Spring Into Summer

This time of year makes me think about a few things. First of all there's no chance of snow anymore, HA. Then I start getting nostalgic and remember all those end of school parties I used to go to when I was a teen. We would sneak out, get an older sibling to buy beer, and hit the house where a party was brewing while the parents were out of town. 


Getting a buzz on and giggling with your girls while the oh-so-cool boys stand nearby, their cigarette smoke wafting into your nostrils. Everyone assumed that everyone else was more confident, experienced and worldly. You would stick with your buddies as your armor against the mean kids, or the random asshole that hated you for no good reason. Insecurity ran rampant, but you still took risks. Sometimes for attention, and sometimes to prove that you had the guts. Sometimes the only true ego boost was found in making people laugh or having the good sense to bring the latest Van Halen or Pat Benatar album to the party that you bought with your babysitting money or tips from weekend shifts at the pancake house. 


It's easy to forget that we were hot back then and we didn't even know it! Okay, I kind of knew that I was. I walked into malls and got accosted by enough 'modeling scouts' to know that I was prettier than most, but I was skinny in a time when skinny was not hot. All my friends blossomed earlier than me, perky breasted and round of hip. That was the currency back then, looking like a woman. Now it's a weird amalgamation of slender childish bodies and implanted tits and ass. This ideal has nothing to do with reality or individualism. It has everything to do with the implied standards that pop culture throws at people. I would be okay with it if these standards were health and the beauty that comes from being fit, but it isn't. 


We didn't know how good we had it, and if you are young and you are reading this, stop. Stop holding yourself up to standards that are fake and meant to keep you from concentrating on what is inside you. Absolutely no one is perfect and absolutely no one has the right to judge. You can rise above. For example, I did pretty well modeling, and this is me in high school, frizzy hair, crooked teeth and all.

Christie Brinkley At 57

If you ever needed proof that dancing on Broadway keeps you fit, here it is. She is currently starring as Roxie in Chicago and these pictures are from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS which raise a whopping $3,707,085 for charity. She looks damn good! I want the name of her surgeon. He is a master. Of course it doesn't hurt that she was born with these genes:

I really miss the era in the 80s where models were supposed to look healthy. Sure, there were drugs, mostly cocaine, but everyone worked out and sometimes you'd get sent to a job days ahead of time so you could get a tan first. Now they all look like they want to stab you with the heel of their shoe after not eating for a month and injecting arsenic into their skin to look like an emo zombie child. How is that even remotely attractive?

The Beekman Model Walk

I dare everyone to do this at least once today.

Muslin and Shark Jaws

I said I'd post some pictures occasionally from the old modeling days, and here we are. I worked with Joyce Tenneson A LOT. We did Matsuda together, Brides, the pirelli calendar, a million different cream or body lotion ads with no face, Shiseido, TIME magazine and Absolut, just to name a few. The most recent was an industry ad for filler back in 2003. She still teaches photography workshops out in the desert and she is a truly gifted artist.


more after the jump, watch out for the boobies.

Who Is This Person and Why Is He Trying To Look Like Beef Jerky

Seriously, anyone know?

What It's Like To Be Me (Circa 1991)

Your Woodchuck Centerpiece Is Delightful

Huh? Carnations from Dave's Marketplace across the street were too expensive? Wait, is it ART? Whatever it is, it would earn a C+ at most from my old wood shop teacher. Note the glue gun goop at the top that is keeping the dowel rod stems in place. Gotta think on your feet, you know.

This was the beautiful table decor we enjoyed at Alladin's in Cedar Fairmount yesterday. Lebanese/Middle Eastern cuisine. I had the Kabob Roll with succulently grilled filet medallions and it was yummy, except for the pickled turnips. They reminded me of a trip I took to Budapest in 1988. I stayed in an 'executive' hotel while we were shooting the Fall Matsuda catalog, and I raced down the stairs when I was told that they had a salad bar. Guess what? Everything was pickled! The tomatoes, the cucumbers, the cabbage and carrots.

It was beyond nasty and I spent rest of the trip trying to make a bag of Goldfish last two days, then eating blintzes with jam. Here's a picture from that shoot.
I think I lost five pounds on that trip. It could have been the food, but it could have been the smell of the chickens on the Soviet Airbus we flew in on. Hard to say.

Definitely Airbrushed

I saw the original right after it was taken. It was a Polaroid 20x24 camera. It spit out the prints just like a regular 2x2 that you buy at the drug store. My butt was showing some cheek. As for the perfect white skin? All natural, of course. If you don't count the layer of kabuki powder.

This ad was in every magazine back then so I best let you know, it was for a perfume/bath oil called ONE from 1991. I have no idea what it smelled like. Over-used curling irons and fancy schmancy sheets from the clearance rack at Bloomingdales? That's my guess.

Airbrushed?

David LaChapelle took this one all the way back in '86. I'm not sure how much he airbrushed. Hopefully just the dress? I dunno. I cut that part out of the picture. I don't even remember what magazine it was in. I do remember that he liked to make the edges of his pictures fuzzy back then, and I had some beautiful prints he gave me that some ex-boyfriend is holding hostage in a storage space in New York. What an asshole. The ex, not David. David got me started. I would not have had a portfolio if he hadn't taken an interest in me. I would have had a much harder time getting signed, not that I gave a shit. Modeling came to me, not the other way around, and as obnoxious as that sounds, it's true. I moved to New York in January of 1985 because I fell in love with it two months before. I had no aspirations of fame or fortune. I just wanted to get the hell out of Akron, Ohio. You would too. Trust me.

P.S. If you're young and you are reading this, take lots of pictures of yourself. Be creative, have fun. Get your friends in on it. My old friend recently showed me some photos another friend took of us in college, ones where we were trying to be all arty and shit. They were AWESOME. Trust me, when you are my age, you will relish those memories. You will love giggling over your first forays into creative visual expression. As a matter of fact, do it whether you are 18 or 48. Who cares? You'll still always be looking back, you know?

I Used To Get Paid To Wear Stuff. Or Nothing At All.

I'm going to start a regular feature where I post pictures from my modeling days in the heady eighties and early nineties. It's all Tobie Wan Kenobi's fault for sending me pictures from a photo shoot that I forgot about and LOVE. Sometimes the obscurely published stuff is some of the best. This one is for my friend Thomas's clothing line that I think we did in 1986. He made amazing stuff out of old Levi's. I still have the white and red jacket he gave me as payment. AWESOME guy, almost as awesome as Tobes.

Shaggy Androgyny

This is Freja Beha Erichson, Danish model on the cusp of super. I found her over at Jezebel and my first response was, "Oh, they're putting pretty boys on the cover of fashion magazines, yay!" You can never have too many pretty boys around. Then, I took another look and realized it was a 'she.' A she that looks like a gorgeous version of Robert Mapplethorpe's muse, Patti Smith. Do you love the hairstyle? It's straight out of Dazed and Confused, which is fine with me. I am loving the 90s revival this year, even if part of it involves a proxy 70s revivel. Everything old is new again, and I'm totally rocking tights and pleated skirts this Fall. I don't care what anyone says.

Eyes of Laura Mars

The collection below reminds me of this movie starring Faye Dunaway and real models from the 70s, including Lisa Taylor, Sterling St. Jacques, Anna Anderson and Patty Oja. I was a kid then and any movie with models and fashion in it obsessed me no end. I was the youngest girl I knew that had a subscription to Vogue magazine, and I had big dreams of moving to New York, most of which were fulfilled, lucky me. Many thanks to all my friends who brought back copies of the foreign versions of Vogue on their trips overseas in the early 80s. I still have them!

Ranking the Swimsuit Models

Bar Raphaeli is on the cover of this year's swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated and with all the talk about it someone over at InGameNow decided between pulling apart the sticky pages, he'd rank the top 53 models. Can you beleive that they have been publishing these issues since 1964? The first issue debuted while I was still in my mother's womb.

I don't agree with all the choices but it's still a bunch of pictures of hot girls, so enjoy yourself and don't get your computer too nasty with joy juice, especially if you're at work. Unless your boss is Joe Francis, of course. In which case, you can go ahead and kick him in the nuts for me. Thanks.

http://blog.ingamenow.com/2009/02/09/top-53-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-models-1-10/

Michelle Obama on the Cover of Vogue

I've been hearing all these rumors that Vogue is in the shitter and that most women's magazines have lost enormous amounts of advertising. I, for one think they should get their heads out of their asses and stop putting celebrities on the covers. Harper's Bazaar is not People Magazine. If you want info on Kate Hudson or Nicole Kidman there are reams of it in USweekly and OK magazine, not to mention the internet.

So Anna Wintour wakes up one day in a cold sweat from yet another nightmare of losing her job or gaining five pounds and has an epiphany. I'll put the new First Lady on the cover! (Strangely enough, Hillary Clinton was the first to do the honors back in 1998. I would have thought Jackie Kennedy in the 60s.) The article centers on how her life is going to change in the White House and how she will remain a hands on mother to Sasha and Malia. And the dress on the cover is by Jason Wu, the same designer who is responsible for her Inaugural gown.

I like the photo, I like that she put a black person on the cover who isn't named Naomi Campbell, but it's time to start giving the models a break and put them back on the cover where they belong. Not some airbrushed photograph of Jennifer Aniston so she can promote her latest turd of a movie. Give me beauty or give me death!

And that's all I have to say about that.

Why Have I Never Heard of Her Before?

Donyale Luna. Gorgeous. The first black model on the cover of British Vogue, she had a part in Fellini's Satyricon and was a member of Andy Warhol's factory scene for a while. She died of a drug overdose in Rome in 1979. Look at that neck ! Those eyes! Some one needs to do a book of her photographs or a fan website or something because she is flawless.