Modeling Journey

Her career boasts one of the most famous ‘discovery’ stories in modern modelling history. Born 3 August 1990, Jourdan Dunn was found by a model scout whilst out shopping with her friend at the Hammersmith branch of Primark.

She was approached by an agent from top agency Storm, the same agency that is also responsible for launching Kate Moss’ career, and Jourdan signed with them in 2006.

In February 2007, Jourdan made her runway debut at the Autumn / Winter shows for Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren and Salvatore Ferragamo in New York and Milan. In September, Vogue named her a ‘rising star’.

Jourdan’s success continued, with runway appearances for Alexander McQueen and Hermes in Paris, and in February 2008, Dunn got the attention of the mainstream press when she became the first black model to walk for Prada in over ten years. The last black model to do so was Naomi Campbell.

The year continued to bring new honours, including accompanying designer Peter Som to the Costume Institute Gala in May, scoring her first Italian Vogue cover in July and also undertaking an ad campaign with British high-street giant, Topshop.

The cool, street-wise series of images, shot by Emma Summerton, launched Jourdan into the big-time: every fashion-conscious teenager now knew her name and face.

The lucrative professional relationship between Dunn and Summerton continued with editorials in Italian Vogue, and in November, a cover of British Vogue, with Dunn appearing alongside Eden Clark and Rosie Huntington.

In November 2008, Jourdan was nominated for and won ‘Model of the Year’, as voted for by the British Fashion Council. She topped the year off with a cover of French Elle. In February 2009, she opened the Autumn / Winter collection for Jason Wu, plus appearing in shows for Oscar de la Renta and Vivienne Westwood. She also had the honour of closing shows for Betty Jackson, Issa, Thakoon and Twenty8Twelve.

This brief summary of Jourdan’s career to date (temporarily on hiatus due to a pregnancy announced in July this year, with the baby due in December), shows that designers are definitely willing to hire (and re-hire) a black model.

Race in fashion is a contentious issue – even more so than weight. It has been said with alarming regularity that fashion, as a whole, is racist – deep down to its very core. It is true that even a cursory glance over a variety of fashion publications that the editorial balance is skewed in favour of white models, both in terms of editorial content and ad campaigns.

But the astonishing rate, at which Jourdan’s career blossomed, belies this idea. How can fashion be racist and still rave over beauties like Dunn? Jourdan herself was interviewed by iD magazine and refuted the notion that the industry will only hire a small number of black models at any one time. A brief scan of Jourdan’s friends within the industry also questions this commonly-accepted idea: Emanuela de Paula (Brazil-born), Sessilee Lopez (America), Honorine Uwera (Rwanda) and Arlenis Sosa (Dominican Republic). This is not a roll-call of an industry only interested in promoting a blonde, blue-eyed template of beauty.

These names are not necessarily well-known outside the immediate fashion industry, but Jourdan has certainly not been alone on her rise through the fashion ranks. Chanel Iman has also scored much press coverage as well. The fashion industry thrives on finding new faces – and ethnicity doesn’t seem to be the primary decider in whether a model gets signed by an agency.
By choosing to focus on Iman and Dunn almost exclusively, the press have been omitting other girls who are making a name for themselves. Models like Emma Pei and Toni Garr may not be household names, but they are well-respected and making a handsome living.

So Jourdan is right to challenge the idea of only a few black models working at any one time – we have ample evidence to the contrary. What is more puzzling, and perhaps more unsettling, is the question of why these girls aren’t better known? Is there a cap on success in the fashion industry if you are not white?

We all know that modelling is basically a sales pitch in heels. Whatever is being modelled, sells not just the thing itself, but an aspiration, an idea attached to it that if you buy this dress / bag / tube of lipstick, you will become more beautiful by association.

A quick glance of Jourdan’s CV throws up something troubling. She has had plenty of success on the runways and in landing high-profile editorials and covers, but aside from affiliations with high-street stores Benetton and Topshop, Dunn has no other campaigns to her name. True, Jourdan hasn’t been working that long, but if you compare her CV to that of peer Karlie Kloss , who has already landed a coveted fragrance contract with Marc Jacobs, you can’t help but think that something else is going on here.

We consider ourselves to be living in a multi-cultural society, but the facts do not compare well when we look a little closer at the wider fashion world, beyond the runways and the editorials of high-fashion. If fashion truly does reflect what is going on in society today, then why was Jourdan the first black model to walk for Prada in over a decade?

Many fashion insiders are reluctant to get drawn into the racism debate, not necessarily because they have something to hide, but because with this issue, there are no easy answers.

Casting agents for the big cosmetic firms hire faces on one key component: sell-ability. The controversial, but indisputable fact, when unit sales are directly compared, is that a white / non-ethnic model will sell more tubes of mascara than a black model. This then creates a vicious circle: cosmetic companies may want to go with someone more ethnically-diverse like Jourdan or Chanel, but if a white model sells more products, they have to make a decision based on economics, not aesthetics. By not using a black model, the cosmetic company are then continuing the self-fulfilling prophecy that a white model sells more units, and are then even less likely to use a black model for their next campaign. Consumers then only see white faces in beauty campaigns, and subconsciously make the semantic leap that a paler face is to be interpreted as inherently beautiful. They then respond by buying the tube of mascara, again fulfilling the prophecy that in terms of sales, a white model is a more profitable signing.

This leads back to one question. Why are cosmetic companies using white models so much in the first place? Is it because the public can’t see a black model as being beautiful, and by implication, aspirational? Does the problem lie with the cosmetic companies, or with us, the consumers? Are they in fact only following the agenda that we have set out for them? Who really decides what is beautiful? The problem appears to lie not with reality, but with perception.

For centuries, the template of beauty was not predominantly, but exclusively, white. Beauty was built around European features: big, child-like eyes, small noses and chins. The differing facial proportions on faces outside Europe – Africa, India and Asia – were not considered beautiful because they did not match the European ideal.

The preference for petite features is of course grounded in issues not just of race, but of power and inequality. Those who had the lion’s share of the power set the terms of what was considered beautiful. If you did not match the ideal, you were not beautiful – even if in reality you were actually better looking than your European counterparts: reality and perception – very different things.

The uncomfortable truth is this template has been clearly internalised by all of us. Why else would sales of a magazine cover featuring a black model perform so badly in comparison to those featuring a white model? Even now, it appears the struggle for equal and comparative pegging in the modelling industry is lagging behind the times. If lighter skin and features that lean towards European proportions are still seen as preferable, is there any hope for the industry at all?

The fact that the race issue is being discussed so openly means that there has been a revival of interest on diverse kinds of beauty within the modelling industry. Jourdan Dunn, Chanel Iman, Devon Aoki, Alek Wek, Arlenis Sosa and Emma Pei are proof that the fashion industry is more than willing to employ ethnically-diverse models – not as a gimmick, but because these models are extremely good at what they do.

While this is a debate that will continue to spark discussion, what is good news for models entering the industry today, is that the fashion world itself has no qualms about hiring new faces from around the world.

Part of this has to do with new designers such as Peter Som, Derek Lam and Thakoon coming from diverse backgrounds themselves. Their own history and personal understanding of the race issue makes them in turn more aware – and awareness is the key to breaking down barriers.

American designer Jason Wu used an array of black models for his recent Autumn / Winter and Spring / Summer runways to prove this point. To say that fashion does not regard ethnically –diverse models as being beautiful is simply not true. The problem is with perception: and that problem is centred squarely on consumers’ shoulders. We are the ones not buying it; we still prefer a magazine with a white model on the cover and vote with our cash accordingly. Cosmetic companies choose primarily European models not because of some hidden agenda, but because it is what sells. If we really are serious about wanting to see a more even representation of models out there, on the catwalk, in magazines and campaigns, a conscious effort is required to make it happen.

This changing of attitudes will take time, but there is definitely cause for optimism. The flourishing success of Jourdan Dunn’s career shows how high-fashion is willing to embrace new talent. There is no easy solution to the race issue, but while designers and editors continue to explore the wealth of diverse modelling talent available, there is hope that perception will eventually follow reality. The whole point of beauty is that it is beyond definition.

Fashion likes to think of itself as cosmopolitan and part of that attitude is its openness to new kinds of beauty from around the world. But it will take the continued efforts of high fliers such as Jourdan Dunn to keep reminding us that fairness and equality are always in fashion.

HELEN TOPE

Born on Christmas Day 1968, Helena Christensen had an early start in modelling, landing her first job at the age of 9. The camera’s fascination with her classic Danish features started there and then, but few would guess that Helena would make a name for herself as the model who gave it all up for a life behind the lens.

Helena Christensen’s route into fashion wasn’t particularly straightforward. In 1986, she took part in, and won, the Miss Denmark beauty contest. Helena’s win wasn’t enough to secure her attention from the people who could ignite her career. She made the critical decision to leave Copenhagen and head for Paris.

In the mid-Eighties, Paris was the undisputed champion of the fashion world. Milan was in the process of falling in love with a young designer called Gianni Versace, and London was experiencing a lull in the post-punk era, where power-dressing didn’t really sit that well with its reputation for ground-breaking, button-pressing fashion. If you were serious about having a career in fashion, on any level, it was quite simple: you moved to Paris.

The city stood on its heritage (the Chanel two-piece suit was being revived at this time by affluent Americans keen for a piece of European chic), and the thrill of the new, supplied by Christian Lacroix and Yves Saint Laurent. Paris was unrivalled for its energy, creativity and excitement.

Helena arrived in Paris, but it took another three years before she would be discovered. Photographer Friedemann Hauss has that claim, calling her a ‘natural’ in terms of modelling ability. A year later, she appeared on the cover of British Vogue.

1991 was especially noteworthy for Helena’s career. Never someone who believed in being conventional, Helena began her career by taking part in a beauty pageant, and in 1991, her next big move was to co-star in a music video.

Music videos had been around since the late Seventies, but it was in the Eighties that the true power of the video to crystallise an artist’s image was fully realised (think of Michael Jackson’s video for ‘Thriller’). Budgets during the late Eighties and early Nineties increased significantly, with record companies hiring stylists to dress their artists and make everything that little more polished. But Chris Isaak’s record company had more in mind for their artist’s video than some hair gel and a wind machine.

The video was directed by legendary photographer Herb Ritts. Shot entirely in black and white, ‘Wicked Game’ was a smouldering epic and was a hit around the world. Sensual and dreamily hypnotic, Isaak and Christensen took the music video to a whole new level. The end result was beautiful, sophisticated and shot with the care and attention to detail of a high-fashion editorial. As with Kate Moss’ iconic shoot for Calvin Klein, the ‘Wicked Game’ video propelled Helena to international stardom. She made the transition, virtually overnight, from fashion girl to pop culture icon.

Her new-found fame won Helena entry into the upper echelons of the Paris fashion world. Following the video, Helena was booked by Karl Lagerfeld and photographer Peter Lindbergh. Her name now established, Helena’s modelling career really took off. Working for everyone from Bill Blass to Versace, Helena Christensen’s runway career leaned towards the European and classic-American labels. Using her timeless features and languid sensuality, Helena became one of the most recognisable faces in the business.

Returning to film, Helena also made a cameo appearance in Robert Altman’s 1994 film ‘Pret a Porter’. A satire on the eccentricities of the fashion industry, Helena became the face (and body) of the film, appearing on film posters, draped in nothing else but a feather boa.

Helena’s effortless ability to smoulder in front of the camera was put to the ultimate test in 1996 when she was asked to be one of the first Victoria’s Secret ‘signature angels’, along with Tyra Banks, Rebecca Romijn, Stephanie Seymour and Karen Mulder. Featuring in the world-famous lingerie catalogue and television commercials broadcast across the US, Helena Christensen’s career trajectory could not have aimed any higher. Earning her fashion stripes on the runway, and bolstering that income with high-profile campaigns, Helena’s career made her, along with Kate Moss, one of the faces of the Nineties. This success made Helena’s next move all the more baffling. In 1999, she co-founded Nylon magazine with Michael Neumann and announced that she would be officially retiring from the catwalk.

Only the year before, Helena had walked in runway shows for Dior, Chloe, Helmut Lang and Dries Van Noten. This was not a model losing her touch; Helena was at the very peak of her career.

The fashion world was left stunned by the decision, but to Helena, it made perfect sense. Her motivation in pursuing a modelling career was never about money or fame. Helena was focused not on achievement for its own sake, but what felt important and valuable. Many may have thought differently, but as far as Helena was concerned, there never was a ‘Christensen brand’.

Her decision to call time on a career that many would have stuck with while the going was so good, took tremendous courage. Making the choice to move on and try something new, signposted that Helena was not afraid to go down the path less travelled. As the fashion world moved into a phase of using younger models who possessed an ethereal, Pre-Raphaelite quality (such as Lily Donaldson, Gemma Ward and Lily Cole), Helena’s decision to bow out suddenly seemed quite smart.

In the next few years, Helena Christensen delved into her budding interest in photography, which ended up taking her back to where she started. Continuing to work on Nylon, Helena also learnt the trade of taking a good photograph. Developing a keen eye for composition, Helena immersed herself in the world behind the lens.

In 2007, Helena announced that she would exhibit a collection of her photographs, ‘A Quiet Life’ in Amsterdam. Helena’s series of quiet but searching portraits and landscapes struck a chord with the art community. This wasn’t a model at play – this was someone deadly serious about creating images that matter.

The fashion world hadn’t forgotten about her either. That same year she was asked to make a brief return to the catwalk for the 60th anniversary Dior Couture show. In March 2008, her two loves of fashion and photography collided when she was asked to shoot an editorial with model Valentina Zelyaeva for Spanish Vogue. Since then, her photographs have also appeared in Marie Claire and Elle.

Helena’s work follows the theatre principle that actors make the best directors. Her insight into how a photograph is composed, and knowledge of what it takes to get that image, has placed her uniquely within the world of fashion photography. Her astutely observed images settle the argument, once and for all, that a model (especially if she is successful) cannot purse an intellectual cause.

By walking away from her career at its height, Helena Christensen earned the respect of the fashion establishment. Although it is governed by pounds and pence, the fashion industry loves nothing more than a good romance, and there is nothing more beguiling than the idea of a top-of-her-game model that leaves it all for a life behind the camera.

Though officially retired from the catwalk, Christensen has returned to modelling on and off, including editorials for Harper’s Bazaar, French and Italian Vogue.

Fashion has remained in love with Helena Christensen not because she left for the right reasons, but because she wasn’t tempted to stay for the wrong ones. By following the path that most interests her; Helena Christensen has forged a unique place in modelling history. Now in her forties, she still features on the covers of publications such as Instyle, Elle and GQ, indicating how little her appeal has abated over the years.

Helena’s greatest achievements have come about when no-one else was looking. No-one expected the Danish model with the smouldering gaze to become such a success beyond the immediate perimeters of modelling. Nylon continues to flourish with Helena as its editor, and with another photography exhibition scheduled for 2010 at Tokyo’s NEXUS Gallery, Helena shows no signs of slowing down. Never ruled by the bottom line, the unexpected quality to her career is the thing that motivates her: that roaming sensibility is what keeps Helena moving on, and moving forward.

HELEN TOPE