- Joined
- Dec 25, 2009
- Messages
- 8,527
- Reaction score
- 13
YSL F.W 2010
style.com
style.com


March 8, 2010
... The Scene: Backstage, one hour before the Stella McCartney show takes place on a gilded balcony of the Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opera.
“It is what it is,” Ms. McCartney said, gliding through a space packed tighter than the No. 1 train at rush hour on a Friday night, referring to the show that was about to start. Looking around at the assembled models, model agents, model minders, photographers, news crews, hairdressers, makeup artists and one former member of the Beatles — her father, Paul — the newly lithe Ms. McCartney added, “At this point, there ain’t no going back.”
And at that moment, the seasoned casting agent James Scully called out “First looks,” signaling that it was time for the models to begin dressing.
And the makeup artist Pat McGrath brushed concealing powder beneath the eyes of Joan Smalls, a 22-year-old Puerto Rican beauty hailed, with characteristic fashion amnesia, by magazine editors and casting directors as the New Face of the Season after Riccardo Tisci, the Givenchy designer, signed her to an exclusive contract for his last couture show.
That there is nothing particularly new about Ms. Smalls, though, she would be the first to admit. Two years before her miraculous discovery here, she was working as a catalog model in New York and shooting Macy’s ads.
“I knew I had so much more in me,” Ms. Smalls said. “But it wasn’t until I changed agencies and they scrapped my book and sent me out again that Riccardo Tisci saw me, and then everybody just followed.”
And Ms. McGrath, who over her 20 or so years in the business has worked with every name model around, said, “You’re hanging around, and all of a sudden they see you, and you’re suddenly new all over again.”
A surprising number of top models started out as catalog girls, Ms. McGrath said, before being saved and repurposed for lucrative high-fashion work. “Back in the day, you paid your dues, and it was good for you because it made you understand the business much better,” she said. “If you’ve been doing underwear ads, my dear, you know what the business is about. You know how to sell the underwear.”
...

