@theovercoat: I'm sorry. Are you saying people from Pennsylvania have a distinct look? Or just a certain part of Pennsylvania? That would make tons more sense.
@Samanthrax: I think it's a matter of growing up here and also that I just see it. It's not necessarily distinct and exact, but a certain vibe. But i could be just seeing something that isn't there.
And actually, I think I did specify the town by saying the people I grew up with.
That Harlem Renaissance editorial is fucking awesome, I think. And, I actually do like the composition of the Campbell photo with the elephant--kind of like a modern spin on that Avedon photo. The monkey thing.....I don't really know what to do with that.
I'm wondering whether successful, established models like Campbell have any input when it comes to creative direction. One would think that she could have declined to do this job if she found the primitivist tropes offensive, but do models have any say in how they are posed, what they wear, etc? Would it have been possible for her to compel the photographer to do a shoot that didn't marshal tired motifs of Black women as fetishized and animalistic? Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the modeling/fashion industry than I could shed some light on this.
Without the other images in the set, I kind of like the picture of Naomi Campbell on an elephant. She looks happy and like she's having a good time and elephants always make me smile. If it had been in a piece on, say, out of the way tourism and the other images had been in the English countryside and a Japanese fishing village it would be an absolutely adorable picture. In a spread that features her skipping rope with monkeys and racing a cheetah, it's absolutely loathsome.
@Dodai: I don't even get this. Are magazine editors and photographers seriously that unaware of the history of race and race relations? Do they exist in some sort of ahistorical vacuum where nothing is in context? How could someone possibly approve a photo like that?
@NellMood: well, as Jenna said, the photographer is the same one who put Grace Jones in a cage with the words "Do Not Feed The Animal." His book was called "Jungle Fever." So *he* knows what he's doing.
I think that a lot of the reason she never became famous on the level of those other girls is because she never hooked up with a male star. A lot of those models' celebrity was due to famous paramours, which is very media-friendly and leads to paparrazi photos and such. Think about it --Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere, Linda Evangelista and Kyle Maclachlan, Christy Turlington and Ed Burns, Stephanie Seymour and Axl Rose, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, Claudia Schiffer and David Copperfield, etc. Tatjana never popped up in People Magazine holding hands with a rock star, so she never became a household name to Americans.
@ChildBride: Actually, Tatjana was with Seal for years, but you are right, they were kinda low-key about it. I'm not positive, but I think Seal is the father of her child. I might be wrong about that, though. This was all pre-Heidi of course.
She was in that movie Rising Sun. I watched that movie with my mom when it came out, and they played the same sex scene with her and some other dude, about 100 times. They have sex on a boardroom table, and then he strangles her. Not a good family movie.
The supermodel era ended in the mid-90s. The all-powerful names were replaced by grungy waifs on the catwalks, and actors and pop stars on the covers of magazines. You could argue that while the supermodels may have become monsters, at least they were better than the young models paraded today, grey and anonymous, their invisibility and powerlessness physically manifested in their extreme thinness. The supers were never like that.
The part about invisibility and powerlessness being linked to thinness and homogeneity on the catwalk - powerful observation.
Amazing - I clicked on the linked article, saw the 90s cover referenced, then clicked on the Versace link to be taken to a website with a lineup of RECENT models, and OMG they all looked so similar! But, the 90s cover, to me they have different facial structures, hairstyles, etc!
Who would've though the 90s would be considered adventurous in the world of models.
Yah, I got this chic and Mellencamp's wife mixed up back in the day.
(Also, let me take this moment to show love for another model of that era, Yasmeen Ghauri. Pakistani-German-Canadian. She never ascended to Naomi or Cindy-like heights, but she was striking. And KILLED on runways. Oh my.)
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Also, I love to watch Cindy Crawford's Meaningful Beauty infomercial. It is so...over the top.
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And actually, I think I did specify the town by saying the people I grew up with.
In any case, she definitely has the accent.
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she always reminded me of a Klimt painting
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The part about invisibility and powerlessness being linked to thinness and homogeneity on the catwalk - powerful observation.
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Who would've though the 90s would be considered adventurous in the world of models.
/sad
01/15/09
(Also, let me take this moment to show love for another model of that era, Yasmeen Ghauri. Pakistani-German-Canadian. She never ascended to Naomi or Cindy-like heights, but she was striking. And KILLED on runways. Oh my.)
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