Modeling And The Tragedy Of Karen Mulder

The news that '90s supermodel Karen Mulder was arrested in Paris for making death threats to her plastic surgeon could be written off as, at worst, a punchline, or at best, the latest expression of an unbalanced woman's erratic behavior. More »

Top 10 All-Time Model/Runway Mishaps

For those who can't get enough of model dodgem, I took a trip through the YouTube to dredge up only the most interesting variety of catwalk pratfalls and near-misses. More »

"Not Rape Epidemic": The Modeling Industry Is Anything But Immune

The modeling industry sets up camp at the crossroads of youth & beauty and age & wealth — and moreover, it's an arena where those qualities cleave to the most predictable gender and power divide.

In Which Tatiana Discovers That Fashion Week Is Kind Of Great

I realize I use these column inches more often than not to write about the drawbacks of being a model — the situations and encounters that make me feel, as casting superagent James Scully said earlier this summer, “Like [a] greyhound we plan to shoot after a race.” Today is a little different. More »

September Vogue: Last Ladymag Standing (And Jumping)

September Vogue jumps out on the news stand for all the wrong reasons. On her fourth cover in three years, Keira Knightley's hair looks reminiscent of a baby primate (though not in a cute way), her pose is all wrong for the Balenciaga she's wearing, and her expression has a whiff of self-consciousness and striverdom about it — like some vogueing drag queen's idea of a Vogue cover. Which means the stuff inside must be doubleplusungood! Although my esteemed colleague, Dodai, has already brought you two of the issue’s more bizarre contributions to the fall fashion discourse, fear not! There’s still plenty left to see from the summit of the fall ladymag pileup. Keira Knightley in Berlin, Sasha Pivovarova in scarlet and alabaster Alexander McQueen, Caroline Trentini in the only Caroline-jumps-for-Condé editorial that has ever made any sense, and what the cover shot would be if this were a real fashion magazine, as we take deep breaths, don sensible footwear, and scale, together, Mount Vogue, after the jump. More »

September Marie Claire: Some Say Fashion, It Is A Hunger, An Endless Aching Need

September’s Marie Claire does this one thing that immediately endears me to its cause: the mag identifies the models in its three 10-page fashion stories! Each girl gets a teensy little Q&A — kind of like the ones in Playboy that tell you curvaceous Kristy’s favorite color and college major — wherein we learn that Anna from Illinois once burst into tears on a shoot, Eva from Krnow dreams of being a lawyer, and Valerie from St. Petersberg would like to meet J.D. Salinger. Models! We’re just…like…you? Let's investigate, after the jump. More »

September Allure: I Wish You Would Step Back From That Ledge, Julia Stegner

With a slender 27 pages of fashion editorial, this September's Allure doesn't break any records (not that my shoulders didn't appreciate the reprieve; lugging these monstrous issues on the subway sucks). After the jump, I parse the modeling in the baby of the fall ladymag litter: Julia Stegner almost falls off a cliff, Raquel Zimmerman lends her face to floury powder and brick-red blush, and Ingune Butane channels Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface. More »

September Harper's Bazaar: Let's Go To The Rodeo With Feathers On Our Faces!

11 whopping fashion stories crowd the September Harper’s Bazaar, counting the wacky Obama-themed Tyra story and the token "goofy" story that has become the magazine’s signature. (This month, Bazaar editors asked designers to pose, with models, as a character of their choosing — Michael Kors picked Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, Alber Elbaz hammed it up as James Bond, and Donna Karan chose, weirdly, a hurricane. And then there's Karl Lagerfeld!) Bazaar’s 101 pages of fashion is, incidentally, 30 more pages than Vogue’s September issue. Not that anyone is counting! Join me, your Anonymous Model, after the jump: it's time for modeling workshop. More »

Points For Effort: Vogue Reality Series About Modeling Is Surprisingly Realistic, A Little Boring

American Vogue’s online reality series, Model.Live, unveiled its first episode today, and I’m sad to report that it’s not the irretrievably tacky, so-bad-it’s-good, corporate-sponsored suckfest I was hoping it would be. (Hoping? I am a mean-spirited person.) The series — which, at $3 million (or around $31,000 a minute) is some of the most expensive online television yet produced — follows three models as they navigate the discombobulating month-long global merry-go-round that is the fashion weeks of New York City, London, Milan, and Paris. More »

Size Zero Models Welcome At London Fashion Week

The news that fashion models will not be required to pass health checks before working in London Fashion Week got me thinking about the perennial skinny models issue. You know, the size zero conspiracy my cohorts and I cooked up. (True story: we were totally just trying to found a diet support group, but then this Brazilian started in with the calorie counting, someone’s hips went down to 33.5”, and a Lithuanian was all like, ‘We are in all of the magazines, and we work with all of the clients, so why don’t we just hoodwink untold millions of the world’s young women into associating thinness with beauty?’, and then Vogue booked her and I guess we all just went a little crazy for a while there.) More »

September Elle Is Full Of Double-Jointed Models, Dumb Fall Trends

Tatiana, our favorite anonymous fashion model, has got her long-fingered, well-manicured hands on the not-so-svelte September issues of our "favorite" ladymags. One day after digging into that horrendous Philip Nobel piece, Tatiana trains her eye on the fashion editorials in the newest issue of Elle...and gets annoyed by the expensive shit and overplayed poses.

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September Glamour Actually Makes Fashion Fun — And Freckled

Tatiana, our favorite anonymous fashion model, has got her long-fingered, well-manicured hands on the not-so-svelte September issues of our "favorite" ladymags. Below, Tatiana trains her model's eye on the fashion editorials in the newest issue of Glamour...and finds a lot to be encouraged by.

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What Part Of "In A Different City Every Week" Is Giving Away My "Relationship Tentacles," Asswipe?

Don't hate Tatiana because she's beautiful.* It's summer and she, mere mortal like the rest of us, has invested an excruciating number of its precious hours in the courtship of a dude who turned out to be a total dick! And just in time for her agency to step in and remind her she is officially "fat" by the standards of September's New York Fashion Week. In today's Modelslips, Tatiana re-learns that lesson about why it's a bad idea to look for dudes immature enough to think you're perfect, because if you're sufficiently close to perfect — and Tatiana is, bless her heart — you'll have them fooled for long enough to get high on that oxytocin-sired hallucination of soulmatehood and consequently, become understandably alarmed when they abruptly shake off your hand and ask to use your phone to call another girl. (Wait, seriously Tatiana? You fell for a dude without a cell phone?) (And who exactly decided "9/11 was an inside job" was the new pickup line?) Anyway, after the jump… what happened when Tatiana tried to take a romantic European vacation with her pen pal, The Guy. (Feel free to call him "The Boy"; he was born in the mid-'80s.) More »

Ruslana Korshunova, No Longer Anonymous

Over the weekend a successful young fashion model touched off a minor media circus by killing herself. Almost immediately, details of the beautiful life cut tragically short swooped in to fill blanks; the apocryphal tale of her "discovery" by benevolent industry scouts; her melancholy poems; how she'd been watching "Ghost" the night before. It was mostly bullshit. But there is something about great beauty that inoculates us to the more mundane realities of life, which was that Ruslana Korshunova was an immigrant from a desperately poor country who came to New York at a scarily young age to make money to send back to her parents. In that way she was no different from the tens of thousands of kids from former socialist states whose parents send them thousands of miles to work in restaurants and gas stations. It's generally more legal, and the living conditions a little nicer, but as our anonymous model columnist Tatiana has discussed before in this space, the people governing a model's fate are no less predatory and self-interested, and the experience is only slightly less anonymous. Herewith, Tatiana's initial thoughts on the suicide of a pretty girl from Almaty:

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Dear Models Of The World: Are We All Too Busy Starving Ourselves To Form A Union Already?

Modeling. I'll be honest: I didn't really give much of a shit about the plight of its willowy practitioners before I met Tatiana. Now, Tatiana's going to be okay: she's doing this to travel and learn and meet the sort of people you wouldn't meet performing the other types of slave labor to which educated young twentysomethings generally subject themselves, but the rest of them remind me of all those once-promising high school basketball players languishing in foreign club teams and living paycheck to paycheck in incredibly cramped quarters with nothing getting them up in the morning beyond the whole "Well, I've held out this long…" rationale. Which is to say, models are just like us. Except! In what other industry can your boss get away with telling an 108-pound cash cow like Coco Rocha: "We don't want you to be anorexic, we just want you to look it"? I mean, sure, it's one thing to "look" anorexic to me, an objective observer, but this is an industry, as we found out yesterday, in which the conventional wisdom holds that Karolina Kurkova is "fat"? Anyway, after last week's harrowing experience volunteering for the Plutocracy, Tatiana came up with some good ideas for reforming the business. We really do hope the agencies of the world take her advice! More »

Welcome To America, Models! Tatiana Can't Wait For The Extra Competition. It Was Almost Getting Too Easy.

Today we learned New York congressman and Huma Abedin BF Anthony Weiner had sponsored a bill to amend immigration laws to make it easier for foreign models to get H1-B visas. "The market is calling for foreign girls," said someone from Trump Model Management. "From Fashion Week to our vibrant publishing industry to the many designers that call New York City home, fashion is a vital part of our economy that drives thousands of jobs," Weiner told the Daily News. And hell if we're going to let the pinko protectionist traditions that so define the fashion industry threaten our competitiveness for a moment longer! Clearly, there are just too many clothes out there, and not enough 23-inch-waisted waifs to fit into the sample sizes! Anyway, Jezebel's anonymous model columnist Tatiana is in New York for a few weeks, and she's positively thrilled for the influx of new blood, let me tell you. Wait no, let her tell you! Without further ado, Tatiana spills on an average night in the world's most fulfilling line of work. More »

"Your Skin Is Sooooo Dehydrated!" (And 9 Other Reasons I Hate Makeup Artists)

No one will make you feel like shit like a makeup artist will. Oh sure, there are abusive boyfriends, manipulative mothers-in-law, overzealous law enforcement officers…but it takes a makeup artist to peer deeply into your pores and castigate every single one of your personal habits while smearing your face with a dozen bacteria-ridden irritants and PROFESSING an interest in making you look good because, after all, it's a makeup artist you're talking to, and to have makeup professionally applied is to sit willingly in on the sermon of a high priestess of Let's Be Honest, Is There Really Anything More To Life? Our anonymous model contributor Tatiana, in New York for the first part of the summer, always thought there might be. Then she endured the Photo Shoot From Hell. Herewith, ten reasons she hates makeup artists, an idea I endorsed heartily because a makeup artist was actually the last person to make me cry. More »

Ever Wonder How Models Feel About Barack Obama? You'll Be Sorry You Asked!

Tatiana is back! She's the anonymous model behind the tell-all fashion industry column "Modelslips," a feature I can't think about without getting distracted by the thought of the song "Molly's Lips," which has nothing to do with anything. Tatiana is feeling a little cranky these days. Sometimes it seems like every week is fashion week! And models? You know how she was just saying they aren't dumb? Yeah, she sorta takes that back a little. Herewith, a bit on how the model populace is responding to the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama.

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"Why Karlie Kloss And Not Me?" (And Other Pretty Little Headscratchers)

Don't get us wrong, our anonymous model Tatiana has had a busy couple weeks. (Europe! Magazine photo shoots! The private satisfaction of being anonymously "famous" on the internet!) But in a business where nothing is real (except hunger pangs) she sometimes finds herself pondering the age-old question, how IS it that some of these girls get so fucking famous? Exhibit A: Karlie Kloss (left). The young Texan is suddenly the Most Famous Person In Modeling. And in fashion, if you're not talking about how great she is, you're drunkenly wondering aloud to your friends what the fuck is so great about her. This and other pressing Modelslips questions, answered by Jezebel's most symmetrically-featured contributor, after the jump.

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Friendly Stylists! Free Champagne! Our Marxist Model Rejoins The Fashion Week Dark Side...

Fashion Week is over! But we'd be remiss if we let it slip back into the rosy glow of memory without telling you how it all ended for our anonymous model Tatiana. When last she caught up with us, she was contemplating the overthrow of global capitalism in the wake of a soul-sapping shift working as a fitting model for a Top American Designer. But you don't need Heidi Klum to tell you; fashion is fickle and Fashion Week Friday landed Tatiana firmly back on Team Third-World Exploitation And Pretty Shoes. Find out how and why she sold out in our final — but not final final: She'll be back to periodically dish from Paris and Milan and all those other exotic locales that host international fashion shows! — edition of Modelslips.

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Fit Modeling: Sort Of Like The $100-An-Hour Model Equivalent Of Sweatshop Labor

Welcome back to Modelslips, in which our anonymous fashion week model Tatiana "slips" about what it's really like trying not to "slip" while starving herself down the runways of New York's inimitable Fashion Week. Yesterday she worked a job for a Top American Designer! Sound glamorous? It was sooooo not.

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Project Runway: What The Clusterfuckery Is This, Tim Gunn?

Welcome back to Modelslips, in which our anonymous fashion week model Tatiana "slips" about what it's really like trying not to "slip" while starving herself down the runways of New York's inimitable Fashion Week. Today Tatiana has a big day at the tents...but earlier this week she learned some big bombshells at a not-so-impressive casting.

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"I'm A Model; The Least I Can Do Is Wear The Clothes"

Welcome to Modelslips, Jezebel's inside guide to Fashion Week as seen through the gimlet eyes of our very own 35-inch hipped, gel-schellacked, damaged-hair and hotdog-eating Anonymodel "Tatiana." She's smart! She's thin! And she's BEHOLDEN TO NO ONE. But what she was this weekend was a little bored, and so, instead of tripping down the runway (no that's not her above left), she answered your questions.

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"You Know, Models Are In, Like, The Five Percent Of People Who Look Like Models"

Greetings! And welcome to Modelslips, Jezebel's inside guide to Fashion Week as seen through the gimlet eyes of our very own 35-inch hipped, gel-schellacked, battle-weary, jealous boyfriend-having human clothes hanger! Our Anonymodel will be dishing it out all Fashion Week, so she can't use her real name, which is why we'll call her Tatiana. She's smart! She's thin! And she's BEHOLDEN TO NO ONE. We'll be checking in with Tatiana all week, as she goes from show to show to party to hotel lobby to afterparty etc. etc.. In this inaugural post, she answers some of our most pressing questions — and opens the floor to you!

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