Transcript
JOHN CASABLANCAS:
I was known in the industry within 15 days for having the worst taste in the, uh, in the world. As long as they speak about you in this industry, you're okay. I was just a regular guy who'd thought about going out with the pretty girls. And I have absolutely no idea what modeling was all about. I was in Paris, 24 years old, in the hotel where I stayed temporarily while I was waiting for my, my apartment to be ready. A Neighbor, a photographer who brought in his models. And he used to say 10 times a day, you are an agent. You're meant to be an agent. You're perfect. I listen to him and I opened my first agency in Paris. When I came into the business, which was around 1970, the models were blonde, blue-eyed, no breasts, practically no curves. I ignored that and I introduced women with shape, with short hair and brunettes, brown eyes. And that was very successful. I have the understanding of a guy who loved beautiful women, above all, who like the sensuality of it all. All the other agents who were, in the vast majority, women or gay guys. They have their own approach, which in certain instances, is probably superior to mine. But I have something which I thought was unique. I looked at my models as women. Not with the things that were exciting, that were sensual, that were provocative, that have, uh, potential mischief. All these things made models from our agency a little bit more the forbidden fruit than those of some other agencies. Fashion is not about a Disney-like type of kind of catalogue-ish model. Fashion is about really exciting girls that have something to say, that express something. Sometimes they're a little bit scandalous, like Kate Moss or Naomi Campbell or whoever it is. They're a little bit outrageous in their conduct, maybe, but they're exciting and they're the ones that all the kids want to follow.
Cindy Crawford posed for Playboy. The number one model in the world, not afraid to take her go and pose nude, and that's the type of thing we like to do. We were the first ones to really push our models to be presenters for MTV, even the first ones to really go massively being the top models into the videos. Afterwards rebuild personas. It became the supermodels, it became really exciting do a job in public. You find out if a girl is really going to become a superstar, before she becomes a superstar, but not necessarily long before. It's like water that's gonna boil.
Linda Evangelista was discovered by one of my scouts in Buffalo. This a girl that I could never have thought she was gonna be, in my eyes, the best model I ever met in my 35 years of career. I consider her the best. What I think that we were good was in the place where, really, I believe an agent, where manager should be good, which is in the formation years. And giving that direction, 'cause once you're on the cover of Vogue, and once your name is attached to big campaigns, big products, it's easy to develop from that point on, getting you there and making those choices, saying no to certain type of work and so on. I have enjoyed every minute of it. I think there have been part in my own category of that role that I thought maybe an insight, an attitude, which were provocative, and I have to, to change things a little bit. And that I'm very, very happy and very proud about.
I am John Casablancas. And you're watching Modelinia.
