Model of the Week: Lily Donaldson

If you subscribe to Bazaar you will have received your first 2011 issue with a cover of Lily Donaldson cuddling a baby leopard. Me, I’m very happy about it – movie stars just about make me puke at this point. A want to see clothes worn by real professional clothes-wearers. Speaking of that…models today, I do complain about them, do I not. How they’re not as great as they were back in my day. Well, here we see Lily, who represents the cutting edge of trends in modeling, not least because a lot of models nowadays seem to be named Lily. She is, on her own terms, a great beauty and a fine model. She’s a dewy blonde-haired English rose. Her face is so white and perfect it’s like she’s made of porcelain. And the eyes – the eerie, huge blue eyes that look like something out of a creepy Victorian child painting. She looks like she’s waiting for some much older gent to come along and write her a fantasia about hookah smoking caterpillars and white rabbits whatnot. Looking like Guy Bourdin‘s re-conception of Alice in Wonderland is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Neither do I get ruffled when I see yet another borderline Lolicon high-art magazine spread of frilly-dressed sylphs wandering about in the big bad woods with their nipples hanging out. But when that’s all there is, I do get offended. All the models look like this. There they go marching down the runway like an army of Madame Alexander dolls. And it’s always the same shoots of babes in the woods. Oh and now there’s this retro-Studio 54 thing, where it’s the same girls made to look like Alice Liddell grew up to be Jerry Hall. How can Lily become a star if everyone looks like Lily?

with Jessica Stam

Jumping for Joy

Harper’s Bazaar, an otherwise classy magazine, hasn’t featured a model on its cover since September 2004. So I am completely thrilled to see Gisele on the cover of this month’s issue. I think that the celebrity cover trend has gone on long enough. I have my favorite stars whom I love to see, but I am sick and tired of the same faces of has beens and b-listers. For example, I am sick of Drew Barrymore. When was the last time she made a good movie? 2001. Eight years ago, that’s when. Part of the reason so many movie stars are now cover girls is that the new crop of models aren’t exactly super material. The new girls are just too bland, too wispy. I open a magazina and I can’t remember any of the girls’ names. There is no one who has the charisma to become a real supermodel. Gisele is the last great supermodel. I love her. What makes her great is that she is always herself. It’s not even her beauty or her body. (I think her body looks like a noodle with boobs) It’s her personality. No matter what fantasy she’s dressed up as, she brings her personality to it. No matter how sexy or glamorous she’s made to look, she’s always still herself – friendly, fun, relatable. She seems like someone you’d want to hang out with. And by all account she really is what she appears to be – a really nice person.

All the stories in Bazaar this month, as well as the cover, were shot by Peter Lindbergh. Lindbergh is a photographer whose style is instantly recognizable. What sets his work apart is that he’s never not shooting portraits. His pictures don’t feel posed. Even if they are posed, they feel natural and intimate. He’s not shooting clothes, he’s shooting people. Besides the Gisele shoot, there’s a story featuring Cindy Crawford, who is now a living legend. There are also stories featuring new girls and the difference is obvious. Hilary Rhoda and Lily Donaldson just don’t have the magnetic quality that a Gisele or Cindy has.

This 1989 shot is one of Lindbergh’s most iconic images. Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford show what a real supermodel looks like.

In comparison, who the hell are these people? Sasha Pivovarova, Natasha Poly, Catherine McNeil, Lily Donaldson and Doutzen Kroes. They are beautiful, but they just don’t have it. I think Doutzen is my favorite of this bunch. She needs to work on her personality, that is get one, then maybe she can be a star.

P.S. Why are girls without boobs modeling bras?