Models true to form
First off, I need to apologise ahead of time to those models I have encountered full of personality and full stomachs, but, after being backstage recently at the Antwerp Academy's final fashion show, I have to sadly confirm a couple of cliches.
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1. Models and (not) eating
In the five hours I was backstage each of three nights, I saw a lot of champagne and Redbull consumed, but no food. To ensure this was not simply due to the lack of craft services available (this was a budget production, after all), I brought snacks one night to test the waters. And as to be expected, no one took the bait.
The result of such fasting brings me to point two.
2. Models and fainting
Models were going down left and right backstage as a result of refusing my ad hoc refreshments, not only burdening their own health but the staging of the production. And it was a frenzy trying to find last minute (faint-free) reinforcements.
I remember Gisele once saying in an interview that if one does not have the natural physique for modelling, then one should not be a model. Many took her comments as typically egocentric, but I for one thought it a sound argument.
If you are not naturally thin and tall, you should not be a model. Sorry to all you pretty faces out there. Try acting.
But then, bringing me to point three, you would need a personality.
3. Models and conversation
The saying 'just sit there and look pretty' is apparently taken more seriously by some than others. While some models were chatty and humoured my inquisitions, most simply stood around staring, sulking, and slipping in and out of outfits. And when I say 'slipping' I mean it literally because every arm and leg was pulled in, out, and through every piece of clothing for them.
At one point, I saw a student actually draw a diagram of the catwalk to visually represent the apparently too difficult to follow stage choreography.
Walking up one way and down the other, the catwalk hardly requires a football playbook.
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So next time you see Coco and Chanel backstage on Fashion TV, try to bypass the hysteria and zero in on the models faces: do they look content as 6ft fashion glamazons should be? Because as an outsider looking in, life as a model is dullsville and makes me damn hungry.
