The tides seem to have finally turned (or so we're told) and after more than ten long years of a steady stream of celebrities and starlets polluting the pages of fashion magazines, fashion and luxury brands as well as fashion publications seem to be returning to professional models to promote their wares and fill the pages of magazines. It isn't just that the tides seem to be shifting away from celebrities that is significant but the fact that the models who will be taking center stage in upcoming fall-winter campaigns happen to be women who are in their late-thirties/early forties and who have actual breasts, bottoms and thighs - Linda Evangelista, Naomie Campbell, Stephanie Seymour, et al. While these women are of course preternaturally beautiful as models tend to be, the fact that fashion is going back to using women as opposed to prepubescent girls to front their campaigns is good news for all women regardless of the the underlying reasons for it (for an interesting analysis, read Vanessa Friedman's column in the Financial Times entitled "A Certain Age Is All The Rage"). I wholeheartedly applaud the return of beautiful, healthy women to fashion. This said, despite proclamations by Friedman and other fashion editors, I have my doubts that the return of the super models to the forefront of fashion signals that fashion has in fact moved on from the cult of celebrity.
Photo by Steven Meisel, courtesy of Italian Vogue.
Naomie Campbell, one of the original supermodels whose beauty and style grace the pages of this month's Italian Vogue, was recently convicted for what amounts to her third display of egregious behavior involving foul language, racial slurs and physical assault. The first two convictions arose respectively from her assault of an assistant using her cell phone in 2000 for which a Canadian court ordered her to pay fines and submit to mandatory anger management classes and another incident in New York City in 2007 where a court ordered her to pay fines and submit to 5 days of community service for assaulting her maid. This latest conviction (the third and counting) arose from an altercation with a British Airways official and a law enforcement officer at Heathrow Airport in London last April. And what does one get for physically assaulting a police officer, disrupting a scheduled commercial flight and wreaking havoc when one happens to be a supermodel/repeat offender? A few measly months worth of community service. (Source) The scenario has played out so many times now that we should all know it by heart. Soon, Campbell's PR reps will issue a statement proclaiming her deep sense of regret and remorse followed invariably by a syrupy spread in an influential fashion publication designed to recast her as a kinder, gentler, more mature version of herself. Hmmmm. Sound familiar? Is this really any different from the special treatment conferred upon tabloid queens Nicole Ritchie or Paris Hilton following their own entanglements with law enforcement? At the very least, Ritchie and Hilton actually spent a few hours in the slammer for good measure. In the end, isn't Campbell just another celebrity complete with brand recognition and special perks including preferential treatment by public officials when she (repeatedly) breaks the law? It doesn't seem to me that we've moved on from the cult of celebrity at all. We've merely shifted our gaze away from one set of celebrities and focused on another set. Le roi est mort - vive le roi!
Sincerely,
The Luxe Chronicles
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