland, future Warhol superstar Donna Jordan, and none other than Harvey Fierstein. "We called him Little Stevie," says Fierstein. "I was sort of on the very edge of the cool crowd because I had no business being there…trust me!" What about Little Stevie? "Oh, I think he was snapping at their heels," he says in that basso profundo. "I remember him as a dark-haired, very sweet Jewish boy."

Even in a school well stocked with creative oddballs, Meisel managed to stand out, says Cleveland, whom Meisel would photograph years later, most recently for the black issue of Italian Vogue. "He had this long, silky black hair down to the bottom of his derriere. He wore really tight little jeans and beautiful shirts. He wasn't wild. But, you know, when you see someone who is that beautiful, they don't have to be outrageous and loud. He didn't have to push his way into anything."

It was the end of the sixties, and he made a place for himself just as easily in New York's nightlife. A photographer friend of his sister's took him to Max's Kansas City when he was fourteen—he became nearly delirious on the phone one day as he recalled the lighting in great detail, as only a photographer could. That early exposure to the theatrical aesthetic of the demimonde has had a profound influence on his work. When he conjures glamour, as Charlotte Cotton points out, "his frame of reference could be a transsexual's glamour rather than the real Marilyn Monroe's glamour."

One also gets the sense that it was a period in which this famously controlling man cut loose. "Yes. I went to every single club, every single hangout, every single after-hours drug place. There wasn't one thing that I didn't do; there wasn't one place that I didn't go to."

After high school, Meisel went to Parsons to study fashion illustration. Along the way, he worked at Halston for a summer, his very first job, where he met Stephen Sprouse, who became a lifelong friend (until his death in 2004); they bonded over their disdain for the older designer. "Everyone would be called into this room, and he would stand there like…like…Kay Thompson. 'Think Pink!' Oh, he drove me crazy." Worse yet, Halston designed a uniform for his young charge to wear: a black ribbed short-sleeved shirt and black slacks. "He would yell at me and say, 'Don't just sit around, Pocahontas! You have to do something!' "

In 1974, Meisel, drawings in hand, went literally across the street from Parsons to Fairchild Publications, where Women's Wear Daily's offices were, and met with the art director, who hired him. Ben Brantley, André Leon Talley, and Bonnie Fuller all worked there.

It was here that Meisel met the fashion illustrator Kenneth Paul Block, the closest he has ever come to a mentor. "He taught me so much about everything," says Meisel. "He would sit there with this long cigarette holder and a polka-dot bow tie, always a sports jacket, immaculate. He never lost his temper. He had so much style, so much class, so much chic." Block would sometimes draw Meisel, whose androgynous good looks allowed him to stand in for a woman. (In Block's fantastic book, Drawing Fashion, which came out in 2008, there is a spread devoted to Meisel that is titled simply "Steven.")

While at WWD, Meisel started traveling back across the street to Parsons to teach illustration. A young student named Marc Jacobs tried to take his class. "I had seen Steven out and about in New York with his little entourage—Teri Toye and Stephen Sprouse and Anna Sui—but I didn't know him," says Jacobs. "But I was such a fan of his drawings and just thought he had a really great eye. I was very disappointed because the first night when I showed up, it was announced that he wasn't going to be teaching it, because he was off on a photography assignment for W. He had just started taking pictures."

By the early eighties, Meisel intuited that fashion illustration was on its way out. "I needed to do more," he says. He started by snapping pictures of his girlfriends. One day, he met a girl shopping and asked if she would sit for him. She was Valerie Cates, the sister of Phoebe Cates, then a model represented by Elite. "So I would shoot Valerie and Phoebe on the weekends," says Meisel. The B-girls—the bookers—at Elite loved Meisel's photographs, so they asked him to do test shoots with other newly signed girls. Elite supplied him with film and processing, and Meisel began to hone his craft—while also learning how to make fourteen-year-old girls feel comfortable posing as women. From the very beginning, he did the hair, makeup, and styling all by himself. "I didn't know any different," he says.

An editor at Seventeen saw his pictures in a model's portfolio and called to offer him an assignment. His first magazine shoot was at a country house in Connecticut. "I took these sweet little pictures," he says. In quick succession he started shooting for W, Mademoiselle, Self, and then finally Vogue. "I was still at WWD, and teaching," he says. "And there was an editor at Vogue, Mary Russell, and she just loved my work. I went up to the offices and she introduced me to art director Alex Liberman, and he asked if I would go to Europe to do the collections." Meisel took some time off from WWD to go to Paris and Milan with a model he chose, Marisa Indri. "I didn't have any assistants; there was no hair and makeup. We would go to Saint Laurent, knock on the door, and they looked at us like, Who are these people? But we went into the different houses, they gave us the clothes; sometimes Marisa and I would go out on the streets. I would do her hair at their cabines, and she would get dressed." When he got back, Vogue asked him to do the New York collections. "We were in a natural-light studio, and all of a sudden we had hair and makeup. I said, 'Hmm. OK.' That was my first job at Vogue."

Before long, Meisel began working with Polly Mellen, and that is when things really began to click. "It was very, very exciting to work with her," he says. "The way that she treated models was unbelievable. To her, your model was gold. She was everything. Your girls felt that. They felt like stars." Meisel is a very good mimic. Here, suddenly, he does a dead-on imitation of Polly Mellen's singular whispery war cry: "You are work-ing with Tur-ling-ton to-daaaaaay." He goes on, "Sometimes, looking at the girl as I was working, she would actually cry. She was that moved. It was incredible! It was what I thought it would be. It was what I wanted."

With surprising swiftness, he established his very collaborative creative process, one that almost always involved inventing a narrative persona for his subjects. As Turlington says, "We started to work, honestly, three quarters of each month. I felt like a house model. We used to work at this place on lower Broadway. I'd come in every day and go into the makeup room and it was like, What are we going to do? What are we going to create today?"

Meisel remembers in glorious detail his first shoot with Linda Evangelista. "I had seen some European magazine that was absolutely nothing, and there was a little picture of her. I remember thinking, This girl has amazing line." He booked her for a Vogue shoot with several other girls. "I was working with François Nars and Oribe at the time, and they were like, 'Oh, this girl! We're crazy about her!' They were very inspired. François was painting her and painting her, and Oribe kept making the hair bigger and bigger. She came out and she glistened. It was like crystal, like champagne corks popping. That smile! Her gums! Her eyes just twinkled! I decided to shoot the story on just Linda, and we sent all the other girls home. We were just very, very inspired and in love."

The feeling was mutual. "It was the beginning of our story," Evangelista says. "I remember I heard something about how they loved my knees. As a model, you are never referred to as a whole person. You are dissected into little pieces. I thought maybe they were being sarcastic, because I got teased my whole life about my knees. There were also comments about my gums. I was like, 'My gums?' I didn't think that my gums would stand out." She laughs. "So, there you go. My knees and my gums."

The day of the photo shoot for this piece with all of the women Meisel "made" happened to fall on a Tuesday, which meant that we would miss our standing phone appointment for that week in February. And since I failed to persuade him to let me be a fly on the wall at the shoot—but, oh, how I tried!—I had to wait until the following Tuesday at noon to find out how it all went. "Chaotic but fine," he said when we get on the phone. "Fun," he added after a few seconds. "Nice to see everybody." Another long pause. "Lovely!" he finally shouted. "I mean, I love all of them so much, so it was great."

It must have been strange for this Svengali to have all of his women together in the same place. He says the day felt a bit like a reunion, replete with hugs and tears and the showing off of baby pictures. He was also struck by the fact that the younger girls had never met most of the older girls. "It was very sweet and very touching," he says. "Because for some of these women, modeling changed their whole life. It really, really did! For me to sit there and remember the sixteen-year-old girls that I met, some of whom came in with a tattered coat and $3, and then to think that now some of them are married to billionaires.…This job in particular has a tendency to change lives more than most."

It changed his life, too. He now splits his time (with a boyfriend he won't discuss) between a mansion in Beverly Hills—like one of those "sick" (by which he means cool) houses he used to stage those Versace ads several years ago—and "a big old prewar monster" on the Upper East Side. When I ask him what his Peter Marino-designed place in New York looks like, he says, "It's a major apartment. That's what I wanted. That's why I work so much: to give myself some of the things that make me feel comfortable. My drapes are heavy velvet. It's kind of a little…I don't know…Saint Laurent, a little Chanel. A lot of crystal, a lot of mirrors. One of the rooms has a mirrored ceiling. I know it sounds bad, but it's so working." He laughs. "To me, that's what growing up here…that's what my city is…or, was, all about." One almost gets the sense that if he himself could go to Kenneth, as his mother used to, he would.

Of course, the passage of time has meant other changes. The man who is obsessed with retouching to the point of plasticine immortal beauty has complicated feelings about aging. In some ways, his reclusiveness has the whiff of the Hollywood star who cannot bear to show her no-longer-gorgeous face. "Would I rather look 20 again?" he asks. "Uh…yeah? I think anyone who says no would be crazy. It's difficult. It's also difficult physically. I don't have the stamina I once did." He pauses. "But the other stuff? What are you going to do? I love plastic surgery. I haven't had any, because it's very hit or miss. Even with the best doctors…there's no guarantee." Here Meisel asks himself a follow-up question. "OK, am I getting plastic surgery?" And then answers it. "I don't think so."

A few people suggested to me that one reason Meisel did not want to see me in person might be that he has become self-conscious about his weight. At one point, when I ask him if he has any vices left, he answers with one word—"food"—which seems to confirm this theory. "This week I even tried hypnosis," he says, laughing. "Still, I see the cookie!"

More than anything, one senses that he misses the time when he was closer in age to his subjects. "What am I going to talk about with a teenage Russian girl who barely speaks English?" he complains one day. It occurs to me that perhaps Meisel doesn't like to be interviewed because it's hard for him to dredge up the past. "I definitely don't live in the past," he says. "I definitely live in the present. I know people probably think of me as just living in the past. I do like certain periods in fashion. But I don't live in the past at all. I'm very much now and tomorrow. But when I go through old pictures, yes, I cry. It's not a sad cry. It's a melancholy one, but mixed with happiness, too."

MAY VOGUE COVER

2009-04-12T21:00:00.003-04:00

COURTESY OF MODELS.COM
PHOTO:STEVEN MEISEL

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PICTURES

2009-04-11T22:10:00.002-04:00

IT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

ANGELA LINDVALL FOR POP 2002(?FALL) BY MERT ALAS AND MARCUS PIGGOT

CORY BOND BY JOE LALLY

2009-04-10T14:15:00.005-04:00

FRESH OFF THE SET OF DOLCE AND GABBANA (SHOT BY STEVEN KLEIN)..CORY BOND PROVES THAT A REAL MAN IS ALWAYS IN FASHION. AT 31 YEARS OLD, CORY IS FINDING HIS STRIDE AT THE TOP OF THE CLASS.

I LOVE CONTRIBUTING EDITOR & MATTHEW EDELSTEIN

2009-04-10T13:47:00.003-04:00

ARE YOU GUYS CHECKING OUR MATTHEW EDELSTEIN'S BLOG?CONTRIBUTINGEDITOR.BLOGSPOT.COM..EARMARK IT!??! IT IS FASHION FOWARD...RIGHT AHEAD OF THE CURVE WITHOUT GOING TO FAR OUT TO NOT "GET IT". MATTHEW HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF THE BEST STYLISTS IN THE STATES..AND I FEEL HE IS THE NEXT BIG THING FOLLOWING IN THE STEPS OF KARL TEMPLER, JOE MCKENNA & CARINE ROITFELD. WITH JOE REPLACING KARL AT INTERVIEW AND CARINE GOING FROM STYLIST AT FRENCH GLAMOUR TO HEAD BITCH IN CHARGE AT VOGUE PARIS , MY MONEY IS ON MATTHEW TO DO THE SAME IN A VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.

I AM SO PROUD OF HIM !

BRIAN SHIMANSKY BY GIAMPAOLO SGURA

2009-04-07T13:43:00.004-04:00

I LOVE GAWKER...

2009-04-07T12:22:00.003-04:00

HAVE YOU GUYS READ THEIR ANALYSIS ON ALL THINGS REALITY TV? HILLS? HOUSEWIVES? ITS PACKED WITH LOL'S..

The Hills: Things To Do With Lauren Conrad When She's Dead
By Richard Lawson, 12:01 PM on Tue Apr 7 2009

Well, here it is. It's back. The Hills swooped overhead last night—two episodes worth!—like some dark angel of the sparkly rapture. It's good to know your enemy, so let's analyze after the jump.

Episode I: The Poseidi Adventure

Fittingly, as this is her last season and the producers have been shifting the focus away from her for some time now, the first scene of the first episode of the last season, didn't begin with our spackled heroine LC. No, it started with Heidi and her fiance's sister, Spencerina, sitting in some blue cafe and, like in so much great drama, discussing a birthday party. It was Lauren's big bday bash and a surprise party was afoot. Heidi's face, also a foot, balled up and looked very concerned. Spencerina, the little monkey holding a pennant that reads "Airtime!" parading around inside her parlor-like skull, batted her eyelashes and purred "What if I invited you?" Because, of course, this being LC's final dream ballet, she'll need to get some closure on that anecdote and figure shit out with Heidi. So Heidi nodded in her taffyish way and the cameras flew off to another location.

Audrina and Lo, who are apparently friends again, said they would buy the cake themselves and so there they were, in a cake shop, waiting. No one really knows what they were talking about. It mostly came out of their mouths as a tinkly series of music box sounds, little ballerinas twirling on their tongues, while the city rushes by them; people on their way to places, things happening, happened, and about to happen. I think, because I took a semester of TwinklyMuisicBoxese, that they were talking more about the birthday party. Would Heidi show up, they wondered as the producers tased them with cattle prods. And would Lauren like being stuck on a yacht for the whole night, what with her entirely rational fear of mermaids (after the incident...) and her propensity to collect barnacles when standing still for too long by the seaside. Ah well, it was too late now. So they picked up their penis cake and set off for the marina.

Heidi was all dressed up in her gold spangly dress and silly tall shoes and Spencerina glowered at her with that thousand yard stare of resentment and need—I hate you, but I need you, you make me eternally sad, but I think there's something inside of you that I can dig out, like a ruby or a buried key, that will solve the problem of my life—and then beautiful brother Spencer walked in. He'd shaved since last we saw him, which was good. He had been looking a bit like that scary tree-man from TLC (you know the one...) But he was still petulant and the worst actor of the bunch, trying to seem completely unaware of the fact that Heidi and Spencerina were, in fact, going to his sworn enemy's big birthday bonanza. But when he saw Heidi firmly affixing her WaterWings and Spencerina putting on the floatie thing that's an inner tube but also a monster head, he knew they'd be near water. "Don't let her get wet, Spency," he warned. You wouldn't like her when she's wet.

So the party. Lauren, looking ghastly and consumptiony in too-dark lipstick and washed out pancake makeup, sat in her limousine discussing the merits of various champagne-bottle-opening strategies. These are the conversations that define our lives, everyone. So get over it, America. And then the limo arrived at the marina and Lauren was blindfolded and they lead her to her Viking funeral pyre. She would be pushed to sea and then Lo would launch a flaming arrow and the whole of it would be set ablaze. "Goodbye Lauren!" they would yell from the docks, bravely waving as tears streamed down their faces. "Goodbye forever old friend!" Then the whole fiery pyre-boat would tilt precariously to one side and catch another yacht in the marina on fire and then another and then another until the whole damn place is burning like the Reckoning in Monte Carlo, and Lo would shrug her shoulders and Audrina wheeze quietly and Spencerina would whisper "I guess we didn't do that right..."

Or, you know, they all go on the boat and Brody the idiot yells "Surprise!!!!" before Lauren's even got her damn blindfold off so basically the party is ruined, but oh well. Later Brody just face-plants in her birthday cake so he can get a bite. Brodes, have you ever been to a birthday party before? This is not how it's done. Lauren hugs and chugs, the other girls teeter strangely, and then Spencerina and Heidi show up. Heidi is carrying an enormous Chanel bag and I thought it would be funny if that was the present. Nothing inside but packing peanuts and a little card and Heidi beams when she hands it over and the world gets a little prettier but also a little sadder.

Lauren was shocked! simply shocked! that Heidi would crash her big TV show party, but in the end she got drunk and weepy and Heidi got weepy too. Why? Because there was a whole text messaging debacle wherein Spencer had a "boys night out" with one other lame ass guy at some rando bar where an MTV plant named Stacie was pretending to be a bartender and pretending to not know who Captain Fleshbeard is. So she flirted with him and he flirted back and meanwhile Spencerina's ex, Cameron or something, watched from a booth in the corner and sent a furtive phone missive to his beloved of old telling her that chicanery was occurring at the bar. Spencer found out and decided to clobber Cameron, who got a few good hits right in the Jack Johnson and then both boys ran away squealing, their pail coming tumbling after.

So Heidi couldn't believe—shocked! she was shocked!—that Spencer had swung his sweaty ham fist into the bowl of oatmeal that is Cameron's face and so she wept, and Lauren wept, and their salty tears became the ocean and the boat sank around them and Lo floated by face down, dead as cranberries, and Heidi and Lauren saluted her and sang "For those in peril on the seaaa..." and somewhere, far off in the distance, there were fireworks and then Lauren and Heidi, having fought it for so very, very long shared a tender kiss, their faces illuminated by the distant explosions of color and light and noise, like their hearts opening to new arrivals. "We're airplane terminals, Heidi," Lauren whispered. "We're zeppelin ports."

Or, you know, they cried and hugged but nothing was resolved and the party ended and so did the episode.

Episode II: Bananas!

Episode two was all about Heidi and Spencer, because they are, I guess, going to be the new leads of the Lauren-less show, when it will be called The Buttes and it will just be a lot of angry staring.

Spencerina—OK, just this once, Stephanie—got in an awesome fight with Spencer, which you can watch to the left.

Heidi went to talk to the horrible Stacie, who pretended like she was innocent and that she didn't know Spencer had a girlfriend and that what a jerk Spencer was, you know? Heidi nodded gravely and went to go whine to Spencer, who whined back at her and before they knew it they were covered in bologna and applesauce and maraschino cherry juice, because they'd been having a food fight, so Heidi decided that she needed to go back to Crested Butte, where her be-makeup'd mom lives in sad, snowy obscurity. "Fine then, go!" bellowed Spencer as he lobbed one last carton of Dunkaroos at her. Splat! it went as it hit Heidi in the back of the head.

Up in the snowy recesses of Colorado, Heidi's mom did her best to read from her lines and say comforting things. But mostly she seemed as stiff as always, too aware of her angle to the camera, too clearly horrified but strangely delighted by this blocky, stretched-out thing her daughter had become. What wicked secrets does she hold?, Ma Heidi wondered. What nutrients can I extract for my own benefit? They talked about feelings and about weddings and about snow and about the nature of drama—was it mirror held up to life, or was it window to something faraway and strange, some dissonant imagining that will never quite match up to the real thing, and is therefore both horribly necessary and completely useless? Then they went to dinner!

At dinner Heidi's stepdad acted even more awkward than her realmom and then the evening teetered sideways and set a whole marina of embarrassment on fire because some exboyfriend of Heidi's named Colbyjackcheese galoompfed over and Heidi knew it was a setup, but she didn't know if it was her parents' doing or the producers', and then you saw a flash of cold recognition dart across her worried face and you knew that she'd suddenly realized she didn't even know the difference between the two anymore. Anyway, Colbyjack smiled dumbly and said he was dating a girl (I pictured a small pine tree, wearing a dress, riding a snowmobile at dawn) but wasn't engaged, so Ma Heidi's mouth curled around its lipliner and she said "Well then, there's still hope!"

Back in Sunburn Valley, Spencer decided that he needed to get some bro-questions out of the bro-way. So he called up Brody and they met at some vegan restaurant and talked about feelings and Brody sort of agreed with Spencer but also seemed to not really care one way or another. Spencer also went to talk to Stacie again, who gleamed and glistened terribly when she said mean things about Heidi, and lordy lou, what's gonna happen?

The episode ended somewhere, I don't really remember. I do remember that Lauren said it was funny that the only people Spencer and Heidi had to call were the two people they'd dicked over the most. That actually made sense. Good observation, LC.

So here we are, plummeting back down into this hole. The rabbit who dug it long gone, probably buried somewhere in his little waistcoat, lying in some unremarkable grave. And we're left to ponder what will be left of the show once our tanned anchor snaps the line and disappears. We'll have Lo, but all of her pointy cruelty will be rendered neutral when she doesn't have Lauren's relative niceness to play off. So too will Spencer and Heidi struggle for want of a backboard. Their dumb stupid tennis balls (and Dunkaroos and Gushers and huge, heaping handfuls of spaghetti) will just lob over the fence and sit there, unanswered. And we'll be asked to watch.

And, of course, there's Audrina. There she was in the background last night, like something strange and ugly and frail that's been stolen from the world—a fawn embryo, drifting in space. There've been some reports that she might be leaving too, so we won't have to face a season like the last one where it was mostly about her moonlit features screwing up into various facial poses, ranging between chimpunk-who's-just-lost-its-job to koala-bear-cub-who's-just-learned-the-concept-of-kidnapping. Neither are terribly interesting. Though I think, in some strange way, I'd miss them if they left.

Same to you Lauren! But, alas, you're already a ghost. Which means, in part at least, I don't believe in you.

Poof!

RYAN DAHARSH....ONE OF THE BEST

2009-04-06T22:22:00.002-04:00

LOOK AT THIS BEAUTY!

MICHELLE OBAMA WOWS THE WORLD

2009-04-06T17:46:00.003-04:00

IOWA "GETS IT"

2009-04-06T15:25:00.002-04:00

******TAKEN FOM THE DES MOINES REGISTER

Millions of dollars in tourism and tax revenue could flow into Iowa as a result of the Iowa Supreme Court's historic decision to legalize same-sex marriage, according to a range of scholars and business people.

The unanimous but controversial ruling announced Friday overturned a 10-year-old ban on same-sex marriage and made Iowa the third state where gay marriage is legal.

Iowa counties will begin to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples as early as this month.

Unlike Connecticut and Massachusetts - the other states that permit gay marriage - Iowa has no nearby competitors for same-sex couples who want to marry.

Businesses could see $160 million in new wedding and tourism spending over the next three years, according to a study from researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles.

"Iowa pretty much has the Midwest all to itself," said Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economist who co-authored the 2008 report. "It's in the middle of a lot of states that have a lot of same-sex couples. It's in a good position."

The study predicts that 2,917 same-sex Iowa couples will wed in the three years after the marriages are allowed to proceed. In addition, nearly 55,000 out-of-state couples could come to Iowa to get married, the study found.

The ruling also could attract newcomers to the state, although some cautioned that the long-term impact remains unclear.

Conservative critics argued that economics should not factor into an issue they view as an attack on traditional marriage and religious liberties.

Impact on Iowa's image - and on revenue

In Iowa, advocates celebrated the decision as a breakthrough for civil rights, while supporters of the Defense of Marriage law that was struck down said the court overstepped its authority.

With that debate lingering, the court's ruling probably will not turn Iowa into an instant haven for hipsters and intellectuals, said University of Iowa political scientist David Redlawsk. But over time, he said, the ruling could create an atmosphere that attracts younger residents and the so-called "creative class."

"It makes Iowa overall a more welcoming state," Redlawsk said. "That's a good thing from the standpoint of businesses who, frankly, are concerned about quality of life issues for their employees."

A University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll released Friday found that 58.7 percent of Iowans under age 30 support gay marriage, and three-fourths favor some formal recognition of gay relationships.

A Des Moines Register Iowa Poll in 2008 showed that although most Iowans believe marriage should be only between one man and one woman, a majority of Iowa adults also supported the creation of civil unions granting benefits to gay couples.

Same-sex marriage will yield an estimated net gain of $5.3 million per year for Iowa state government, according to the report from UCLA's Williams Institute, a nonprofit think tank that studies sexual orientation and public policy.

"It's not going to have a huge impact," Badgett said. "But the impact will be positive."

Fewer gays and lesbians in Iowa will qualify for public benefits such as Medicaid if they marry and combine incomes, the study found. Nearly 90 percent of same-sex married couples who file their taxes jointly also would pay more because of their higher earnings.

Sales tax revenue would rise because of increased spending on florists, hotels and other wedding expenses. The increases would offset the married gay couples who pay less or receive other marriage-related deductions, according to the study.

"What people care about right now are their pocketbooks," Redlawsk said. "The moral issues are just not as high on anybody's list right now, given the economic environment."

"Conservative" model of economic outcomes

Researchers at the Williams Institute projected similar increases for other states embroiled in the gay marriage debate. Most of the benefit comes from greater spending on wedding expenses.

Vermont stands to gain $30.6 million and 700 new jobs over three years if it were to legalize gay marriage, said UCLA law professor Brad Sears, the institute's executive director. Vermont lawmakers last week approved a bill to legalize gay marriage but fell just short of the margin needed to override Gov. Jim Douglas' promised veto.

Maine, where lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow gay marriage, would receive a $60 million boost and 1,000 new jobs in the same three-year period, he said. California's economy would grow by $683.3 million, which would create and sustain nearly 2,200 jobs. California had allowed gay marriage before a November voter initiative repealed it.

Researchers drew their estimates from a complex mix of U.S. census data, spending behavior in states that allow same-sex marriage, and the proportion of gay couples who actually married.

"Our model is pretty conservative," Sears said. "We're only estimating spending by the couples themselves. It doesn't anticipate gifts from guests or other spending."

Wedding planners said the ruling would likely boost their business during the tight economic times.

"It's definitely beneficial to our industry," said Dena Davey, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut-based Association of Bridal Consultants. "It's more business. Some consultants may not feel comfortable doing it, but I think the vast majority think it's wonderful."

Many consultants already help organize civil union and commitment ceremonies, Davey said. But "when it's an actual, legally binding wedding, it just makes it that much more exciting for couples."

Emily Andersen, a bridal specialist with Shaffer's Bridal in Des Moines, said same-sex couples account for a small fraction of their business. But with the court decision, she said, business could easily grow.

Pamela Chase, a Boston-area wedding planner, said gay and lesbian couples account for 20 percent of her client base. Business has dropped because of the economy, she said, but the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts has helped her plan an average of 15 weddings per year.

"There are four weddings I would not have had had the law not passed," said Chase.

Social conservatives: Ignore economics

Supporters of the 1998 Iowa law argue that the institution of traditional marriage outweighs any possible economic benefit.

"That was the same argument that was made for riverboat gambling and casinos," said Doug Napier, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian group based in Arizona. "I don't think these kinds of decisions need to be based solely on the basis of economic impact."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa last year, issued a statement saying, "All Iowans should have a say in this matter. ... It is my hope that the Legislature will take the necessary steps to properly resolve this matter."

U.S. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, warned in a statement Friday that the decision could turn Iowa into a "gay marriage Mecca" and called for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, an opponent of gay marriage in the past, said Friday he was reviewing the court's ruling. But there are significant hurdles to overcome to amend the Iowa Constitution.

The Legislature must approve a constitutional amendment during two consecutive sessions before the issue goes to a statewide ballot, meaning the earliest that could happen would be in 2012. Massachusetts has a nearly identical process.

"Opponents in Massachusetts couldn't do anything immediately," Redlawsk said. "As time went by, people realized that the sky hasn't fallen, the world hasn't ended."

Same-sex couples live in every county in Iowa but are most prevalent in Polk, Johnson and Linn counties, the statistics show.

Fewer than 1 percent of households in Iowa were home to unmarried same-sex couples in 2007, U.S. census data show. Nine states had a lower proportion of same-sex households.

Register staff writer Melissa Walker contributed to this report.

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MALE SUPERMODELS/US WEEKLY / 1996

2009-04-06T00:46:00.000-04:00

Where the Boys Are
By Al Weisel
US Magazine, June 1996, pp. 90-98, 117-118

Male supermodels don't throw tantrums, give attitude or make movies—yet. They're hot right now, but how long will they last?

Imagine you're walking down the street in New York City on a beautiful sunny day when suddenly you notice something strange: People are being nice to you. They're smiling at you. Strangers say hello as they pass. Women lower their sunglasses; men stare into your eyes. This is no dream. You're supermodel Joel West, and everybody wants you.

"I don't think I will ever quite accept the attention," says West, 20, who signed a one-year, seven-figure contract with Calvin Klein last August. "People whispering, talking about me. The acknowledgment of society knowing who I am wherever I go." Of course, West's predicament is not news. Supermodels had been treated like celebrities long before West was launched into the world by the band of his Calvin Klein underwear. What is news is that West, thanks in part to those Calvin's, is one of the first male models to become an international sex object.

Not long ago, the idea of male models as sex objects was almost laughable, if not suspect. Men's fashion represented just a fraction of the industry, and men who worried about their looks were considered, somehow, less masculine. Male models, in turn, were treated as mere props and background-anonymous walk-ons who made far less money than their female counterparts. But changing attitudes toward male beauty - reflected in and even propelled in part by Klein's advertising campaigns-have empowered men in the only profession (besides, perhaps, the world's oldest) in which they had been second-class citizens.

FASHION WEEK IN NEW YORK: AT CALVIN KLEIN—THE MOST prestigious of the New York menswear shows—models listen in rapt attention as Klein recites his pre-show instructions. "Don't look serious," he says. "But no big smiles. You already look like you could wear a $2,000 suit, so you don't have to try to look proud." Klein makes a quick exit, then returns just as quickly. "I just thought of something else," he says. "If there's one word to describe the feeling, think sex."

One of the sexiest models isn't here today. Tyson Beckford, who made history last year as the first African-American male to ink an exclusive deal with a major designer, is prohibited by his contract with Polo Ralph Lauren from doing other designers' shows. So it's up to models like Alex Lundqvist, 24, a sweet-faced Swede with long blond hair and a wispy mustache and goatee, has compelling eyes, clear and blue. Fellow Wilhelmina model Mark Vanderloo is a trim Dutchman with spiky blond hair. At 27, he's the world's highest-paid male model, with an annual income of more than $1 million.

Across the room, Jason Olive, a volleyball player who graduated last year from the University of Hawaii, displays his massive chest. But he's not just showing off—he says he'll be wearing a turtleneck in the show and doesn't want to mess up his makeup. "Why don't you parade around shirtless like Olive?" Lundqvist is asked, and he snaps back, "Because I think it's tacky." Then he reconsiders. "Well, maybe if I was as big as him..." Olive isn't the only model who makes Lundqvist envious. Looking over at Joel West, he whispers, "Did Joel tell you how much money he makes?"

It's natural that West would be the source of jealousy among other models. Last August the small-town boy from Indianola, Iowa, was plucked from obscurity and vaulted to the top tier of male supermodels when he signed on with Calvin Klein. Apparently, though, there is trouble in paradise. "I'm not doing many shows this year," says West, sighing. Last season he was Klein's star model. Now, he says, disappointed at his placement in the show, "I'm 57th."

IN THE LOBBY OF BOSS MODELS, A GIANT BLOWUP OF THE now infamous Calvin Klein underwear ad featuring Joel West looms: "It makes me proud," says West, who has stopped by the agency to pick up his fan mail—all of which turns out to be from men." I wish some girls would write me," he says plaintively, quickly adding he doesn't mind having so many male fans. Later, West confesses, "I'm a very trusting person." Which might explain why he wasn't fazed when a photographer approached him at the Mall of America Dairy Queen in Minneapolis while he was eating a Blizzard on an outing with his church group. The photographer asked West, 17 at the time, to model for him. West's mother, Jan Gipple, was more wary, having "heard things about the fashion industry," he says, and insisted on accompanying him. "We had a five-hour drive to get him to [the shoot]," says Gipple. "It's in this abandoned warehouse, and I'm thinking, This is great; we're just going to leave you at an abandoned warehouse with this stranger. I wonder if you're going to be there when we pick you up." The photographer turned out to be aboveboard, but Gipple, 42, a veterinary technician who herself grew up in Indianola, still wasn't convinced West would make it: "In Iowa, what are the chances of your getting anywhere in modeling?"

West, however, with his otherworldly beauty—lithe, defined body, pouty lips and exotic eyes—soon became familiar to anyone who picked up a magazine. But he had no idea just how familiar he would become. In October 1995, a couple of months after he signed on with Calvin Klein, West was propelled to instant notoriety with a controversial underwear campaign featuring him spread-eagled and clad only in his Calvins. The advertisements' sexual frankness made them ripe for attack (especially coming after Klein's much-assailed ad campaign featuring teen-age models a few months earlier), and West became nightly fodder for tabloid TV shows, which camped out in his family's yard in Iowa.

West's father, Rob West, 41, who operates a backhoe for a construction company and hasn't seen much of his son since divorcing Joel's mother when Joel was 14, says, "I. was happy he was making the money, but I didn't really like the ads. They were risqué." Gipple, on the other hand, had a more practical view: "I said, 'It's pretty hard to sell a product if you're not going to show it."' The strongest reaction, surprisingly, came from Linda J. Wachner, CEO of Warnaco, which owns Calvin Klein's underwear division; she publicly excoriated them. "This ad which appeared with this gentleman's legs spread apart was not approved by Warnaco," she said. "There are no plans to use that shot again."

West was shocked by the controversy. "I didn't understand where they were coming from," he says. "I took it very personally." Meanwhile, he had to deal with instant celebrity. "I've lost a lot of my privacy," he says. "There were a few months of adjustment where I was in limbo. I wasn't happy." He denies media reports that the pressure made him flee New York for Iowa. "I love New York," he says. "I purchased a home in Iowa to be close to my family." West shares his new house—with its circular driveway, pillars and fountain in front—with his maternal grandparents, who take care of it when he's away. "It's like something out of Gone With the Wind," marvels his mother.

West's mother and stepfather, Michael Gipple, a fleet mechanic for the Mid American Energy Company, live just down the road with Joel's 17-year-old brother, Jake. West has nicknamed Jake "Deviant" because of his penchant for mischief—like trying to break into West's laptop. Joel's father, who grew up in and still lives in Indianola, says, "Joel looks like me and takes after his mom. Jake looks like his mom and takes after me. Jake's more wild. Joel's more laid-back."

West's high-school teachers have nothing but nice things to say about him, which isn't surprising since he was voted biggest brown-noser by his class. "Joel always had a ready smile," gushes his chemistry teacher, Irene Bertsch. "He was a very hard worker." She wasn't shocked by the ads. "I saw Joel at several swim meets, and actually there was more covered in the ad than there was in the tiny little Speedos they wear," she says.

But things in Iowa are not quite the same. "I have a lot more friends and family members," West says cynically. "People coming out of the woodwork." He says that people who once thought he was "a geeky bookworm" now think he's "cool," including his girlfriend, Joy Ashbaugh. She ignored West when they attended high school together—"She was in the elite, the cool girls who hung out with the cool guys," he says—and started dating him only after he became a successful model. "I've stayed the same," he says. "The only thing that's changed is the people around me." His mother, however, has detected some changes in West. "He may be more leery of people than he used to be," she says. "Since I'm not familiar with the media, Joel kept telling me, 'Don't tell them everything, Mom, because things get twisted.'" But she also thinks "it made him very worldly. He acts a lot older than any 20-year-old I've met."

Otherwise he's the same kid she raised. "He's possessed to excel in everything he does," she says. "He drives everyone crazy being an overachiever." But there's also another side to him. "He's the biggest romantic," she says. "For his girlfriend at Thanksgiving he filled his room with balloons, had a candlelight dinner and cooked this gourmet meal. I'm thinking, Most guys would just pull up, honk, and you run out."

ONE MIGHT THINK THAT BEING AN OBJECT OF DESIRE WOULD make it easy to find a mate. But most models say maintaining a relationship is one of the difficulties of the job. Tyson Beckford, who has dated Chilli from TLC, says that in addition to the fact that "you're never home," jealousy can be a big problem. "I've dated girls, and they'll be like, 'Oh, she was looking at you,' and I'll be like, 'No, she wasn't. She was just being nice.'" One of the best things about the woman he recently started dating is that she's not jealous. "We went to a pre-Grammy party, and all these girls were coming up to me, but she was cool about it," he says.

Some models end up with the people who best know what their lives are like: other models. "Another model knows what you have to go through," says Vanderloo. "And they aren't the ugliest girls in the world, either." Ask Alex Lundqvist. He dated supermodel Nadja Auermann for more than a year (although the relationship ended in February).

For models who aren't ready to settle down, there are plenty of opportunities for fleeting pleasures. "One time I was dog tired and went out to a club for a drink," recalls 24-year-old Jason Lewis, who has been modeling for three years. "A woman recognized who I was and basically offered to go to bed with me. I said, 'That's great, but I'm really tired,' and walked out." And when he's not so tired? "I've certainly had relationships with women that lasted an evening," he says, "but I don't screw around that much. I don't want anyone greeting me with bulls---, and I don't think it's fair of me to do the same."

Of course, women aren't the only ones who have crushes on guys like Lewis. The top male models, however, don't seem either publicly or privately to identify as gay. Not that they're homophobic, either. "I've had men have crushes on me," says Atlanta native Mark Fisher, 20, who is currently appearing in the new Polo Sport campaign. "I treat them the same as anybody else."

"TEN YEARS AGO, THE STANDARD MALE MODEL WAS PERFECT face, perfect body. Boring, really," says casting agent Leslie Simitch. "I think now there's a much wider range of what we consider attractive in a man." In the '70s, the elegant, square-jawed GQ look was in. In the '80s, renowned fashion photographer Bruce Weber popularized more-athletic bodies with pumped-up pectorals and chiseled abdominals. "Many male models now are scrawny," says Simitch. "And a lot have long hair."

But the idea that men can be just as sexy as women—and that male models can be marketed as sex objects—whose men's division is the largest in the world—and his New York director, Jason Kanner, have been doing everything in their power to cultivate this phenomenon and make it last. One of Kanner's first assignments when he joined the agency in 1991 was to manage Marcus Schenkenberg, now 27, who was soon to appear in a 116-page advertising supplement for Calvin Klein photographed by Bruce Weber. In the most famous shot, Schenkenberg is naked in a shower, his ripped torso dripping wet, and holding jeans in front of what he modestly refers to in Swedish-filtered English as his "fireman." Kanner had a radical plan for promoting Schenkenberg: Market him like a female model. The agency raised his rates, from $3,000 to as much as $20,000 a day, and was more selective about the jobs he took." He'd do three or four campaigns instead of 12 but get more money," explains Kanner. "This was done with women, never with men." The strategy worked: Schenkenberg was in such demand after the campaign, his rates went up, which helped increase rates for other male models as well.

One February afternoon, Kanner is looking through a sea of photographs spread out before him. He's just returned from scouting in Milan, where he chose five of the 500 men he saw. Kanner points out the attributes of the men he selected: the "sunken cheekbones, ivory skin and jet-black hair" of one, "the perfect nose, full lips and great jaw line" of another. Then, sounding like a high-school misfit getting revenge on the popular guys, he sizes up the rejects. One model "looks like a schoolteacher," he says. Of another he complains, "There's way too many odd things happening on this guy's face." Kanner knows he has an advantage over them. "When I'm 60," he says, "I'm still going to have a job."

Looks aren't everything, though, even in modeling. Jennifer Starr, who was Bruce Weber's casting assistant for four years before going free-lance recently, says that she looks for qualities that are more than skin-deep. "At first it's the physical look," she says. "But after that it's all attitude. When I find someone on the street and take a Polaroid of them, I'm looking to see how they react to me and the camera- if they're stiff, how they hold themselves. You have to be comfortable with who you are." But not too comfortable. "Sometimes after you've been in this business awhile," she says, "you've got it down, and that's not interesting to work with anymore. That spontaneity is gone."

THE STANDARDS OF BEAUTY, LIKE THOSE OF FASHION, DO change. But some models, like Tyson (Beckford is his last name, but like some of the female supermodels, he eschews his surname), are so stunningly beautiful that it doesn't matter if their look is "in" at the moment. Although he's 6-foot-1, Tyson looks smaller in person than in photographs, but his face is even more breathtaking, with Asian eyes, full lips and silky, dark skin. When he smiles, he can look as gentle as a kitten; when he frowns, as mean as a rattlesnake. Before shooting a commercial for Polo, Tyson changes clothes, taking off the baggy B-boy jeans he prefers and dancing around as he struggles to pull tight jeans over his massive thighs. Then he takes off his shirt, revealing jaw-dropping muscles as well as something one never sees under the tailored suits he wears so elegantly—a rebellious streak. After he signed a Polo Ralph Lauren contract for a reported $550,000 last year, Tyson covered his arms with tattoos.

Dragons are etched on his biceps. Both forearms have Chinese inscriptions. He translates the sentence on his right forearm, a tribute to his older brother Patrick, who was murdered in a mugging four years ago. But Tyson declines to decipher the message on the other arm: "It's a secret," he says, "for me and my homies. We all got the same thing." The tattoo illustrates why he will probably survive no matter what happens to him in the treacherous waters of the fashion world. In English it reads, "Don't trust anybody."

While watching a comedian in New York's Washington Square Park in the summer of 1991, Tyson was approached by an editor for the hip-hop magazine The Source who offered him a modeling job. "This guy goes to me, 'You got pretty eyes,'" Tyson, 25, recalls. "I'm thinking, Must be some porno magazine:" But then the editor said something that piqued Tyson's interest. "The opportunities," he said, "are endless:" Two days later, Tyson had his first gig. But because he really wanted a job in the music industry, Tyson drifted out of modeling. Patrick encouraged him to pursue it. "In modeling," his brother told him coincidentally, "the opportunities are endless."

Tyson was born in the Bronx, N.Y., but the family moved to Jamaica when he was just a baby. His mother, Hilory Dixon, who once won third place in a Miss Jamaica contest, moved them back to New York when Tyson was 7 after separating from his father. She later married Lloyd Dixon, who worked for a collection agency and was always calling people up saying, "You owe us money," Tyson remembers. "I grew up not really having a father image," he says. "I used to think my stepfather was the meanest man in the world." Tyson resented being forced by Dixon, who now works for Citibank, to learn how to do taxes for the money he earned from his paper route when he was 13. "I said I'm never gonna need to know how to deal with that," he says. "But now I'm dealing with it. I didn't understand when I was a kid. He's still in there with me today. He means a lot to me."

When Tyson first moved to New York, the other kids made fun of the way he looked and talked. "I was this dark-skinned Chinese kid with an Afro who spoke with a heavy Jamaican accent," says Tyson, whose paternal grandmother is Chinese. "If you think about it, it's kind of funny. They called me Mr. Chin." Because he spoke Jamaican patois, he says, "I had to take classes to learn to speak so-called English. Since I couldn't speak too well, I had to stay back a year." After graduating at 19, he attended a community college but dropped out after one semester. Then, in August 1992, Tyson's brother Patrick was murdered. "I got in my own shell and didn't want to do nothing," he says.

A year later Tyson saw actor Kadeem Hardison on The Arsenio Hall Show talking about his mother Bethann's modeling agency. Recalling his brother's words about opportunities in modeling, Tyson went to see her.

Hardison was impressed with Tyson but cautious. "You never know who's going to take off, because you have such racism in the industry," she says." Most fashion people don't know the beauty of blacks, so you don't want to encourage someone too much. "Hardison herself was a model—and as one of the first successful black models in the '60s, a pioneer. With dreadlocks down to the small of her back and a radiant smile, she's stunning, and as tough as she is charming. When she was 19, Hardison dropped out of fashion briefly to become a corrections officer after being "inspired by The Snake Pit [the 1948 film about mental illness]," she recalls, laughing. Breaking barriers is a mission for Hardison, who with Iman co-founded the Black Girls Coalition, which lobbies the fashion industry to employ more people of color.

Hardison sent Tyson to Weber, telling him only that the photographer was important and warning Tyson that Weber would ask him to take off his shirt. "He looked like Santa Claus," Tyson recalls. "He was so sweet I was ready to jump on his lap and ask for some toys." Weber recommended Tyson to Ralph Lauren, whose offices initially intimidated him. "I was like a little B-boy sitting in this office with all these guys in suits," Tyson says. "I'm like, Aw, man, I shouldn't even be here. This was like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and here comes me, a little street kid:" Surprising everyone, Lauren made Tyson the centerpiece of his campaign. Giving a black model such a high profile was a courageous act in an industry where courage is usually something you knock off a competitor and sell at a discount. Of course, the publicity didn't do Lauren any harm.

Tyson, who was named male model of the year at the VH1 Fashion & Music Awards last December, has reached a level of celebrity unparalleled by other male models, becoming a hero to minorities who are not used to seeing their faces in fashion ads. Stopped at a traffic light on Wall Street, where he promised a friend of his mother's he would go to meet her love-struck co workers, he is momentarily startled when a macho black bike messenger reaches in the window of Tyson's Land Cruiser, taps him on the shoulder and asks for his autograph. But his celebrity has a price. "Sometimes I'm scared to walk down the street," Tyson says. "People try to set you up. They make jokes and say, 'I'm gonna jump under the wheel of your car so that I can sue you and get paid."' He prefers to stay home at his new house in suburban New Jersey working on his Kawasaki motorcycles.

Despite his success, however, Tyson still has to deal with racism. When he was looking to buy a new car a few years ago, several dealers refused to sell him one, no matter how much cash he had for a down payment. When he finally was able to purchase a Land Cruiser, he then had to contend with police who were suspicious of a young black man driving an expensive automobile with dealer's tags. "They pulled me over in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, accusing me of stealing the car," he says. Tyson isn't the only model up against racism. Jason Olive, whose father is African-American and whose mother is German-Jewish, Irish and Chippewa, was one of the few models of color at the men's collections during fashion week. "I think it's f---ed," he says angrily." I don't see why I should be the only black model in a show." Kevin Louie, one of the few Asian models in the business, says that a major-department-store representative told his agent that they didn't use Asian models. Louie, who refers to himself with mordant humor as "your ethnic quota for today," wonders why some designers don't realize who buys their clothes. "Every time you go to these designers' stores you see hordes of Japanese, Koreans and Chinese coming out with six bags apiece," he says. However, his success has inspired others. Backstage after a show, an Asian woman comes over to him, raises her fist and says, "Asian power."

MILAN (NICKNAMED "VIET MILAN" BY THE MODELS FOR ITS brutal pace during show week) is a mecca for young men who hope to make it in modeling. It's also where models get their first taste of the good and the bad the business has to offer. "Milan is crazy," says Olive. "You have guys flying in from all over the world. You feel that's all that city does: eats, drinks, sleeps fashion." It's a combination frat party and A Chorus Line audition. Fisher, who shared an unheated hotel room with two other models, arrived last January to a scene of total chaos: "They had a big party the night before," he says. "There were liquor bottles on the floor, cigarette burns everywhere, beds off the springs. I was pretty scared when I walked in to all this craziness."

During show season (in January and June), the streets are packed with male models rushing to appointments with designers, magazine editors and photographers. Casting calls can last until the wee morning hours; hundreds compete for a place in shows that have only three or four openings. At night, the models invariably end up at Club Hollywood. Fisher, who was discovered at the club by a Boss scout, says that like many cash-poor models, he ended up "dancing for dollars" there. "You get paid $150 to dance on a pedestal," he explains. "I'm not proud of it, but it paid the bills."

The fast lane in Milan has no speed limit. "A wild Italian party is like a party anywhere in the world, but there's more of it," says Olive. "There's pretty girls, but there's more of them, and they're prettier. There's drugs, but there's more drugs, used heavier. Parties last way into the morning in the most unbelievable settings. These houses are like palaces. Drugs, free sex, free everything. There's nothing you can't have."

ALEX LUNDQVIST LOOKED "LOST" IN MILAN, ACCORDING TO his pal Jason Lewis. "With all the good in this business, there's also the bad, and my first impression of Alex was that he couldn't discern between the two," Lewis explains. "That's not a comment on his intelligence. Alex just has the nicest heart. That made us want to look out for him."

Nothing like the dour Swedes in Ingmar Bergman movies, Lundqvist is walking on air. He just moved to New York, and he thinks it's the most wonderful city on Earth. He's "having a blast" with his new friends Jason Lewis and Mark Vanderloo and their Wilhelmina agent, Sean Patterson. And now that he makes thousands of dollars a day to stand around and look fabulous, he's got even more reason to smile.

Three years ago Lundqvist was making a lot less money and working much harder as a tank commander in the Swedish army. "We had this one week where we didn't have anything to eat except a banana a day," he says in his soft Swedish accent. "We had to break a hole in the ice and wash ourselves at 5:00 in the morning:" He uses his army name tag as a money clip "to remind me not to complain," he says. When he was discharged, he rebelled by growing his trademark long hair, mustache and goatee.

Lundqvist grew up on an island on the outskirts of Stockholm. In the winter he ice-skated to town like Hans Brinker. His father is a dentist, and his mother assists his father, which might sound like a good plot for a horror movie, but Lundqvist has never been on the other side of his father's drill, because he's luckily never had a cavity. He was unusually prone to accidents, though, and has scars to prove it on his forehead (he fell on the ice when he was 2, and hit his head building a treehouse), wrist (he put his hand through a glass door in high school) and back (he got stabbed in the army by one of the locals who frequently skirmished with the soldiers stationed in their town), plus assorted mementos from bust-ups on his Harley. Ten years ago his scars might have nixed a modeling career, but he had the good fortune to enter the business at a time when flawed beauty is actually an asset.

Lundqvist is seeing designers in New York to be fitted with the clothes he'll wear on the runway. He has just run into Jason Lewis at the high-tech sportswear designer Nautica. Embracing Lewis, he exclaims, "This is my new roommate," then puts him in a headlock and wrestles him to the floor like a rambunctious teen-ager.

As he walks down Fifth Avenue on his way to his next appointment, Lundqvist is so giddy you check to see if his feet touch the sidewalk. Suddenly, he spies a picture of Vanderloo on a telephone booth and stops dead in his tracks. He walks up to the poster, punches the picture at Vanderloo's shoulder and says, grinning, "Hey, buddy!"

LUNDQVIST HAS EVERY REASON TO BE ON TOP OF THE world—he started his career just as the male-supermodel phenomenon took off. The question now is, Will it last? Michael Gross, author of Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, isn't convinced it will: "I don't believe that if you go to a mall in Indiana and ask a beer-swilling teen-ager the name of the kid in the Calvin Klein commercial, he's going to know it. The male supermodel is a marketing phenomenon that will not take hold with the masses. I hope they make a lot of money, don't get spoiled and can live real lives after living in this false bubble."

But the models have a more pragmatic view. "At the end of the year, the women always come out ahead," says Vanderloo. "But I'm not upset about it. They deserve it. I can only look into my own pockets, and I'm not unhappy."

Of course, there are always post-modeling career options. Lundqvist is saving his money to study advertising. Tyson and Lewis are talking about film careers. Hardison says she's already refused some movie offers for Tyson because he's "not ready." Tyson, however, is getting restless. "Some models eat, drink and sleep modeling," he says. "I just want to get my money and get out."

Not a bad idea when you work in an industry where one day you're hot, the next you're not. Earlier this year, during fashion week, West's relationship with Calvin Klein was modified. While he would still model for the designer's fragrance and eyewear ads, he would no longer be Klein's underwear supermodel. Replacing him is Antonio Sabato Jr. (Melrose Place). "Calvin Klein is always searching for new talent," says a Klein spokesperson dispassionately. Leslie Simitch, who worked on the casting for Klein, says, "We were looking for a good body, and we were also looking for a personality."

Boss' director of communications, Paul West (no relation to Joel) isn't going to admit defeat, however. "[Joel] is the hottest f---ing supermodel in the world," he says. "Walk down the street in Chicago or Houston and say the name Joel West and the name Tyson, and see which one they know."

After fashion week in New York, Joel West immediately flew back to Iowa, where he stayed a few days before setting out to Hollywood with his best friend since the fifth grade, Cory Sinclair, an actor, to test the waters out there. Back at Boss' office, the blowup of the Calvin Klein ad that hung in the lobby, which just three weeks earlier had made West so proud, has been removed from the wall, like the painting of a crown prince toppled in a coup d'état.■

Al Weisel is the co-author, with Larry Frascella, of Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, being published in October 2005.
Return to Al Weisel's Homepage

LADY GAGA LIKES THE PUNANY

2009-04-03T19:55:00.001-04:00

SORRY QUEENS

CONGRATULATIONS IOWA

2009-04-03T14:58:00.001-04:00

GOD BLESS THE GREAT STATE OF IOWA!

TRAVIS DAVENPORT FOR CHANEL NO#5

2009-04-02T00:53:00.002-04:00

5 is Chanel's $exiest Number

Clocking in at almost 90 years old (!), something from the Chanel No. 5 line is sold every six seconds; a wonder of the perfume- and marketing-worlds, it still reigns as the No. 1 scent in the world. It's been 5 years since Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman teamed up to create a splashy campaign for the brand (the most costly ad ever) and now a decadent new campaign is in the works. Breaking online with a 2.5 minute movie on, of course, the 5th of May - the 88th anniversary of the day Mademoiselle Coco first introduced the fragrance - the spot is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and stars French "it" fille, Audrey Tatou.

After first laying eyes on each other traveling on the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul, Tatou and model Travis Davenport play a pair that is repeatedly starcrossed until they finally end up embracing on a mosaic of Chanel's iconic logo C's. If you're particularly eagle-eyed, watch for the myriad No. 5 references throughout, including the number of Tatou's train cabin, and numbers of the train platform.

A sneak peek will be available at ChanelN5.com at the end of April. (via WWD)
- Lesley Scott

(Chanel No. 5 Nicole Kidman ad - theinspirationroom.com; Chanel print ad - myluxury.it)

REAL HOUSEWIVES

2009-04-01T22:53:00.004-04:00

GOOD EVENING ALL

I HAD A GREAT DINNER WITH SOME COLLEAGUES AT IL CANTINORI TONITE . OUR INTENTION WAS TO , OF COURSE, DISCUSS BUSINESS..WHAT DID WE DISCUSS??? REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK CITY ON BRAVO. WE ARE ALL OBSESSED WITH IT.

FOUR OF US SORT OF KNOW KELLY K BENSIMON THRU OUR MUTUAL FRIEND MATT ALBIANI AND WERE HORRIFIED BY "CONFRONTATION" WITH MIDDLE AGED J.A.P (I CAN SAY IT AS A JEW) AT THE TRAGIC BRASS MONKEY IN MEATPACKING DISTRICT. HOW IN THE HELL DID SHE THINK THAT THAT WAS THE WAY TO HANDLE HERSELF(WITH A CAMERA CREW NO LESS). GREAT T.V....BAD FOR HUMANITY.

OK, ENOUGH CHATTER ON B.S

GOOD BOOKINGS HAVE COME THRU...WILL LET THE WORK SPEAK FOR ITSELF

SIMON SET TO SHOOT GIVENCHY AGAIN , THIS TIME WITH MERT N MARCUS. EXCITING.

ALSO, SINCE JANUARY I HAVE BEEN ASSEMBLING A CAST OF GREAT NEW FACES FOR THE MENS DEPARTMENT. I HAVE TO SAY ITS BACK TO THE ROOTS OF MAJOR ..VERY SEXY , SULTRY MEN. I THINK THE KI-KI SET WILLBE MIGHTY PLEASED. THIS FRIDAY ILL BE POSTING A HEADSHOT OF EACH GUY ON THE MAJOR BLOG TO KVELL "SHOW OFF".

SENDING LOVE YOUR WAY WITH BOTH ARMS OPEN

SEND IT BACK THE SAME

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOUGLAS PERRETT..XXO

NIGHT

J

PAUL LANGE PHOTOGRAPHY

2009-03-29T23:44:00.004-04:00

WITH THE RECESSION IN FULL EFFECT..I FIND MYSELF LOOKING FOR INNOVATIVE WAYS TO DRUM UP BUSINESS FOR MY MODELS AN AGENCY. IM TOLD THAT I OBSESS TOO MUCH, AND ON MY OFF TIME I SHOULDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT..BUT I DO. I LOVE WORKING WITH IMMERGING ARTISTS, BUT I ALSO LIKE GOING BACK AND SEE WHAT SOME OF THE LESSER KNOWN BUT STILL LEGENDARY TO ME PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE UP TO

AND I THOUGHT ABOUT MARC HISPARD, MIKE REINHARDT EDDY KOHLI AND PAUL LANGE...I GOOGLED THEM AND CHECKED OUT THEIR SITES..AND WHEN I CAME ACROSS PAUL'S SITE IT WAS TRULY TOOK ME BACK . TO ALL THOSE BEAUTIFUL BRIGHT HAPPY PICS OF A BABY NIKI TAYLOR..HE ALSO SHOT THE BIGGEST MODELS OF THE DAY IN SOME OF THEIR FIRST COVER WORK ( DANIELA PESTOVA, BEVERLY PEELE) ....HE ALSO SHOT TONEYA BIRD'S ONLY MADEMOISELLE COVER.

NICE PRETTY PICTURES..CHECK THEM OUT

XOXOX

LETTING YOUR DAYS GO BY

2009-03-29T22:03:00.002-04:00

NOT MUCH TO REPORT

BEEN WORKING LIKE A MAD MAN

FEEL THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD ON MY BACK

I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN TO MANAGE .

I WANT TO GO TO LA FOR A WEEK TO SEE FRIENDS AND STAY IN A GREAT HOTEL AND RELAX

I DONT KNOW WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I REALLY RELAXED AND UNWOUND AND DIDNT HAVE TO ANSWER A DOZEN TEXT MESSAGES OR EMAILS...IM TRULT EXHAUSTED 24 HORUS A DAY

ENOUGH COMPLAINING, I WILL GET THRU IT...I ALWAYS DO

GOOD NIGT

PEOPLE I AM LIVING FOR

2009-03-12T22:56:00.002-04:00

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO "TURNING ME ON" BY KERI HILSON

PEOPLE I AM LIVING FOR

MY PEEPS
ARN BENNY MERYL D PICKS

LALLY

MY CREW
CAM AND ROSS TWITTERING VIA FACEBOOK IN ARGENTINA

MY BOYZ
FOR REPRESENTING

SESS L
FOR ROCKING LAGS

SEXY MONKEY
FOR REMINISCING

CHAN TATES IN GQ/VF
CHA CHING

JESS JENN P
I LOVE YEE

REVS
U IS MY MANS

TUES WITH GASP ANTHNY TAY TAY PERRET AND KEITH
LIVING

SATURDAY LOVE
I LOVE YOU

MISSING HILLERY
HAPPY 26TH B DAY LSAK

DDICKS...LOYALTY , LOOK IT UP

CANDY GIRLS WATCH IT ON E!

L WORD, WHAT A SITTY ENDING

I LIKE SHORT RIBS

J E K AND AB..SEE U AT SOUL

BLAINE COOK FOR GERMAN GQ STYLE COVER

2009-03-05T23:19:00.000-05:00

PHOTOG: GIAMPAOLO SGURA

GQ GERMANY BY ARNALDO ANAYA LICCA

2009-03-05T23:17:00.000-05:00

TRAVIS DAVENPORT AND BLAINE COOK

TERRON WOOD ON GQ GERMANY HOMEPAGE

2009-03-05T21:02:00.002-05:00

YASMEEN GHAURI & HELENA BARQUILLA

2009-02-25T20:09:00.009-05:00

All season long I have been seeing on different sites announcements of former legendary super models coming back into circulation. Kristen McNenamy at DNA , Rachel Williams at ELITE, ... and every morning I wake up I check out the womens shows on VOGUE.CO.UK and STYLE.COM to see which girls are working for which designers. I have to say when I clicked on the AQUASCUTUM'S SHOW and saw the casting of Yasmin LeBon, Susie Bick , Lorraine Pascale and Jeny Howorth ( THE AGYNESS OF THE 80'S I bugged the f** k out. These amazing SUPER models walking with the new class of superGIRLS like Jordan Dunn, Amanda Laine and Kinga ..and it makes me miss the SUPERS.

Last season D Squared cast Nadege as one of 3 "Charlie's Angels'" and it made me long for the cat walk super star that was her bestie, YASMEEN GHAURI. No print fashion model, including NAOMI CAMPBELL could compare to YASMEEN'S fierce rule of the runway. Kids, these girls were THE girls that replaced runway models on the runway..Bryjna, Dianne Dewitt, Dalma, Sonia Cole etc. were hip shashaying goddesses who were rarely photgraphed for advertising or editorial .It was the Yasmeen's who shot Vogue one day and walked VERSACE/YSL/FERRE/LACROIX the next ..long before that was the standard it is now. Yasmeen along with Nadege, Veronica Webb, Emma Sjoberg,Gurmit, etc rose up from showgirls to print girls to all around "supers"... not as much in the spotlight of the LINDA/NAOMI/CHRISTY machine..and dominated VOGUE/ELLE/BAZAAR FOR NEARLY 10 YRS (1987-1996).

I miss the days when you would go and see a show and witness a true superstar own the room for those 15 seconds. I remember going to Anna Sui at Industria the first time Tyra Banks did NY fashion week and people went crazy , clapping for Tyra and booing for Naomi...straight out of PAGE SIX .
That cast included Yasmeen, Carla Bruni, Claudia Mason, Nadege, Susan Holmes and of course LINDA/CHRISTY.NAOMI. It was a time when there were 20 girls doing everything and they were ( still are) ROCK STARS. Id love to see a group of girls reinvent the sameness that has been 1999 to 2009 and rock our worlds again. They are out there, I know it.

James Scully said to me earlier this month when the subject of Yasmeen Ghauri came up and said "they dont make 'em like that anymore..and my friend the sweetheart Ali at Women said " Check out Anne V and Cameron Russell!" and i get it, they are GORGEOUS, no doubt..but i want to see these bitches rock the runway. hips swaying left to right , hands on hips Montana theatrics..Helena Barquilla runway modeling is necessary this very second.

Can I get an amen?

Peace

P.S...Natasha POLY comes really close...now we need 19 more!

BREATHTAKING..RYAN VIGILANT BY GREGORY VAUGHAN

2009-02-21T20:11:00.007-05:00

THESE PICTURES TOOK MY BREATHE AWAY. THESE PICTURES OF RYAN ARE FLAWLESS. LIVING FOR RYAN AND GREG THIS SECOND

STEVE GOLD

2009-02-19T17:08:00.001-05:00

MAKES YOU WONDER

2009-02-12T00:47:00.000-05:00

IS IT ALL WORTH IT?

CHAD WHITE FOR GANT SPORT SPRING SUMMER 09

2009-02-11T23:23:00.005-05:00

BRIAN DAVENPORT NEW DIGITALS

2009-02-11T20:53:00.000-05:00

QUICK DIGITALS OF JEREMY SANTUCCI

2009-02-11T20:48:00.003-05:00

I HATE THAT THERE IS NO MORE POLAROIDS..NOW I HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO SHOOT THESE DAMN DIGITALS AND I AM NOT DOING TOWELL..UGH

MY FAVORITE VOGUE COVER OF ALL TIME

2009-02-10T21:36:00.000-05:00

FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA!

I AM THRILLED TO BE REPRESENTING PATRICK KAFKA

2009-02-10T18:09:00.000-05:00

AM I BOTHERED?

2009-02-03T22:37:00.003-05:00

EVERYONE'S PANICING ABOUT THE ECONOMY. IS IT REAL OR HYSTERIA? I MEAN PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS NEED TO WEAR CLOTHES AND THEY WILL NEED TO BE ADVERTISED..SO THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A NEED FOR MODELS. RIGHT?

EVERYDAY I WAKE UP, GO TO CNN.COM, FORBES.COM AND SEE THE HEADLINES "TARGET TO LAY OFF ...EMPLOYEES, MACYS, SEARS, IT GOES ON AND ON...BUT WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN AND ROUND AND ROUND IT GOES. I FIND THIS A VERY DEFINING MOMENT IN OUR BUSINESS....WILL ONLY THE STRONGEST SURVIVE? WILL THE OLD DINOSAUR/FACTORY AGENCIES INNOVATE? WILL THE BOUTIQUES BE SWALLOWED BY THOSE DINOSAURS? WILL THE NEW SCHOOL KIDS WITH THEIR GREAT EYE FOR TALENT BE ABLE TO TURN THAT INTO REAL MONEY AND SURVIVE? I DONT KNOW, IT ALL SEEMS LIKE A CRAP SHOOT.

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE:

COOL AND CALM WILL WIN THE RACE. EXPERIENCE HAS ITS ADVANTAGES. A CLASSIC NEVER DIES...AND EVERYBODY WANTS WHATS NEW. SO AS EVERYONE TAKES THEIR XANAX, GETS LESS BOTOX, GOES GREEN AND LOOKS TO OBAMA FOR LEADERSHIP, I THINK ITS ESSENTIAL THAT EVERYONE TAKE A LITTLE RESPONSIBILTY AND WORKS ALOT HARDER. LIKE REALLY HARD. LIKE HARDER THEN YOU HAVE EVER HAD TO WORK FOR IT. AND HOW ABOUT BEING A LITTLE KINDER WITH ONE ANOTHER..A LITTLE GENTLER. TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS. IN THIS ERA OF GREAT CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION CANT THERE BE A LITTLE MORE DECENCY? I FOUND THE WAY OUR PRESIDENT DEALT WITH THE "SMEAR " CAMPAIGNS LAUNCHED AGAINST HIM WHILE HE WAS TRYING TO GET ELECTED AS NOT ONLY MASTERFUL BUT ELEGANT..CANT THE MODELING BUSINESS FIND A LITTLE OF THAT?

WE HAVE REAL ISSUES FACING US IN THE FASHION/MODEL BUSINESS AND ITS ESSENTIAL THAT AS A COMMUNITY WE SUPPORT ONE ANOTHER; IF BY ONLY BEING CIVIL AND KIND. I THINK THE 80S POWERSUITED /FOUL MOUTHED SHIT PASSE ANYHOW. BUT THATS JUST ME.

OH TRUST ME, IM NOT BEING A HYPOCRIT. I HAVE A TEMPER WHEN F**KED WITH, I PROTECT MY ASSESTS FEROCIOUSLY. BUT I HAVE LEARNED THAT LESSON PRIVATELY AND PUBLICLY. BUT I DO THINK THERE NEEDS TO BE A RETURN TO CALM AND COMPOSED.

WITH THAT SAID
I WISH MY FREINDS, COLLEAGUES, COMPETITORS AND ADVERSARIES A FRUITFUL AND PROSPEROUS FASHION WEEK.
TO MY MODELS, KEEP YOUR CHIN UP ...AND TO MY FAMILY WHO ARE GOING THRU IT( I LOVE YOU) AND ILL ALWAYS HAVE YOUR BACK ( ALWAYS!)

LOVE AND LIGHT

JASON

CHANNING TATUM AS G.I. JOE

2009-01-31T20:54:00.000-05:00

EXCLUSIVE

STEVEN KLEIN VOGUE PARIS

2009-01-29T23:22:00.001-05:00

TRAVIS HANSON /DOUG PORTER/LARA STONE

STEVEN KLEIN VOGUE PARIS

2009-01-29T23:22:00.000-05:00

TRAVIS HANSON /DOUG PORTER/LARA STONE

CATCHING UP

2009-01-29T23:12:00.002-05:00

SORRY I HAVENT WRITTEN IN AWHILE. I WISH I COULD SAY I WAS DOING SUCH AMAZING THINGS, BUT ALAS I HAVENT. I HAVE BEEN STAYING BUSY AT WORK..TRYING TO STAY ON TOP OF THE THINGS WHILE EVERYONE IS RUNNING AROUND SCREAMING "THE SKY IS FALLING".

I REALLY HAVE ENJOYED THIS INSANELY COLD WINTER WE ARE HAVING. I LIVE RIGHT BY THE WATER AND THE BRISK FREEZING AIR INVIGORATES ME EVERY MORNING WHEN I LEAVE OR RETURN HOME. I BOUGHT THIS NEW PEACOAT THAT HAS BARELY KEPT ME WARM, BUT IS CUTE ENOUGH TO TOLERATE THE ICINESS OF THIS WINTER.

I HAVE SEEN NEARLY ALL THE MOVIES TO SEE BEFORE THE OSCARS END OF FEBRUARY. I HOPE YOU GUYS HAVE ALL SEEN MILK, THE WRESTLER, DOUBT AND THE READER. ALL BEYOND BRILLS.

WE HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THE MAJOR SHOW PACK. I HOPE THEY WILL BE WELL RECEIVED. I AM ALSO EXCITED BY SOME REALLY GREAT TALENT WHO WANT TO JOIN OUR AGENCY, HOPING THAT IT ALL WORKS OUT. HOPEFULLY THEIR CURRENT REPS REALIZE MODELS ARENT SLAVES, AND YOU CANT STOP THEM FROM MOVING ON. ( BUT I DIGRESS)

I HAVE MY SUPERBOWL PARTY THIS SUNDAY...TONS OF FOOD AND PEOPLE I LOVE. MY FAMILY IS COMING..CANT WAIT TO SEE MY NEPHEWS.

MONDAY IS THE 10 YR ANNIVERSARY OF MAJOR..WHEN KATIA , ELIZABETH AND JEANETTE JOINED AND REFORMED IT. I AM HOSTING A PRIVATE DINNER PARTY FOR THEM THAT NIGHT..ILL POST PICS FROM THE NIGHT HERE.

OH WELL, THATS ALL I CAN SHARE FOR THE MOMENT

SENDING LOVE AND LIGHT

JASON

FALL/WINTER 09/10 HIGHLIGHTS SIMON NESSMAN

2009-01-29T23:10:00.000-05:00

SHE'S BACK

2009-01-19T11:40:00.002-05:00

WHITNEY HOUSTON

TOMORROW'S THE DAY!

2009-01-19T11:25:00.000-05:00

CHRIS AUSTAD UPDATE

2009-01-06T10:31:00.003-05:00

CHRIS AUSTAD JOINED US MID OCTOBER..HE WAS WITH MAJOR YEARS AGO WHEN HE WAS REALLY YOUNG , BUT LEFT TWO YEARS AGO TO CHECK WHAT ELSE WAS OUT THERE. WE WERE HAPPY TO WELCOME HIM BACK. WE REVAMPED HIS BOOK( WITH THE HELP OF JOSEPH BLEU AND GREGORY VAUGHAN) AND BY DECEMBER IT PAID OFF

CHRIS SHOT RALPH LAUREN WITH ARNALDO ANAYA LUCCA IN CATALINA ISLAND AND GQ GERMANY( 8PAGES SOLO STORY) IN MIAMI BEACH.
I M POSTING A QUICK BEHIND THE SCENES SNAP OF HIM ON THE R.L JOB, HIS RECENT POLAROIDS AND HIS INFAMOUS HUGO BOSS ADS.

CHRIS IS MARRIED TO HIS HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART AND COMMUTES BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN WEST AND EAST COAST. HE HAS GROWN UP QUITE A BIT AND WE ALL GENUINELY LIKE HIM.

LOOK OUT FOR HIM IN '09

NICHOLAS LEMONS FOR UOMO MAGAZINE IN JAPAN

2009-01-01T22:54:00.004-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-01-01T01:09:00.002-05:00

THIS PICTURE REPRESENTS WHAT IM ALL ABOUT(LOL)

JENNY AND ARLYND FLETCHER

2008-12-28T19:02:00.006-05:00

I HAVE HAD A "COLORFUL" RESUME. I STARTED IN FORT LAUDERDALE WORKING FOR IRENE MARIE. IRENE MOVED HER OFFICE TO SOUTH BEACH AND I MOVED WITH THEM. I GOT "HEAD HUNTED" ( IF YOU WANT TO CALL IT THAT) BY PAUL ROWLAND AND WAS BROUGHT TO WOMEN( CALLED MEN/WOMEN) GOT FIRED 18 MONTHS INTO MY GIG AND A NEW AGENCY CALLED BOSS MODELS HIRED ME..THE REST IS BOOKER HISTORY I GUESS.LOL

IN THE 18 YEARS I HAVE BEEN BOOKING MODELS I HAVE MET ALL TYPES OF PEOPLE FROM ALL AROUND THE WORLD. ALL OF IT SHAPED ME, GOOD AND BAD. I HAVE HAD MODELS WHO I ADORE, WHOM I BUILT UP FROM A POLAROID, LEAVE ME FOR A "SWEETER" DEAL. I HAVE HAD MODELS QUIT THE BUSINESS DUE TO FAMILY OR PERSONAL ISSUES. IVE SEEN MODELS MARRY, DIVORCE, HAVE KIDS , GRADUATE AND THEY KIND OF ARE WITH YOU FOR A MOMENT IN TIME. IM ALSO WATCHING ONE OF MY FORMER MODELS BECOMING A MOVIE STAR( CHANNING) WHO JUST SHOT THE COVER OF AMERICAN GQ FOR AUGUST(SO PROUD..KVELLING)

WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I GOT VERY ATTACHED. I REMEMBER ONE OF MY GIRLS, JENN HUDLETT FROM IRENE MARIE AND I BECAME FAST FRIENDS. WE WERE BOTH FROM CORAL SPRINGS AND HAD ALOT ON COMMON. IN FULL POLLY MELLON MODE, I CHANGED HER NAME TO JENNA AND RE CREATED HER AS ANOTHER VERSION OF NIKI TAYLOR. THERE WAS ALSO TONEYA WILSON, WHO WAS TO ME THE MIAMI NAOMI CAMPBELL. THERE WAS MELL FLAGER, WHO WAS , HANDS DOWN, ONE OF THE KOOKIEST AND SWEETEST GIRLS I EVER WORKED WITH( DEAD RINGER FOR ELLE MACPHERSON). WHEN I WAS HIRED BY PAUL, I BROUGHT MELL AND SHANA ZADRICK WITH ME.

ALL OF THESE GIRLS IMPACTED ME...IT KILLD ME THAT I COULDNT BRING TONEYA AND JENNA ALONG FOR THE RIDE. SHANA BECAME AN "OVERNIGHT SUCCESS" 2.O AND MELL BECAME A WORKING MODEL( AMERICAN ELLE/VOGUE ITALY ETC). WHEN I WAS FIRED, MELL CAME WITH ME TO BOSS AND WAS "ONLY MELL" FOR 2 YEARS UNTIL I TOOK ON NICOLE BEACH..WHICH LED TO AMBER VALLETTA WHICH LED TO SARAH OHARE, SKY NELLOR ANGIE HARMON AND TONEYA BIRD WHICH LED TO KIM IGLINSKY, SIMONE VAN BAAL TUA FOCK, TINA LEON, ISAMAR GONZALEZ AAND EMMA GRIFFITHS.

I LOOK BACK AT HOW CLOSE I WAS WITH EVERY ONE ON THAT LIST AND HOW NONE OF THEM ARE IN MY LIFE ANYMORE. IT WAS A HARD LESSON FOR ME TO LEARN THAT IT TRULY IS A BUSINESS. AND THAT PEOPLE MOVE ON AND YOU ARE WITH THEM FOR A GLIMPSE OF THEIR JOURNEY. I WAS TOO YOUNG TO GET 'IT"

WHEN DAVID BOSMAN SECURED MARCUS SCHENKENBERG FOR BOSS MODELS, I HAD BEEN RECENTLY HIRED TO WORK THERE. WE WERE WORKING OUT OF DAVID BOSMANS HOME WHICH WAS A STUDIO ON GANSEVOORT STREET(WHERE HE STILL LIVES 15 YRS LATER). I WASNT HIS AGENT AT FIRST, JOHN BABIN WAS..BUT JOHN COUDLN'T SECURE HIM ANY WORK. WE KNEW CALVIN WAS GOING TO DROP SOON, BUT HAD NO IDEA HOW HUGE THE LAUNCH WAS AND THE MAGNITUDE THEREAFTER. DAVID "SWITCHED" MARCUS TO ME AND MY JOB WAS TO MAKE HIM HAPPY.. I WAS 21 AND ALL I KNEW WAS HOW TO BOOK GIRLS..SO THATS WHAT I DID, I TREATED HIM LIKE A GIRL...AND TOOK CARE OF HIM. I GOT HIM SOME JOBS AND HE STAYED...CALVIN CAME OUT AND IT ALL BLEW UP SO FAST, I RELIED ON WHAT I LEARNT FROM IRENE MARIE ON HOW SHE HANDLED NIKI TAYLOR'S PRESS AND PAUL WITH SHANA. AND MARCUS BECAME "MARCUS" . MARCUS AND I DID BECOME BEST FRIENDS. I SAW HIM THRU SO MANY BAD RELATIONSHIPS( MAUREEN, CATHERINE, ROSEMARIE, KIM ETC ETC) AND WE WOULD SPEND HOURS ON THE PHONE WITH EACH OTHER AT NIGHT. JUST BEING BEST FRIENDS. I TRAVELLED THE WORLD WITH HIM AS WELL. IT SEEMS LIKE A LIFETIME AGO, I MISS WHAT THAT WAS AT THAT TIME, LIKE I MISS MY YOUTH. BUT I DONT MISS THAT ONE SIDED FREINDSHIP. NEVER HAVE.

I WAS SUCH A KID, ALWAYS RUNNING AT THE MOUTH..ALWAYS IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMEONE'S DRAMA...HUNG OVER FROM "X" AND SOUND FACTORY..BEING A HILARIOUS DYSFUNCTIONAL YET HIGHLY FUNCTIONING MESS. BUT I DIGRESS

I GUESS THE REASON I AM WRITING THIS IS BECAUSE I RAN ACROSS A PHOTO ON FACEBOOK OF TWO PEOPLE THAT HAVE TRANSCENDED THE WORK/FREIND RELATIONSHIP AND HAVE REMAINED IN MY LIFE IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD. IT MADE ME REALIZE HOW BLESSED( TRULY) TO HAVE MET ALL THE WONDERFUL COLORFUL PEOPLE IN MY TIME AS AN AGENT.

WHEN I WAS BEING EVICTED FROM AN APARTMENT OF MINE RIGHT AFTER 9/11..THE AGENCY I WAS WORKING FOR WAS CORRUPT AND EVIL TO BOTH ITS MODELS AND EMPLOYEES AND HADNT PAID MOST OF US IN MONTHS. I WAS IN ARREARS 12K IN RENT( MY RENT WAS 4K..I KNOW ITS ALOT) AND I HAD NO ONE TO ASK. MY FAMILY DOESNT HAVE THAT KIND OF CASH AND BACK THEN I WAS A FOOL WITH MY MONEY. THE DAY I PACKED UP THE LAST OF MY BOXES, JENNY CAME TO MY HOUSE WITH A CHECK WITH THAT AMOUNT AND SAID' THIS IS FROM BOTH OF US(ARLYND AND JENNY) AND YOU TAKE IT, AND YOU DONT EVER HAVE TO PAY US BACK". I CANT TELL YOU HOW IT FELT TO HAVE FRIENDS COME THRU FOR YOU LIKE THAT, ESPECIALLY FRIENDS YOU WORK WITH..ITS UNHEARD OF. I REALIZED THEN THAT I HAD TO START BEING REAL AND LETTING PEOPLE IN AS THEY LET ME IN. ARLYND HAD BEEN A CONFIDANTE OF MINE FOR AWHILE AND WAS ONE OF THE FIRST REAL FRIENDS I EVER MADE WHO HAPPENED TO BE A MODEL...

CUT TO OCTOBER 15 2001 WHEN MAJOR HIRED ME..I QUICKLY SAVED 12K AND PAID JENNY AND ARLYND BACK BY THE END OF THE YEAR. THEY WERE SHOCKED I PAID THEM BACK I THINK..THEY ALSO HELPED ME MOVE OUT OF MY PLACE AND INTO THEIR OLD APARTMENT IN LONG ISLAND CITY THAT YEAR AS WELL.

THEY REMAIN TWO PEOPLE CLOSE TO MY HEART..THAT DEPSITE THE UPS AND DOWNS THEY REMAIN MY FRIEND. NOT EXPECTING ANYTHING BACK BUT MY LOVE AND FREINDSHIP. ITS A BEAUTIFUL THING. AND I AM FOREVER THEIR FRIEND AS WELL.

AS IVE GROWN UP AND BECOME MORE OF MYSELF..I AM SO LUCKY TO HAVE MET SOME EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE IN MY LIFE WHO REMAIN MY CLOSEST CIRCLE. CHRIS COLLINS HAS BEEN WITH ME FOR 12 YEARS. DAMON WILLIS, LUCAS KERR, MICHAEL ALTMAN, CHAD NITTLER MICHAEL BRAGER HAVE BEEN EXTREMELY LOYAL AND IVE REPPED THEM ALL FOR 10 YEARS PLUS. JON PASSAVANT HAS BEEN WITH ME 9 YEARS. DOUG PICKETT FOR 8. IM A LUCKY LUCKY MAN AND AM INDEBTED TO THEM. WHEN THE DAY HAS GOT ME DOWN AND I FEEL LIKE WHY THE FUCK AM I BUSTING MY ASS..I THINK OF THE COMMITMENT THESE MEN ABOVE ME HAVE GIVEN ME, AND I BREATHE. I LOOK TO THE FUTURE AT CHAD WHITE, ISA RAHMAN, NATE NESBITT, KERRY DEGMAN, BLAINE COOK TERRON WOOD TRAVS DAVENPORT AND TRAVIS HANSON ETC AND REMEMBER HOW TOUGH THESE RELATIONSHIPS START OUT AND THEN AS IT MATURES GETS BETTER AND BETTER.

TONITE IM JUST THANKFUL AND REFLECTING

WITH FACEBOOK, I RECONNECTED WITH JENNA HUDLETT WHO NOW IS JENNA GEHRING. TUA FOCK IS A CLOTHING DESIGNER AND TINA LEON IS NOW A PHOTOGRAPHER IN RED HOOK BROOKLYN.SIMONE IS A YOGA INSTRUCTOR IN BELGUIN, EMMA GRIFFITH IS AN MTV VJ IN ENGLAND AND MAJOR CELEBRITY THERE. IT SEEMS LIKE IT ALL COMES FULL CIRCLE ON AND ON.

SENDING LOVE AND LIGHT TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND MODELS. I LOVE YOU GUYS

XO
JASON

CHELSEA HANDLER..HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE HER?

2008-12-22T23:33:00.001-05:00

REALLY, SHE IS A BREATH OF FRESH HAIR

HE IS I AND I AM HIM

2008-12-22T22:17:00.005-05:00

JON PASSAVANT ON SET WITH INES AND VINOODH IN BAHAMAS SHOOTING DIOR HOMMES

BLAINE COOK BACKSTAGE AT CALVIN KLEIN

OUT MAGAZINE NAMES US THE HOTTEST AGENCY IN THE WORLD

CHAD WHITE BECOMES A HOUSEHOLD NAME AND FALLS IN LOVE

TERRON WOOD CEMENTS HIMSELF AS THE QUINTESSENTIAL RUNWAY STAR

PREDICTIONS FOR BREAKOUT STARS FOR 2009

2008-12-20T17:56:00.003-05:00

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
NATE GILL
SIMON THAM
KYLE LEDEBOER
AARON O'CONNELL

I MISS HERB RITTS

2008-12-13T20:39:00.001-05:00

IT STILL MAKES ME SO SAD..IT WAS AROUND CHRISTMAS TIME IN 2002 WHEN HERB RITTS LEFT US. I DONT WANT TO TRIVIALIZE HIM WITH WORDS, SO I AM SHOWING PICS. HE USED TO BOOK ALOT OF MY GUYS AND GIRLS..AMBER, SIMONE YIU AND COUNTLESS BOYS. HE WAS GENTLE AND GENEROUS. EVERYONE LOVED WORKING WITH HIM. HE WAS WEST COAST MELLOW..NO EAST COAST INSANITY.

MISS YOU HERB

LOVE N LIGHT

SIMON NESSMAN BY BRUCE WEBER FOR L'UOMO VOGUE "MIAMI STORY"

2008-12-12T23:07:00.002-05:00

G Q STYLE/ GQ MAGAZINE

2008-12-12T19:51:00.004-05:00

WE HAVE THE FOLLOWING GUYS SHOOTING GQ STYLE/ AND "REG" GQ FOR UK, GERMAN, ITALY, RUSSA , AUSTRALIA AND JAPAN

CHRIS AUSTAD
BLAINE COOK
SIMON NESSMAN
TRAVIS DAVENPORT
STEVE GOLD
TRAVIS HANSON
LUCAS KERR
KERRY DEGMAN
NATE GILL
CHRIS DATTOLLA
SEAN HARJU
SIMON THAM
AND MOST OF THE GUYS ARE IN MULTIPLE EDITIONS OF THE MAGAZINES*****

I HAVE TO SAY THATS ALOT AT ONCE EVEN FOR US, LOL

ALSO JOEY KIRCHNER SHOOTING A MASSIVE STORY FOR FHM COLLECTIONS IN CALI, SIMON THAM WOKRING BACK TO BACK WITH DAVID ARMSTRONG AND VOGUEHOMMES ABOUT TO BOOK SOMEONE FROM US W/ JEFF BURTON IN L.A

SO MUCH FOR WINDING DOWN BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS!

REST IN PEACE BETTIE PAGE

2008-12-11T23:19:00.001-05:00

SEAN HARJU

2008-12-08T22:07:00.002-05:00

SEAN HARJU CAMES TO US VIA TERESA AT IMD IN PORTLAND A LITTLE MORE THEN 2 YEARS AGO. HE WAS A SHY KID, AND VERY WELL MANNERED. HE HAS GROWN INTO A MAN, AND HE IS VERY FUNNY, A LITTLE DORKY AND VERY MUCH HIS OWN PERSON.
IM VERY PROUD OF HIM AND WHERE HE IS GOING.

UPCOMING EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS:

NUMERO HOMMES W/ SEBASTIAN KIM

GQ STYLE ITALY

GQ STYLE RUSSIA WITH ARNALDO ANAYA LUCCA(WITH SIMON NESSMAN)

GQ STYLE UK WITH PHIL POYNTER

DETAILS WITH DAVID ARMSTRONG

SQUINT HOMMES WTH JOE LALLY

HE ALSO HAS THE NEXT BOTTEGA VENNETA CAMPIAGN COMING OUT AS WELL,

OK, I WANT THE BAG(NOT MARC..SORRY)

2008-12-08T22:04:00.005-05:00

I AM SO WANTING THIS BAG, I KNOW IT MAY BE SUPER GAY LOOKING..BUT I THINK ID ROCK THIS HARD. FOR ALL MY WEEKENDS AWAY. I DONT KNOW, IM GONNA GET IT...HOW HOT IS THIS....IN THE WORDS OF BRYAN BOY " HOW DOES THSI MAKE YOU FEEL?"

LIVING FOR THIS! AND I FIND BRODY JENNER PRETTY HOT

2008-12-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

DID YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT HIM?

2008-12-06T00:37:00.000-05:00

BOY GEORGE, WHY?

SEAN BILOSKI

2008-12-06T00:30:00.000-05:00

PENSIVE ME

2008-12-06T00:28:00.000-05:00

OH NO SHE DIDN'T!

2008-12-06T00:27:00.000-05:00

MY NEPHEWS...PHILIP, NICHOLAS AND JOSHUA

2008-12-04T23:16:00.000-05:00

MY THREE NEPHEWS....MY BABY BOYS

INTRODUCING CAM SCHULTZ

2008-12-04T21:35:00.001-05:00

CHAD WHITE BY TERRY RICHARDSON

2008-11-26T23:37:00.001-05:00

WE'RE JUST ORDINARY PEOPLE..MAYBE WE SHOULD TAKE IT SLOW

2008-11-25T23:52:00.004-05:00

IMAGES ABOVE..
.JOEY KIRCHNER ..ITS STARTING TO SIMMER
ME AND VEUVE
TERRY AND BARACK
JEREMY SIMSPON BY JEREMY KOST (SEE U NEXT WEEK)

I HAVE TO ADMIT IT, I LOVE YOUTUBE. I DONT INDULGE MUCH BUT WHEN I DO I JUST LOVE IT. LOOKED AT OLD STUDIO FOOTAGE OF JOHN LEGEND "ORDINARY PEOPLE" AND HIS VOICE IS SO SMOOTH AND CLEAR AND PAINED...JUST BRILLIANT SOUL..THEN I FOUND FOOTAGE OF A LIVE PERFORMANCE OF JILL SCOTT AND THE ROOTS("YOU GOT ME") AND I AM LIFTED.

I AM LOOKING FOWARD TO THE HOLIDAYS..WITH MY FAMILY AND LOVED ONES. THURSDAY MY BROTHER IN LAW AND I ARE TAKING THE BOYS TO THE MACYS PARADE(OUR TRADITION) WHILE MY SISTER COOKS WITH MY MAN . CAM AND ROSS ARE IN VIRGINIA AND JILL IS WITH HER MOM BACK IN FLA. JENN WILL BE HERE WITH HER MOM AND DAD AND ILL SEE HER LATER THAT NIGHT FOR BEVVYS ON A LOOP( TRUST!). BEN AND BRAD ARE IN CT BUT ILL SEE THEM SATURDAY.

DARRYL SEEMS LIKE A DISTANT MEMORY...ONCE MY CONFIDANT, NOW A CAUTIONARY TALE. I FEEL LIKE L.C WHEN SHE REALIZES IT WAS HEIDI WHO SPREAD ALL THOSE RUMOURS ABOUT HER(KIDDING)..BUT I AM BETRAYED AND LOYALTY TO ME ABOVE ALL ELSE IS MOST IMPORTANT..HOW COULD A FRIENDSHIP SO STRONG GO SOUR? YOUD HAVE TO ASK HIM, HE STILL DOESNT "GET IT" BUT THAT WERE THE LOYALTY THING WOULD KICK IN. NO ONE IS THAT NAIVE,,AND NOT AT 44 YRS OLD. HIS BIRTHDAY IS THIS WEEKEND AND I WANT TO REACH OUT TO B EKIND, BUT I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BEING HIS FRIEND. I GUESS ILL LET THE MUSIC TAKE ME WHERE IT TAKES ME. MAYBE IT WILL TAKE ME AWAY.

THE BOOKINGS JUST KEEP COMING IN. THE BOYS ARE JUST WORKING, AND ITS BEYOND A BLESSING.

WELL, SENDING LOVE AND LIGHT YOUY WAY
SEND IT BACK, OR FUCK OFF(ISH)

ALSO I RAN 2 MILES 2 DAY...KEEPING IT MOVING

SO FOR TONITE
IM GOOD

XXOXOXO

J

CHARLES DEVOE..STAR TURN

2008-11-22T23:08:00.002-05:00

CHARLES DEVOE IN LA ONSET WITH MATTHIAS VRIENS FOR NUMERO HOMMES

BEAUTY IS A CRUEL MISTRESS

2008-11-22T18:31:00.004-05:00

I SPENT THIS BONE CHILLING DAY DOING THE FOLLOWING WITH MY MAN

IT WAS ONE OF THE GREAT NEW YOURK DAYS

ROCK N ROLLA IS BRILLIANT
GUY RITCHIE WILL DEF BE NOMINATED FOR AN OSCAR FOR IT

WATCH MY WORDS

PERFECTION...LOFFICIEL HOMMES BY MILAN VUKMIROVIC

2008-11-21T16:26:00.004-05:00

TYLER KENYON AND TRAVIS HANSON

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

2008-11-19T21:17:00.004-05:00

ITS 9 17PM AND SO GLAD THIS DOUCHE OF A DAY IS WINDING DOWN

LONG DAY
BZ
AND BZ WITH ALOT OF BULLSHIT

WHAT DID WE DO BEFORE CELL PHONES EMAILS AND TEXT MESSAGING IN THIS BUSINESS? WE WAITED TIL THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY , THATS WHAT! I FEEL LIKE MY DAY REALLY GETS COOKING AFTER 5PM...ITS 9 18 NOW AND I AM STILL GETTING CALLS CONFIRMING MODELS, FINALIZING SHOOTS ETC.

LAST LAST , NUMERO BOOKED HUNTER CROSS IN L.A....RELEASED 4 OTHER GUYS( THAT WAS 11PM)..THEN A SUIT CAMPAIGN SHOOTING IN AUSTRALIA NEEDED SUBMSISSIONS ASAP..AND WITH THE CELL, BBERRY YOU ARE ALWAYS AVAILBLE, SO I FEEL LIKE I CAN NEVER DECOMPRESS. OY YO YOY.

ANYWAY
LIVING FOR:

JOE LALLY
GRANT WOOLHEAD
UH HUH HER
ANTM FINALLY PICKING A FIERC GIRL( LOOKS LIK EJENNY BRUNT FROM THE EARLY 90S)
VOGUE PARIS

OVER

SHOPPING ONLINE AND NOT GETTING THE WHOLE ORDER
THIS INSANE COLD
BEING TIRED 24/7
MY BF

XOXO
J

MORE HOLDEN NOWELL

2008-11-17T18:33:00.002-05:00

PHOTOS: KWANNAM CHU

EDITORIAL UPDATES AND A RAMBLING RANT

2008-11-16T15:07:00.007-05:00

IVE BEEN GETTING ALOT OF EMAILS ASKING ME WHAT GUYS ARE SHOOTING WHAT STUFF
I CANT GET INTO ALL OF THAT, SORRY BITCHES

ITS SUNDAY , 3:07PM...AND IM JUST A LITTLE EXHAUSTED...ITS REALLY BEEN BUSY , AND I FEEL MORE THEN EVER I HAVE TO REALY FIGHT FOR EVERY BOOKING WE HAVE. THERE ARE SO MANY AGENCIES, SO MANY AGENTS ALL COMPETING FOR THESE BOOKINGS. THEN ADD THE LOW BUDGET BITCHINESS TAHT GOES ON BETWEEN AGENTS FROM DIFFERENT AGENCIES AND IT BECOMES QUITE A HOT MESS( AND NOT IN THE GOOD WAY).

HERE IS A SMALL LIST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD, OF SOME EDITORIALS WE BOOKED THAT WILL BE OUT NEXT SEASON

NUMERO WITH MARIANO VIVANCO
NUMERO WITH SEBASTIAM KIM

3 DIFFERENT LOFFICIEL HOMMES STORIES WITH MILAN VUKMIROVIC

GQ WITH PEGGY SIROTA( SHOOTING THIS WEEKEND) A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT GUYS

OUT WITH MATTHIAS VRIENS
OUT WITH JOHN BALSOM
OUT WITH DAVID ARMSTRONG

GQ STYLE RUSSIA WITH ARNALDO ANAYA LUCCA
2 GUYS / DEFINITE COVER

SQUINT HOMME WITH JOE LALLY
WEST EAST MEN BY JOE LALLY

TOKION TRIP TO GREECE WITH EDITOR JASON FARRAR
DAZED AND CONFUSED JAPAN WITH JEFFERY COHEN

L'OPTIMUM WITH MILAN VUKMIROVIC

TETU VOYAGE WITH GREGORY VAUGHAN

FLAUNT WITH ERIC RAY DAVIDSON
FLAUNT WITH BEN WATTS
FLAUNT WITH JOSH JORDAN

GQ TAIWAN WITH CHUN KAI

VOGUE ITALIA WITH STEVEN MEISEL

GQ UK WITH GUZMAN
GQ ITALY WITH JONTHAN (?)
GQ ITALY WITH JOE LALLY

L'UOMO VOGUE BY BRUCE WEBER

THE END MAGAZINE W/ JULIAN HARGRAEVES

HERCULES WITH GIAMPAOLO SGURA

******NOW A RANT

I HAVE REPRESENTED ALL TYPES OF MODELS..MALE AND FEMALE , GAY STR8 AND BI. ALL COLORS OF THE RAINBOW. WITH THAT SAID I REPRESENT A FEW CHRISTIAN MODELS. SOME WHOM I AM VERY CLOSE TO. SOME WHO LOVE ME BUT HATE THE SIN OF MY LIFE BUT LOVE ME AS I AM GODS CHILD(EYE ROLL)..I PASS VERY LITTLE JUDGEMENT HERE..TO EACH THEIR OWN, WE ARE ALL ADULTS. WHAT I HATE IS THE HYPROCRISY SOME OF THOSE MODELS. WHO WANT IT ALL, HAVE (AT TIMES) BLIND AMBITION AND WANT TO RULE THE INDUSTRY BUT DONT WANT TO DO IMAGES THAT SEEM " HOMOEROTIC ( WHICH IS JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING..SUBJECTIVELY..NO?) MODEL FOR GAY MAGAZINES, BE SEEN AS "GAY LOOKING"..DONT WANT TO KISS GIRLS ( SEEM SEXY/OR SEXUALIZED)..DONT WANT TO DO UNDERWEAR ADS (TOO RACY) OR DO NUDES( WHICH I DO UNDERSTAND ..THATS A TOTAL PERSONAL CHOICE)..I AM AT A LOSS HERE. YOU CANT HAVE IT ALL. MODELING IS A JOB AND EITHER YOU CAN COMPLY OR YOU CAN'T. BASTA..END OF STORY..I AM STARTING TO RESENT HAVING ANY OF MY MODELS, OR MODELS I MEET FOR OPEN CALLS, PEOPLE I WORK WITH , SPEAK TO ME WITH A HINT OF HOMOPHOBIA THAT I HAVE TO TOLERATE. I REFUSE TO DO IT ANYMORE AND I WONT. I MADE A PERSONAL CHOICE WHEN MAJOR HIRED ME TO TAKE ON VERY HIGH END COMMERICAL MEN WHO COULD DO SOME HIGH FASHION..I HAVENT VACILATED FROM THAT NOW 8 YRS LATER. SOME PEOPLE FIND MY IMAGING OF THE GUYS AS PORN..SOME PEOPLE FIND IT ASPIRATIONAL. I JUST LIKE WHAT I LIKE, AND IT HAS PAID OFF QUITE NICELY FOR THE MODELS, THE AGENCY AND MYSELF. I TAKE GREAT PRIDE SEEING MY MEN WORK WITH SOME OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE FASHION PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THE WORLD. I THINK THE HUMAN BODY IS BEAUTIFUL. I THINK BEING GAY IS OK, ALSO LOOKING THAT WAY IS FINE TOO. I DONT THINK BECAUSE A GUY IS NUDE IN A PICTURE SUDDENLY HE LOOKS GAY...COULD YOU IMAGINE IF EVE THOUGHT ADAM WAS A FAG(CLUTCH THE PEARLS).IT WOULDNT HAVE WORKED, RIIIIGHT?

I RALLIED WITH MY BROS AND SISTERS ON TUESDAY AGAINIST PROP 8, AND A FEW OF MY MODELS CAME WITH ME...I HAD PEOPLE WHO SAW ME AT THE RALLY CALL ME AND ASK.."IS SO AND SO GAY.?".AND I WAS LIKE.."WHY? WHY DOES IT MATTER? CANT HE BE STR8 BUT HAVE A CONSCIENCE?" I ASKED ALOT OF MY GUYS TO COME WITH,BUT ONLY A FEW TURNED UP..I GUESS SOME OF THE GUYS FELT " I DONT WANT PEOPLE TO THINK I AM GAY" , OR WHATEVER.I WISH THEY WOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT MY RIGHTS, AND HOW I PAY 40 %OF MY SALARY PLUS IN TAXES BUT YET DONT HAVE ANY OF THE SAME RIGHTS IN THIS COUNTRY THAT THEY ALL TAKE FOR GRANTED .IT HURTS. IT REALLY DOES.

I LIKE THE FACT THAT WE ARE ALL COMING 2GETHER AND FIGHTING FOR CHANGE. WE DID IT FOR OBAMA, AND NOW ITS TIME TO FIGHT FOR OUR CIVIL RIGHTS. I WILL NO LONGER TOLERATE ANY MASKED HOMOPHOBIA IN MY JOB AT ALL. ITS SAD, IN THE FASHION BUSINESS OF ALL PLACES LURKS THAT TYPE OF HATRED. VERY SAD

WELL I AM SENDING PEACE AND BLESSINGS AND THE HOPE THAT I GET THEM BACK IN KIND

TO THE HATERS, AHH WHO CARES YOU SAD OLD BITCHES..LOL

J

JEREMY SIMPSON IN V MAGAZINE BY STEVEN MEISEL

2008-11-16T11:09:00.003-05:00

JEREMY SIMPSON'S LOST "DOGGING" STORY FOR VOGUE FINDS A HOME AT V. AS ALWAYS STEVEN MEISEL HAS HIS FINGER ON THE PULSE OF POPULAR CULTURE AND FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY. JEREMY HAS ALSO SHOT PERRY ELLIS AMERICA(ROCCO LASPATA) THIS SEASON AS WELL AS MICHAEL KORS WITH CARMEN KASS AND NOAH MILLS BY MARIO TESTINO.

THE REVOLUTION HAS BEEN TELEVISED

2008-11-10T09:38:00.003-05:00

MORE THINGS BOOKED

2008-11-10T08:05:00.004-05:00

TO ADD TO PREVIOUS LIST OF THINGS CONFIRMED:

ANOTHER ESTEE LAUDER FRAGRANCE
INC. W/ GREG KADEL
ALFANI W/ ARNALDO ANYA LUCCA
ICEBERG
ROBERTO CAVALLI/JUST CAVALLI
MICHAEL KORS
LEVI'S
AMERICAN EAGLE
BABY PHAT/PHAT FARM
HARTMARX (SUITING)

LOOKING FOWARD TO ANOTHER STRONG SHOWING THIS WEEK

NICHOLAS LEMONS SHOT TODAY

2008-11-07T15:06:00.001-05:00

MERT AND MARCUS

2008-11-07T08:38:00.003-05:00

HAVE BEEN IN LA SHOOTING FOR WEEKS IT SEEMS

FIRST EDDIE TUCKER FLIES OUT TO SHOOT WITH TONI GARRN FOR A LEGENDARY ITALIAN FASHION HOUSE

THEN TODAY STEVE GOLD POPS ON SET TO WORKS THEM IN LA TO SHOOT A HUGE CAMPAIGN THAT IS MOST COVETED AS OF LATE (hint..HE IS SHOOTING WITH A GIRL I REPRESENTED IN THE 90S WHO IS STILL A SUPER MODEL ICON)FOR THEIR SUPER SLEEK IMAGE( STEVE HASNT WORKED WITH THEM SINCE ARENA HOMME SPLUS WHEN HE WAS 18). AS STEVE JUST CAME BACK WITH US IN AUGUST OF THIS YEAR..THIS IS A MAJOR MAJOR COUP.

NOW KERRY DEGMAN IS FLYING THIS MORNING TO SHOOT WITH THEM TOMORROW WITH KATE MOSS FOR ANOTHER LEGENDARY HOUSE.

SO, WITH THAT SAID..THANK YOU MERT N MARCUS.