I listened to this audio book, read by the author Grace Coddington, with her British accent, and thoroughly enjoyed hearing her tell her own tale of leaving home at 18 and giving modeling a try. Her first assignment was nude, though she didn't understand that was the case when she showed up, but she went with it. Coddington is well known as Vogue magazine Editor Anna Wintour's sidekick, both included in the documentary called The September Edition. She's the red haired one, if you haven't guessed, the one who actually can speak to Anna candidly. According to Grace, it was the film "The Devil Wears Prada," a fictive account, the human devil said to be based on Anna Wintour, that brought Anna - and then Grace - to infamy. It was that film and all the commentary, and her true relationship with Anna, that lead the normally publicity shy (OK, we'll try to believe her) Grace to go ahead and speak up for herself, her life, and her profession and write her book.
One of the things I appreciated was that she didn't do much introspection and certainly no apology for her life or rise in fashion but as I also read other audio memoir type books this past year by British women, I'm beginning to think there is something British about it. Certainly this woman must have faced competition and made some enemies along the way, but her own perspective is that she went from event to event, opportunity to opportunity, almost as if it were all fate or a done deal. But believe it: she worked her butt off.
C 2018 Book Review Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
Makeup Artists (Bill King), Photographers (David Bailey, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Patrick Demarchelier, Editors, Models (Lauren Bacall, Dovima, Janice Dickenson, Jacqueline Bisset, Christie Brinkley, Gia Carangi, Nastassja Kinski, Miley Cyrus, Gigi Hadid), Department Stores (Henri Bendel), bookers (John Casablanca, Eileen Ford), Designers (CoCo Chanel, Christian Dior, Clair McCardell, Perry Ellis, Halston, Givency, John Galliano), Stylists (OK, I'm doing a LOT of name dropping here but these names are just a few mentioned in the book!) You may be surprised by how many of these professional's names you recognize, simply because you read the fine print on some of the ads in fashion ads in magazines.
Michael Gross's book is on the evolution of the photographers and how they and the models they worked with evolved themselves and in and with fashion and the way this was part of and promoted the sexual revolution. This book focuses on the give and take - perhaps the balance - between the fashion photographer and the editor who places limits on what will be acceptable for the magazine layout and the models. Sometimes the models went past their limits responding to the photographer. Sometimes a model became an inspiration or a muse. Sometimes a photographer had a whole posse of models the preferred to work with - and visa versa. It's about the days of analog fashion imagery, beginning with the 1940's, the "game changers" in those days before reality television and Internet media stars made the magazine and the inner layouts. The book moves into what's happened because of digital photography and processes such as Photoshop, that can create scenes that never took place.
"An open secret in the business is that magazines often dole out "pages" and "credits" based on the purchase of advertising pages and that photographers regularly shoot "musts" garments chosen by major advertisers. But accepting these compromises has compensations. Powerful magazine editors and stylists have long functioned as de facto agents for photographers recommending them to advertisers for higher paying jobs as a perquisite offsetting enough editorial payments and limited creative freedom."
Chapter, "Welcome to Terrytown," (regarding Terry Richardson, a photographer)
pages 50-51 of the e-book
In the epilogue, pages 114-115 of 120 of the e-book, there is a quote from Carey Franklin: "Fashion will pretend it's art instead of calling it what it really is - porno objectification of women all stylishly dressed up as womenswear marketing. But then, women have gotten so used to seeing themselves with their legs wide open and their fannies hanging out, they have normalized it for themselves! What he (Terry Richardson) does behind the scene however is simply unethical."
Do magazine editors and fashion influencers only want beautiful women? According to this book, Vogue magazine, when Diana Vreeland was the editor, chose models she preferred that photographers called "Vogue Ugly!"
Hey, there's a lot of mistress name dropping in this book too! William Helburn was one of a few men who claimed they were sleeping with hot model Jean Shrimpton, "the shrimp," during the mods and rockers era. In his case, Helburn was "dumped by his mistress Elsa Martinelli," for his involvement. (Chapter "A Tableau of... in US pages 12-13 of 25.)
What made some these photographer's who became famous for fashion photography click (if you'll pardon that expression!) so that their work dominated. Many of them were not sexually attracted to women. Some of them were S and M players who enjoyed making models do "edgy" things, such as when Helmut Newton had Jerry Hall lick the cowboy boots of a male model riding a horse (Chapter "An Intolerable and Mendacious Factor, page 26 of 37).
Then so many photographers, designers, fashion executives, and make-up artists and hairdressers, and a model or so, such as Gia Caragi, started dying of AIDS before it was understood, and until the late 1980's not even discussed. The cause of death was concealed even as insiders knew. Photographer Bill King's extreme life style is rather detailed here, S and M and cocaine, and for all that he would not admit to being gay. Yes, my readers, it was in that chapter that I became shocked.
This book is certainly worth of your fashion-conscious consideration as we here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot read up on fashion!
C 2018 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
The world of modeling is fascinating to most of us, even those of us who are artistic but not especially fashionable. I peruse though magazines such as Vogue and am excited by the ads and what they say about our Pop Culture. I look at the fashion layouts, which, to the insiders who create them are called "stories" and see if I understand that story.
If you're like me and can't afford the most expensive selections from top designers, well, you read a fashion magazine and maybe you are impacted by the trends in your selection of color for your winter wardrobe, or you notice the change of shape in eyewear or the new heel for shoes, or update your hairstyle or your bag. Or you may read around the subject, reading books on cosmetics, hair, putting together classic looks to wear to work.
Now let's face the fact that fashion insiders all know what's ahead a year or more in advance and keep it a secret. They may wear a trend the moment it appears but don't want to spoil the surprise. Even those on top of the subject know it's too soon to wear some things because if they did they'd be letting those of us who are on the other side as consumers would know what changes are coming. Others in fashion determine their own style early and stick with it: consider Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor who has barely changed her hair in years. I hear that she has dozens of the same style shoes made for her. Some of these fashionistas wear black and more black, as if their bodies were only the background for more exciting clothing that is offered for sale. One day one of these people told me, "We consider models to be just hangars!" I felt for the models.
I wonder about those few people in the world who have such influence on us - the world! They are powerful people and many of them are heterosexual women or gay men.
We women, whatever our sexual orientation, also look at those models and we notice their beauty and have our favorites. (Kate Moss is mine! She once owned being a model without any agenda to also be a spokesperson or actress, but I hear her alter ego is actually a Rock Star! Kate is known for keeping her privacy, making her more mysterious!) Some women, like some of these models, starve themselves hoping to measure up (or is that down?) to be skinny enough. One designer featured such unhealthy and famished looking boney teenager models in one spread I saw in a Vanity Fair magazine ad, that I pledged that I would never ever buy his clothing; he had to know better. Does he even like women? Very thin women modeling clothes two sizes smaller than you aren't actually showing you what those clothes will look like on you, but it seems designers don't want the challenge to design for lovely women's bodies.
As the MeToo Movement exposes sexual predators and harassers and demands equal pay, I always think about the fashion world because for years I've heard that it's full of them. I've heard that models find sexual demands to be simply the way it is; if you don't like that get out, if you don't comply you won't get booked. I wonder - is modeling so objectifying that a model looses her self worth as her looks and body are discussed in front of her as if she were not there? Is that why there are always rumors of models who were or become prostitutes in Southern California? Does a model go to Milan to become experienced sexually? One top model, who no longer needed the money, is rumored to have been selling herself to Saudi Royalty for $10,000 a night!
I'm going to be focusing on the world of fashion in the next few weeks as a special edition of Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, taking more time to do so because I have wonderful books to recommend to you, which, if you read them, will reveal to you the insiders world of fashion - photographers, stylists, magazine editors, and of course the models!
While you read these books (all available as e-books or audio books by the way) you might begin to understand that world without having to enter it. Or you might "try on" what you read and decide this is the career for you!
I'm focusing on the modeling business because there are so many models who allow themselves to be Kept, particularly when they make it to the Big City (New York City, Paris, Los Angeles, Milan, London) and find themselves in the equivalent of a flop house for models. Starving is made easy by not having money for food. (One ex-model told me she only ate when someone took her out to dinner.) All that rushing about and unending feeling of competition with other women!
Every case is different, but as we know here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, Mistresses - Kept Women (Kept People) come from many different reasons why - from desperation to choice, from poverty to wealth, from the nunnery to the houses of prostitution. Certainly equal pay or economic disparity based in sexism is a factor, but so are love and lust, which I predict will not go out of style!
So, stick with me over the next few weeks as we move through the holidays here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot!
Missy
C 2018 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
