IMG Models Bring in the Brawn

Supermodel Ashley Graham has been recognized as one of the main advocates for plus sized inclusivity in the fashion industry. Image via

Supermodel Ashley Graham has been recognized as one of the main advocates for plus sized inclusivity in the fashion industry. Image via

When talking about making fashion more inclusive, a lot of the conversation has been centred around including women of all shapes, sizes, colors, and backgrounds. Strides have been made in expanding the once strict limits that fashion has historically had, but it seems that one group not mentioned in this conversation has been plus sized men. Be it society’s pressure for men to be ‘manly’ and ‘strong’, but men without the body of a greek god seem to be left behind. Luckily for us (see pictures below, and you’ll understand) , IMG has started its own Brawn division to include plus-size men.

For many American men, the models on the Brawn division are most likely far more relatable than what has been the typical model thus far, so its shocking that it has taken this long to include them. The average American man’s waist size, is 40 inches, yet that is considered plus size and until now, very rarely seen in any kind of campaigns. So to see a man like Matt Wirken, a pro rugby player, who stands at about six foot-six and 255 pounds on a shoot for Tommy Hilfiger can be really encouraging for men who may have never thought they were allowed to wear certain things.

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Guys our size, that just wasn’t an option. I couldn’t be a model the same way I couldn’t be the Queen of England.

-Zach Miko, IMG Brawn Division Model

Seeing yourself represented in the media can be a huge confidence boost– plus size men are no less attractive than the ones that are stereotypically represented in ad campaigns (again see for yourself). So its really important that more groups continue to break through the antiquated barriers set by fashion and set a new, more inclusive, beauty standard, especially for men. Adding a Brawn division does not mean getting rid of a different division– these Brawn Boys are just filling in the gap that has existed in fashion for so long, alongside their fellow models. And by the looks of it, everything seems to be working out well, so gentlemen whatever you’re doing, its definitely working.

As promised some features of the Brawny Boys:

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Why are Supermodels Taking to the Vertical Screen?

Naomi Campbell, Karlie Kloss and Doutzen Kroes may be known as some of the world’s most illustrious and influential models of our time, walking for houses like Louis Vuitton, Chanel and YSL to name a few; but these long-legged ladies are now catwalking off the runways and strutting straight into our homes as part of Youtube’s grand endeavour to bridge the gap between luxury and lifestyle: Slash Fashion.

Fashion Model Karlie Kloss was one of the many supermodels who launched a Youtube Channel for Slash Fashion, featured here with Makeup Guru James Charles and Designer Alexander Wang. Image via

Fashion Model Karlie Kloss was one of the many supermodels who launched a Youtube Channel for Slash Fashion, featured here with Makeup Guru James Charles and Designer Alexander Wang. Image via

Following his appointment as head of fashion and beauty partnerships at YouTube, Derek Blasberg has launched YouTube.com/Fashion, which he refers to as /Fashion or Slash Fashion (I suppose it sounds more chic). Slash Fashion is a curated network of channels, creators and content that focuses particularly on Fashion and Beauty; with the occasional blast of comedy. In addition to picking what content is featured on the network, Blasberg has launched and relaunched several large creator bases. Renowned creators include the aforementioned supermodels, but also designers like Alexander Wang and Marc Jacobs and fashion icons like Alexa Chung, who have taken to using the platform as a means to showcase their brand and curate their narratives in their own way - think: incredibly glam vlogging, makeup tutorials and story telling.

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With this launch, Blasberg himself has been making quite the effort to curate and inspire more fashion-centric content across the channel, assisting in the launch of quite a few industry-adjacent channels (Klossy, Being Naomi, and Doutzen Diaries to name a few), while also inviting regulars of the YouTube scene to partake in the industry themselves: take the Dolan Twins and Emma Chamberlain attending Louis Vuitton shows next to James Charles and Liza Koshy walking the red carpet at the Met Gala.

Amidst all the glitter and feathers, one has to ask why this is all happening now. Why bring this mysterious world of couture and catwalks to the general viewing audience?

Well, considering the near 2-billion strong crowd of content consumers at YouTube, we can consider marketing as a possible reason, particularly when we think of brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton trying to expand their consumer audiences; however, we must also consider the inconsistency that a huge percentage of that 2-billion consumer audience can’t afford Chanel or Louis Vuitton.

Youtube Content Creators Lily Singh, James Charles and Liza Koshy attended this year’s Met Gala. Image via

Youtube Content Creators Lily Singh, James Charles and Liza Koshy attended this year’s Met Gala. Image via

So we enter the pseudo-democratization of fashion.

Fashion is a very mainstream topic: it’s been covered in the news, in magazines, and we consume it on a day-to-day basis. Yet regardless of its mass-media appeal, fashion is also often labeled as unattainable, unrealistic or perhaps mysterious to industry outsiders. That mystery, in many ways, seemed to perpetuate the aspects of luxury that go hand-in-hand with high fashion. The exclusivity of a Chanel Fashion Show makes it all the more fashionable, right? But at the advent of the internet, we got the privilege of streaming fashion shows as they were going on, allowing everyone to see the looks from Paris from the comfort of their own home. This rapid accessibility of what once was deemed exclusive has not only changed how we consume fashion, but how the fashion industry markets, produces and distributes its goods. Haven’t you seen a rise in designer tees? In teeny-weenie bags and in flip flops too? Though not anywhere near the price of real t-shirts and flip flops, the production of consumer goods that are just inexpensive enough to appeal to a new generation of bourgeois youth seems to move hand-in-hand with this push towards Slash Fashion.

After realizing that goods like coats, bags and shoes weren’t selling quite as well post-recession, many brands started producing cheaper goods, which the rapidly expanding middle class could attain. Bring in instagram and its armada of influencers and you get a highly saturated marketing team that makes it impossible not to catch a glimpse of some Gucci logo tees or Balenciaga sneakers scrolling down your feed. In that sense, fashion met the everyday man without Derek Blasberg’s help.

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Emma Chamberlain and the Dolan Twins are notable content creators on YouTube who have been inducted into slash fashion by filming their experiences at runway shows.

So why Slash fashion?

It’s possible that this pseudo-democratization or pandering to the middle class has done some harm to the industry on a more ethical level. As more and more consumers purchase more accessible fashion items, not only is there a huge environmental toll, but there is a toll on the industry. Many feel like fashion is losing a type of allure; a fantastic magic that transports their viewers away from their lives, the escapism aspect of fashion. The bridge that Blasberg seems to be making isn’t quite between fashion and YouTube, but really, fashion and entertainment.

I find that the launching of so many supermodels’ channels coupled with incredibly high quality content that has so much viral appeal, is changing how consumers will view fashion and its branching industries. Watching Naomi Campbell scrub an airplane seat in head to toe Alaia, or Emma Chamberlain and Karlie Kloss driving around Paris before the Louis Vuitton Show is taking a recipe for viral content and wrapping it in the umbrella of fashion, leading viewers to associate such hilarious and beautiful content with the already dominant fashion industry. In many ways, alongside its push to democratize fashion, the industry also seems to be trying to reestablish itself as something rare, something pseudo-exclusive. It’s that tantalizing tease that entertainment and YouTube has together: giving you something you can’t experience, but making it feel like you can, like a trip to the movies. This realist-escapism seems to be exactly what Slash Fashion is all about; and in many ways, I can’t really be mad at it. It’s bringing fashion to a large part of the world, and while there is likely some kind of marketing ploy in there, I am glad that industry insiders are bringing their perspectives to us to inspire a future generation of creatives. Slash Fashion is projecting the magic of the creative process from a multitude of perspectives, but it’s keeping the audience at arm’s length, which at the end of the day, makes up a huge part of YouTube’s content. I’m interested to see where this goes, and I’m definitely subscribed to quite a large portion of Blasberg’s Supermodel-turned-YouTuber army, so if anything, at least we’ll be getting some very colorful content in the near future.

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Modelland: Another Bogus Attempt to Democratize the Fashion World

 

Supermodel/businesswoman/TV host Tyra Banks announced the creation of a model themed amusement park called Modelland in February, slated to open in the Santa Monica Place shopping plaza late in 2019. The park gets its name from Banks’ young adult novel of the same name, in which tokenized misfits (overweight, short, and albino) go to Modelland boarding school in order to become models, gain superpowers and escape evil forces… or something. Reading the summary alone made me confused, and the book has understandably been slammed as terribly convoluted and, in my favorite review, '“a befuddling mess of dreckitude.” Modelland is meant to follow the mission of the book by Disneyland-ifying modeling for regular folks. What the park will entail is a mystery, as the website contains nothing but a logo, “Coming Soon” and “Step Into Your Light.” So what does it really mean to “bring modeling to the masses” as Banks claims Modelland is sure to do?

Fashion Café’s supermodel owners. Image via

Fashion Café’s supermodel owners. Image via

This isn’t the first model headed business venture based on selling the model image. 1995 saw the opening of theme restaurant Fashion Café, owned and endorsed by titans Naomi Campbell, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, and Christy Turlington. Picture the Hard Rock Café/Planet Hollywood, but make it fashion, complete with a red carpeted entrance, iconic pieces like one of Madonna’s tour bustiers, and a gift shop with both Fashion Café branded merchandise and actual designer clothes.

The gift shop is analogous to the venture’s fatal flaw. Fashion Café tried to straddle the line between demographics that couldn’t be more different - tourists and the fashion elite. Average Joe and Jane (picture the stereotypical Middle American tourist: fanny pack, bucket hat, I Heart NY shirt, face perpetually hidden by a camera) were to be convinced they were stepping into a higher social strata than they could ever normally achieve simply by paying an exorbitant amount for “Naomi’s Fish and Chips.” The glitz and glam and signs that literally say FASHION (in case you didn’t get the theme) were to serve as evidence that the fashion elite would ever be caught dead at such a gaudy establishment, eating greasy diner food. Co-founder Tommaso Buti said it all upon the café’s opening, explaining "With something like this, you cannot go too deeply into fashion. The public is not that educated and not that interested. They want to see more the glamour and the entertainment of fashion."

Maybe I’m a cynic, but a major part of fashion’s allure for everyday people is its unattainable image. Supermodels are lauded as queens and goddesses because they represent an elevated version of the mundane. For the majority of the American population, the runway represents a kind of stairway to a heaven that they could never buy their way into. Models are the women that have strutted their way up. Banks claims Modelland is intended to help everyday people to “be the dream version of themselves”, but - disregarding the sheer falsity of that statement, as if acting as a model in a ticketed theme park is changing someone’s life - how can that dream be delivered, barring diets and plastic surgery? The sad truth is that most people don’t want to see themselves on the runway, they want that “dream version” that the media and the fashion world has told them exemplifies beauty. Part of fashion is gatekeeping, par for the course for an industry built on subjective art and rampant materialism. The magic is in the fantasy.

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I loved America’s Next Top Model’s inspirational premise, modeling challenges and reality TV drama. I also know that at its core it was just a TV show, and out of its 24 seasons very few from its roster of (almost entirely traditionally attractive) winners have broken into the industry in any substantial ways, putting many question marks behind Banks’ repeated declaration on the show that ANTM has “changed the definition of beauty.” But the only fault I can attribute to the show itself is its insistence that it has truly diversified modeling. It is simply an appendage of a static and dream fueled industry that if deconstructed would fall apart.

This isn’t to demonize the modeling industry, which I personally find to be a fascinating portion of pop culture. The 90’s supermodel boom is one of my favorite phenomenons. It is important to not let our desires for widened beauty standards and equality cloud the reality of a cutthroat industry that is literally based on selectivity. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but as a culture there are certain glamazons we want to look up to. And after all, isn’t aspiration and continuous wanting the American way?

Feature image via from The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

 

Christy Turlington Returns to the Runway After 20+ Years

The last couple of years have seen the supermodel titans of the 90s returning to the runway with a vengeance, the latest being Christy Turlington.

Among the model elite, Christy has always been my favorite. Cindy was the sporty all-American beauty, Naomi was sultry with a notorious attitude, Linda was the brash chameleon, but Christy always seemed sidelined as the underrated one among the bunch. People love a big, bold archetype and with her practically-perfect-in-every-way features, natural elegance and kind demeanor, it’s hard to put her in a box. But that hasn’t stopped her from shining, as she was one of the top earners in her prime, bringing in a reported $1.7 million in 1992.

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More low-key and self-aware than her peers, she was highly successful but always downplaying her status, and constantly denying Linda Evangelista’s infamous quote about the two women “never getting out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.” Lacking the ego of her colleagues, she perfectly balanced the line between the sweet, girl-next-door and one of the sexiest women alive. She paused her career in its prime to get a degree in comparative religion and Eastern philosophy, start a charity to support maternal health, and get a masters in public health.

Christy triumphantly reclaimed the catwalk in the Marc Jacobs Fall 2019 Show on the last day of New York Fashion Week in a Black Swan dress; an average look immensely elevated by her wearing it. Despite the 50-year-old model closing the show, she reaffirmed that this was simply one more walk for old times sake, posting about the opportunity on Instagram:

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About tonight! OMG @themarcjacobs invited me to close his beautiful show tonight and I couldn’t resist. A. I have known and loved this man since I met him at age 16. B. I turned 50 this year and have arrived at a place where “Why the F not” is the answer that comes up when I ask myself questions. C. I have a 15 year old daughter who I desperately want to see and hear me and this is a medium that “speaks”to her. So, thank you’s are in order, @karliekloss @gigihadid and @kaiagerber and all the lovely young women I have met briefly in the recent past or met tonight. You are ALL women I would want my daughter to emulate in your grace, confidence and elegance. Always reassuring to have @guidopalau @diane.kendal @stephenjonesmillinery and @kegrand encouraging you on and making you look and feel your best. And while that muscle did not hurt as much as I would have thought to exercise again, after 20 plus years, I am not certain I could beat the experience of tonight or wish to try! Now I can say exactly when and for whom I last walked a runway and feel so proud and grateful to all the forces of nature who made it possible! 😘@1.800.newbold & Congratulations for all of the amazing people who put shows like this together. I am in awe of the efforts I was able to witness firsthand and truly appreciate from a new perspective over the last couple of days all the effort that goes in. Bravo!

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The Versace Pre-Fall Show Is a Strut down Memory Lane

Versace held its first ever pre-fall show in New York last Sunday–the birthday of its late founder, Gianni Versace. Coming off of this year’s Emmy winning series about his death, plus the House’s acquisition by Michael Kors, the show was as much a tribute to the brand’s legacy as it was a statement on its future identity. It was held in the New York Stock Exchange headquarters, to underscore the house’s centrality and vitality in the fashion community. Also included was a to-scale Statue of Liberty flame gilded in Versace gold.

At such a tumultuous point in history, both in the world and within the fashion community, the House of Versace has been consistently looking towards the past. The 2018 spring show featured a reunion of epic proportions as the brand’s iconic 90’s supermodels reclaimed their runway.

Carla Bruni, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen. Image via

Carla Bruni, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen. Image via

Versace’s nostalgia for legendary moments carried through in the show, as a replica of That J-Lo Dress was featured in the closing. (Fun fact: Jennifer Lopez’s 2001 deeply plunging Grammy dress was so notorious and frequently searched on the Internet that it inspired the creation of Google Images). The cherry on top? In this year’s show it was modeled by Amber Valletta, who had debuted the original palm leaf patterned dress on the 2000 Versace catwalk.

The safety pin dress–one of Versace’s most storied creations–also saw a revamp for the show. The concept debuted in the ‘94 Spring Ready-to-Wear show (worn on the very same legendary models mentioned above) and was immortalized by Elizabeth Hurley at the 1994 Four Weddings And A Funeral premiere. Held together primarily by oversized safety pins with a plunging neckline it was–and remains–one of the most daring and creative LBDs ever. This year’s pre-fall show included homages to the concept, reinterpreting the ‘94 concept on various looks featuring the same gold pins scattered among black dresses, skirts, shirts and jackets.

Elizabeth Hurley (1994). Image via

Elizabeth Hurley (1994). Image via

The safety pin dress reimagined. Image via

The safety pin dress reimagined. Image via

Animal prints were also heavily featured and Gianni’s classic gold and black baroque/animal print fusion made a particular splash, in a few looks meshed with American flag-esque stars in reference to the “concrete jungle” of New York. Nods to Versace’s first-time host city didn’t stop there, as plenty of New York inspired looks were featured in the show. From uptown socialites to downtown artist types to tourists, the NYC melting pot carried a significant portion of the show’s theme, even featuring a Versace’d “I Heart NY” tee.

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In their own words, the fashion house remains rooted in their history, bright colors, wild prints and Gianni and they’re fully committed to using this history to fuel their future as artistic pioneers.

VERSACE MEN AND WOMEN SWIFTLY MOVE BETWEEN THEIR MYTHOLOGICAL WORLD AND THEIR COSMOPOLITAN, MODERN CITY LIFE.
THEIR CONFIDENCE? ABSOLUTE.
THEIR SECRET? A VERSACE STATE OF MIND.

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