September 14, 1999
Patterns
By GINIA BELLAFANTE
Amy Wesson Begins a Comeback
Amy Wesson was experiencing the kind of inconvenience that doesn't typically befall those who look like Uma Thurman and who, in the course of their short lives, have earned as much as $25,000 a day standing in front of a Hasselblad.
She was late for a meeting with Michael Kors, who was considering her for his show tomorrow, and there were no cabs in sight. But what concerned her more was the danger of missing her two-and-a-half-hour daily session with a private trainer. ''I really want to work out tonight,'' she said again and again. ''I'm very annoyed.''
That might seem like misplaced frustration for someone trying to restart a modeling career this Fashion Week, nearly a year after she began battling a drug problem.
Last October in Milan, Italy, Ms. Wesson was convulsing while walking the catwalk for Fendi before the eyes of the world's fashion insiders, reigniting rumors about a serious drug habit. Her manager, Marilyn Gaultier, withdrew her from modeling afterward and insisted she seek treatment. ''I really thought I had things in control,'' Ms. Wesson said last week. ''I was a mess, and everyone knew it.''
As she attempts a comeback, she discussed for the first time the cocaine addiction she once denied. Other models, like Kate Moss and James King, have talked openly in the news media about their struggles with substance abuse and recovery in the last year, and the prevalence of drugs in the fashion world. Ms. King's return to modeling has been a success; she graced Cosmopolitan's August cover and is shooting a film, ''Happy Campers.'' In 1997, she lost her boyfriend, Davide Sorrenti, a fashion photographer, to a heroin overdose, which led the President to denounce fashion for glamorizing a ''heroin chic'' look.
Ms. Wesson's problems peaked at about the same time. Two years ago, her former agency, Company Management, sued her for breach of contract, charging that drugs had left her unable to fulfill her professional commitments. And her commitments were enviable. She came to prominence in advertising campaigns for Versace, Valentino and BCBG. After Company dropped her, Ms. Gaultier took her on, despite the drug issue. ''I thought she was beautiful,'' she said. ''I didn't think at that moment it was such a big problem.''
But after the Fendi debacle, Ms. Gaultier insisted that Ms. Wesson get treatment. Ms. Wesson went home to Tupelo, Miss., where she'd been discovered at a mall six years earlier. In January, she entered the first of two rehabilitation centers in the Southwest, and spent two months.
Ms. Wesson moved to New York on her own as a teen-ager and said she first tried cocaine when a friend gave her some in a bar. ''The first time, I didn't like it,'' she said. ''I tried it again. It's something that just stuck with me. It numbed.''
She developed a daily habit. ''There was never a time I didn't have it on me,'' she said. ''I'd think, It's 6 o'clock, time to go home and do a line.'' She tried unsuccessfully to straighten out on her own.
''Even if I got clean for a week, I was still so depressed,'' she said.
Ms. Wesson said no one in the industry confronted her about her problem before Ms. Gaultier. But Michael Flutie, the president of Company Management, said he tried to get her to alter her ways on a number of occasions. ''Amy was in denial about her problem,'' he said.
In 1997, Mr. Flutie called together 60 models' agents, photographers and ad agency representatives to discuss ways of combating drug use in fashion. Have matters improved? Paolo Zampolli, the president of ID Model Management, said he believed the problem had been ''drastically reduced.''
''In the past two years, we've only had one girl with a problem,'' he said. ''My position was to get rid, immediately, of the girl.''
As for Ms. Wesson, she is finding the modeling business no less demanding. Ms. Gaultier admits to being ''scared'' about the size of her client's hips (which to the average person, but not to an agent, appear no wider than a ribbon). She did not get the Michael Kors job, but she will walk for Daryl K today and Helmut Lang on Thursday, when she turns 22.
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