RACHEL CLARK'S LOOK BOOK
By STACI STURROCK
Palm Beach Post Fashion Editor
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Once upon a time, there was an extremely tall, exceedingly slender girl who was considered a little too unusual-looking for the hallways of Palm Beach Gardens High School, and some classmates told her so.
It must be noted that the clothes she wore - the baggy black pants, the Beetlejuice socks, the spikes, fishnet stockings and combat boots - didn't endear her to a campus proud of its softball and football state championships.
She didn't join any school clubs, play any organized sports or go to a single dance - those types of things didn't appeal to her at all.
And while she kept to herself, reading and drawing, it was, in part, a protective measure.
"I was an alternative reject in a small group of alternative rejects who just sat around during lunch listening to metal music and debating with friends about random topics just for the sake of debate. It was typical to be harassed by the popular kids, typical to even receive soda bottles randomly hurled in our direction."
In short, high school was an ugly place for Rachel Clark, whose skinny, 5-foot-11 frame and angular features have recently made her very popular with the fashion industry.
Since February, she's signed a modeling contract with New York's Supreme Agency; landed in Harper's Bazaar three months in a row, most recently in a six-page spread in which she wears a $35,000 gown; has crossed paths with Johnny Depp, Ashton Kutcher and Sir Paul McCartney; and has walked runways in the world's fashion capitals.
"I believe in karma," Rachel says, "even more so when it's so ironically humorous. It reminds me of the saying 'Don't pick on the geek in class because one day you'll be working for him.'
"It's just a real-life, fairy-tale turnout."
The accidental model
A year ago, "happily ever after" seemed like a remote possibility. Rachel was just scraping by, sleeping on a friend's couch in Palm Beach Gardens and earning minimum wage at a part-time job in the Palm Beach Mall.
"Never once this time last year did I ever imagine it would be usual for me to frequent foreign countries, let alone as often as once or twice a week," she e-mailed from her hotel during Paris Fashion Week, in the first week of October.
But Hurricane Wilma had destroyed her apartment. And when she lost the job at the video-game store (the glamour girl is, at heart, an unabashed geek who enjoys anime, comic books and Dungeons & Dragons), it seemed as good a time as any to see if what certain people told her was true - that she could get work as a model.
"It was never a passion of mine. It was never something I looked into doing. I never watched runway shows, and I never bought anything by a designer until a few months ago," Rachel says.
But last October, she walked into a Miami modeling agency and was signed on the spot. After honing her poses in little jobs in South Florida, her agent urged Rachel to give New York a try.
"When we first did the Polaroids with Rachel, we knew she had it," says Supreme agent James Tinnelly. "It was, like, immediate. The way she looked, the way she carried herself, how photogenic she was ...
"Models are performers. They perform in two dimensions. Someone can be beautiful in person, but they don't photograph well. With her, she's a beautiful girl in person, but on film, even more so."
Supreme is a smaller agency, representing about 40 models and specializing in "intelligent beauty."
Its Web site describes the Supreme look as embodying elements of androgyny, strength, vulnerability, individuality and honesty. "Off-duty Supreme models could be mistaken for Smith College students, not typical beauty queens," reads the site, whose design prominently features skulls and spiders.
"It's kind of Hot Topic meets Urban Outfitters," says Rachel, whose looks Tinnelly describes as American meets European.
"She looks really universal. At the same time, she looks really individual," he says. "You can't confuse her with any other model. She always stands out, which is always the trademark of a special model."
One foot in front of other
Rachel is 20 years old, according to her Florida driver license - but 18, according to New York magazine, which recently declared her one of America's most promising models.
But you didn't hear that from her!
"I'm not allowed to say how old I am," she says on a summer afternoon at Starbucks in North Palm Beach, her first trip home in six months. "When you say you're anything but a young teenager, some people are immediately turned off by it. 'Oh, you're not new at all,' and they don't like that."
But the fact that Rachel was brand-new to Seventh Avenue last February made it all the more remarkable when she was chosen to open the Proenza Schouler show within days of her arrival.
To open a major show - that is, to be the first model down the runway, and for Vogue pets Proenza Schouler, to boot - is not unlike hitting a home run in your first major-league at-bat.
After Proenza Schouler, Rachel headed to London for its Fashion Week, and followed that up by appearing on the runways of Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Moschino and more, in Milan and Paris.
"It was very unexpected," Rachel says. "I wasn't prepared for the first month of Fashion Weeks, but I'm used to the routine now."
And what is it like to command a catwalk, as well as the attentions of hundreds of editors, buyers, photographers and the random celebrity?
"At first, I thought it would be very empowering, an on-top-of-the-world kind of thing. But really, the only thing you're thinking is making sure your face is a certain way.
"You're thinking step, step, step, one foot in front of the other. There's no time to think about anything."
Complaints: not pretty
Actually, the work of modeling - going to castings, fittings, photo shoots, etc. - leaves very little time to think about anything.
"I barely have time to go to the grocery store when I'm working," says naturally thin Rachel, who says she subsists on TV dinners and street-vendor hot dogs purchased on the run.
In New York, passers-by often comment on her figure. " 'Hey, eat a sandwich!' I get that a lot. I love that one," she says, adding, "I don't try to be this way."
And for those who imagine modeling to be round-the-clock excitement, let Rachel set you straight.
She shares a studio apartment with another model on Wall Street (the neighborhood's chief advantage: It's quiet at night).
Since she moved to New York, she hasn't made any friends to speak of.
"I don't get out," she says. "A few times, I've gone to a hookah bar because that's the only place you're allowed to smoke indoors in New York.
"Also, we just don't have time for it. You're lucky to get what sleep you can."
Life in the Big Apple can be lonely.
"I just think, 'This is work. My home's in Florida,' " she says. "It's really hard being away from everyone you know, all your pillars, all your supports. It gets really trying. You're the only person driving yourself to do things. It's kinda like a mental boot camp."
But she understands that no one wants to hear complaints from the gorgeous girl in the Dolce & Gabbana ads. "People wouldn't understand. You can't say anything to anyone. The image is very glamorized. There's no point to complain about it. It teaches you to handle your own stress."
Basic training a la Balenciaga has been good for Rachel, says her mother, Alicia Clark-Green, who owns a salon in downtown West Palm Beach.
"She worked for me a couple of times in the salon, and I had to fire her, in a motherly way," she says. "I'm proud of her. Not for doing the modeling but for how she deals with some of the stuff that's thrown at her, how she's become responsible overall."
Rachel wanted high school to be over with as soon as possible, so she dropped out and earned a GED.
She also passed on college. "I never figured out what I wanted to do, careerwise."
But Rachel is at least acquainted with the world of higher education. At a recent photo shoot, her mother says, when the girls were asked what they'd be doing if they weren't modeling, "Rachel said, 'I'd probably be at MIT,' and the other girls said, 'What magazine is that?' "
Rachel doesn't really seem the MIT type, but regardless, any further education will have to wait.
She says she plans to continue modeling "until I bust. I think it's crucial in order to go where I want to go."
Which is to, she hopes, be set financially for life. "I need money. I want money. I want to coast the rest of my life. I want to be self-sufficient."
Former bullies now chummy
The runway shows of Fashion Week, however, won't keep a girl from couch-surfing.
"I typically get paid in trade, clothing, bags, shoes," she says. "I'm not sure what the pay for runways is, honestly, since they're done more for prestige than money."
Of course, in modeling, prestige can come at a price. Take the Adidas by Stella McCartney show, the grand finale of London Fashion Week.
Dressed in athletic gear, Rachel was directed to jog around a giant miniature-golf fantasy land for 30 minutes - wearing Size 61/2 sneakers on her Size 10 feet.
"When I wasn't jogging, I had to stretch, and then I started playing miniature golf and making a fool out of myself in front of cameras. I didn't sink a single ball. It was really sad."
But thanks to her appearances in major ad campaigns, catalogs and glossy photo spreads, Rachel is doing just fine financially, she says. "In the first year, I made a good amount of money."
Sometimes, though, she marvels at her luck, at the way a lark became a high-profile livelihood.
"I think about this all the time, how unfair it is that these girls have all these ambitions, and they just got with the wrong agency. I'm really grateful that I got with the one I did."
Rachel says old friends have been shocked by her choice to model.
"They knew me as the girl who hated having her picture taken, who wasn't into the spotlight whatsoever," she says.
"Others who weren't my friends, (like) the old school bullies who would somehow find out, would try to contact me via the Internet for small talk, inviting me to catch up as if we were old, long-lost friends.
"I'll hear through friends of friends that people who never gave me the time of day, who were condescending and rude, would now be following my career."
There have been other changes, as well.
"Sometimes, I'll run into old friends who will act completely different with me; people I ran around with for years who talk to me now will ask me timid questions and act as if I'm a complete stranger.
"I just want to shake them and say, 'We used to skateboard together, remember?' "
Poster child for outcasts
But, as anyone who's ever sat at the unpopular table will agree, the sweetest part of Rachel's success is this: "I was the loser of the class who got called ugly on a daily basis, teased for being too skinny, too tall, too flat-chested, having a square face, my legs were too long, I wore weird clothes, etc.
"Years of that ... and now I'm on billboards in numerous countries, in those top high-fashion magazines those bullies swore up and down by, being the poster-girl campaign face for designer labels those girls coveted."
Beautiful, without a doubt.
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