Fashion Now: Wayne fait le point.

Raquel Zimmermann pour le parfum Gucci de Gucci.

Question. If as hiss has it, Claudia is Chanel FW 08 and Naomi YSL with Kate set to log her inevitable 4-pack of camps, where does that leave today's mob of bright eyed newcomers? The magazines are awash with Top Newcomers edits. V must do one. German Vogue has one pending and the new incarnation of Interview under Karl Templer's stewardship kicks off with a visual ode to today's Top New Stars but these girls will not be populating the blue chip campaigns this season from the look of things.This is not a new story. Clients are clear where they stand on this issue. In the rare cases that they cast from the current ranks of models, they still contract those girls with a track record. Think for instance about that certain haute editorial blonde who dropped out from the scene a few seasons back. She's in much demand these days proving that certain girls will always find a space on the call sheet waiting
for them. Or you could be Lara Stone and find yourself constantly needed on those best sets. Now consider the curious political change-ups at that hallmark American label which seems to be hopping from girl to girl per season. The days of long term commitments seem to be over at that house.The upshot is a Manhattan modeling market that has most managers in a state of confusion. The frantic and melodramatic demand for New Faces that feeds the shows just suddenly falls dead when the campaign calls come in. It now leads to an interesting conundrum. when you go from agency to agency in New York to take the temperature , there now just seems to be a numbness at the speed of the runway and editorial turnover of girls.One frank agency head put it this way "The barriers have been lowered and the cities are just flooded now. It's you guys. Models.com, fashionspot, Myspace,Ones2watch,Facebook. You guys have made it so easy and open for anyone to be scouted and cast . Four polaroids can make a star now. And then girls are showing up with a list of the only shows they want to do in New York . And the only magazines they want to be in. Because everybody knows everything now".In a sense he was right. there is no mystique anymore. No more selling to clients the myth of the right girl in the right car staying at the right hotel. How do you make a model rare when the client can cross the street and find 12 more Russian girls of the same ilk?The few old school agents who came of age in an era of power managers still think that the diva tantrum on the phone, the shuttling to voice mail and the icy strategy of ignoring the non--blue chip will put a naughty client in their place. But the naughty client is thriving regardless and shade and hauteur are expensive illusions in a time of glut. The brutal fact is, outside of Kate Moss and Gisele, there is not a single model modeling today that can set the terms and conditions of the booking.In many ways there is a
rebellion brewing in the face of this glut. US Vogue has made it clear that the model as non-entity has lost her blank slate charms. Which then loops us back to the question of what Aline and Amanda and Natalia and Karmen are to do to become distinct and compelling. Live for fashion girls. Learn it, live it, breathe it. Rock mad outfits, cultivate friendships with the editors, photographers and designers who make or break. Work the Japanese photographers outside the tents in Paris. Pull stunts. Date rock stars. Believe in the drama of chic, chic, chic, chic chic. There's an audience waiting to be entertained. Just ask Agyness.

Un grand merci à The imagist