Modelling blog

Abby Clancy, girlfriend of Liverpool footballer and England international, Peter Crouch, is set to host a brand new show on ITV2 called ‘The Fashion Project’. The show features Clancy searching for bargains on the high street, chatting to and grilling ‘top’ celebrity guests and talking about the forthcoming autumn/winter 2008/09 season’s trends.

Clancy recently became the face (and body) of Matalan’s swimwear and lingerie ranges. Sales are reported to have shot through the roof on these ranges and have touched a record high under her endorsement. Clancy has admitted to being thrilled by the sales news and she remains in demand as a top celeb lingerie model.

Clancy is not the only Liverpool WAG that has been turned out of late - not to mention queen WAG Coleen McLoughlin (or should I say Rooney!!) who has been leading the Liverpool WAG pack for a while now. Liverpool, a city that has always appreciated fashion, with it’s new £1 billion shopping centre, Liverpool One, a slightly more relaxed attitude towards fashion than London is determinedly vying with Manchester for the title of fashion capital of the north. This teamed with the existing boutiques like the Armani Exchange and the ever increasing fashion student population creating fashion designers of the future, Liverpool is shaking off the image that has been portrayed for so long: the orange, fake everything, wearing too many accessories girls of the 90’s and early 00’s!

Having carved out a career for herself in television after her long and successful stint on the runway, Tyra Banks continues to undergo speculation that she has had breast implants. Banks recently dismissed the rumour that she had had breast augmentation on the first series of her talk show, the Tyra Banks Show.

During the show, the audience watched as she removed her bra and let her boobs swing free!! The plastic surgeon present during this part of the segment also confirmed her reports that her boobs are not fake. Although this became blatantly obvious, when without the bra Tyra’s boobs fell to her navel. To illustrate her point further, Tyra asked the plastic surgeon to use ultrasound to detect any foreign material, proving she had not had breast implants.

Tyra often has to respond to rumours on her show about herself, but she has never addressed the rumour that she has had a nose job. In pictures from her school days, Tyra’s nose looks wide and round, quite unlike her current nose which is much narrower, more defined along the bridge and less rounded at the lip. She is said to have had the nose job to make herself appear less ethnic thus furthering her career.

Could the silence on this topic, from the usually outspoken, stand-up-for-myself- attitude of Miss Banks suggest that this rumour could just be true…

The alpha male appears to be back on our catwalks after years on downsizing male models going for thinner, lankier and even androgynous looking boys, real men of porn star proportions that were used in the 1990’s by fashion houses to parade their clothes on the catwalks, are back.

But real men are back (yipee!) with models for Ungaro at Paris fashion week actually having ‘muscles’ and what could really be termed a ‘physique’.

Hedi Sliman, from 1999 to 2006 revolutionised menswear at Dior with narrow suits and slim cigarette pants. He created what soon became an obsession with the boyish, skinny, sometimes sexually-ambigous silhouette.

But now we are seeing a turnaround. At BananasMambo, top Parisian male model agency, manager Patricia Cadiou-Diehl has reported that for the first time in years she was being asked for models aged between 25 and 30, or who at least look 25. They used to receive requests for 17 years olds with androgynous beauty, hyper thin and hyper lanky. But there has been a shift, models are now more often required to be a size 48 suit size which is closer to life than the size 46’s who have recently been seen strutting men’s catwalks.

Naomi Cambell…Iman, wife of David Bowie…how many black supermodels can you name?  Truth is, since the 70’s and 80’s black models seem to be getting a raw deal in today’s fashion industry.  Cambell, one of the most famous faces of the nineties, a regular British Vogue cover girl, is pretty much on her own.

But, over in Italy, something is changing.  The July issue of Italian Vogue has been cleared entirely for black models.  Every single item of clothing, accesories and jewellery will be modelled by black models, as well as all the other faces in the magazine being black too.  The magazine is also full of articles about black women.

The centrepiece of the issue consists of over 100 photographs by the infamous photographer, Steven Meisel.  The portfolio is put together as an expose of the fashion magazine editor for ignoring black beauty, or confining it to certain stereotypes in the ghetto or bling.  Meisel has done so with no corny cliches, but instead has created a classy, elegant mood.  The shoot features Naomi Campbell, Sessilee Lopez and Tyra Banks.  Cambell looks stunning in a black cocktail dress.  Lopez is featured wearing a double-breasted jacket, the most amazing hat with a truly fascinating broach.  And Banks wears only a towel!

The most common reason given for not using black models is that they do not sell clothes.  This simply ust isn’t true.  Liya Kebede was recently booked by Estee Lauder for their campaigns and they have reported that it is selling the same as before.

It has been pointed out that the June issue of Italian Voge features no black models at all, but there are beautiful features on Chinese actresses Maggie Cheung and Lucy Liu.   Italian Vogue Editor Sozzani is certainly trying to break the taboo and bring forward black models into the fashion industry.

It’s hard to remember sometimes that Maria Sharapova is a tennis player! Her gorgeous looks may lead to you believe that she was born a model and just so happens to dabble in a bit of tennis, but according to Sharapova this is far from the truth!

The likes of Maria Kirilenko and Anna Kournikova led the game into the world of beauty and fashion. Kournikova famously appeared in an ad campaign for a sports bra with the tagline ‘only the ball should bounce’(!)

Sharapova did attend the pre-Wimbledon party, held by Sir Richard Branson at his Kensington Roof Gardens, the other night, stealing the show in her beautifully delicate, silver jewelled mini dress worn with nude patent shoes (a major trend this summer which works wonders at making your legs look longer - not that she needs to)!!! So glamour in tennis has beome big business, allowing Sahrapova’s dress for a pre-Wimbledon party to attract more publicity than most of the other players on the draw-sheet put together!

But, Sharapova, who is more than capable of winning a grand slam wants to be known first and foremost as a tennis player and being she is beautiful second. Lucky girl… she has both!

Alex Wotherspoon may have missed out on the top job offered by Sir Alan Sugar on The Apprentice but the finalist already has chances on a new career: modelling.

The 25-year-old entrepreneur from Bolton, who has done modelling work in the past, last week joined the same modelling agency as Agyness Deyn and Yasmin Le Bon: Models 1 - and is according to some weekend tabloid already up for major campaigns such as Aquascutum and Hackett.

“Alex might turn out to be the real winner of The Apprentice,” a friend told Sunday Mirror. “Companies have been falling over themselves to snap him up. He is weighing his options.”

The youngest ever finalist of the Apprentice, Alex only just missed out on a six-figure job with Sir Alan’s firm Amstrad, which instead went to recruitment sales manager Lee McQueen.