MBELDOG BLOG

Checker above + hanging on to a spiral staircase below.





Black/white duality stripes.


Pink leopard shoes.


Sarah in a Lolita typical fashion shoot with her in pigtails in a child's paddling pool, of course the butterfly (and in the below shoot the MK butterfly motif).

Lisa Snowdon has apparently been allowed to remember some of her experiences of 'mental and physical abuse' (see previous link; the following quote is from here): "When I was 19 I was with an older man who started off mentally abusing me and ended up getting physically abusive. Modelling was my escape from all of that. When the camera was pointed at me, I could pretend to be someone else [I wouldn't be surprised if the abusive 'boyfriend' was actually working for the modelling agency as part of the mental programming that goes on in the industry; i.e. abused at home, then when infront of the camera she dissociates into an alternate persona/alter-personality with the help of the flashing lights of course]. It was only when I started covering up for my black eyes by pretending to have fallen over that I realised something had to give and I had to get out." Also from that link the perverseness/predatory nature of the photographers in particular (though they're encouraged by the powers behind the industry as part of programming their models [making them unnecessarily strip/do things they're uncomfortable with is a standard dehumanizing/depersonalizing programming method; making them faceless entities, a highly suggestible/easilyinfluenced empty void/mannequin/doll to be made into whatever the twisted industry wants them to be]) as when doing a photoshoot for tea advertisement the Italian photographer asked her to go topless (which she apparently refused).
This brings me to the final thing I want to cover here (I wanted to go into some of the other Next Top Models + more themes in the British one but this is as far as I'll go for now [Mecia will probably win by the way]), Sara Ziff's [above as 'Vegas Kitten' + reptilian winged Gargoyle (located at the Mandalay; next to the "Illuminist" "Elite's" Luxor) and below pictured with a pussycat (also from that set is an androgyny photo further down)] recent "exposé" on the industry 'Picture Me' [the rest of this post is pasted from the Guardian interview article + my additional thoughts in squared brackets]:

A beautiful woman sits in front of a video camera. Her name is Sena Cech and she is a fashion model. Her tone is matter-of-fact, as though what she's about to describe is commonplace in the industry in which she works. The scene: a casting with a photographer, one of the top names in his profession. Halfway through the meeting Cech is asked to strip. She does as instructed and takes off her clothes. Then the photographer starts undressing as well. "Baby - can you do something a little sexy," he tells her. The photographer's assistant, who is watching, eggs her on. What's supposed to be the casting for a high-end fashion shoot turns into something more like an audition for a top-shelf magazine. The famous photographer demands to be touched sexually. "Sena - can you grab his cock and twist it real hard," his assistant tells her. "He likes it when you squeeze it real hard and twist it."

"I did it," she shrugs, looking into the video camera. "But later I didn't feel good about it." The following day she hears that the job is hers if she wants it. She turns it down. "I didn't like the way the casting had gone. If the casting was that sexual I was sure the job would be really sexual and gross." The photographer never offered her work again. [Some Sena (meaning "the moon") images included here (2 above + 4 below) to illustrate the clear bondage symbolism employed in one of Sena's shoots, including fetish ballet boots and various restraints, a whip and cage symbolic items (particularly the cage headpiece/mask). The double shadow of Sena due to the lighting is MK symbolic of split personality and there are various other subversively symbolic things in these images on Sena.]

This is the ugly, sleazy side of the modelling industry, the side few insiders like to talk about. It's one of the most secretive businesses in the world, which is ironic when you consider that it is also one of the most pervasive. Its stars are some of the most recognised icons of our time, household names whose bodies are frequently emblazoned across 40ft-high billboards, yet apart from the occasional flurry of publicity about anorexia or drug-taking, outsiders know surprisingly little about the multimillion-pound business which profits from some of world's most beautiful women. Models rarely give interviews, and if they do they're as studiedly anodyne and vague as Premiership footballers quizzed outside the changing room after a match.

[Sena below discussing her 'debt-bondage', one method of MK (manipulation) these 'agencies' use to control their models]

Do all models make a lot of money?

Sena Cech is one of a handful of models who has decided to talk publicly about the seedy, unglamorous and, on occasion, abusive side to her profession for a new documentary, Picture Me. The woman behind the film is Sara Ziff [below in 'mask' make-up], a catwalk model turned documentary maker.

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"I was at work, being paid to do a job, be social, effortlessly cheery," Ziff recalls. "Meanwhile I was sneaking in Ole [Schell; boyfriend who she made it with, seems more likely he is a handler involved in filming that compelling UFO 'Out of the Blue' movie + interesting themes in his Triad action movie (Janus character, Triad/secret society, bloodlines etc)] so that he could film without other people realising it." It didn't always go to plan. Schell describes being routinely thrown out of shows by notoriously publicity-shy design houses [they've got HUGE things to hide; that isn't euphemism btw]. At a private Gucci show at the Los Angeles home of the restaurateur Mr Chow, he came to the attention of the armed guards and was escorted to a holding cell in the house, his camera confiscated.

Shooting on a shoestring budget, editing in Schell's apartment, they end up with one of the best films about the world of modelling and an honest portrayal of an industry built on artifice. The final film, which premiered in New York and is already picking up awards on the film festival circuit, is at times a rare and unsettling look at what must be one of the few unregulated industries in the western world.

A 16-year-old model is on a photo shoot in Paris. She has very little experience of modelling and is unaccompanied by her agency or parents. She leaves the studio to go to the bathroom and meets the photographer - "a very, very famous photographer, probably one of the world's top names", according to Ziff - in the hallway. He starts fiddling with her clothes. "But you're used to this," says Ziff. "People touch you all the time. Your collar, or your breasts. It's not strange to be handled like that." Then suddenly he puts his hands between her legs and sexually assaults her. [probably Terry Richardson (though obviously he is one of many so it might not be him, fashion spot forum members are suggesting it was probably him); who is notorious for being a sexual predator, 'playing' with his young models on shoots/probably had an incestuous relationship with his mother (click MOM on his site for all the twisted nude/butterfly photos of his mum)/recently photographed Obama (see site)/etc (more images here + the sex-kitten Vogue calendar image I posted here was shot by him); son of abusive alcoholic "schizophrenic" (the helpfully vague 'mental illness' given to hide the true dissociative illness) fashion photographer Bob Richardson] "She has no experience of boys, she hasn't even been kissed," says Ziff. "She was so shocked she just stood there and didn't say anything. He just looked at her and walked away and they did the rest of the shoot. And she never told anyone."

This interview didn't make the final version of Picture Me. The model had agreed to be included but the day before the premiere in New York she changed her mind and became frightened about the repercussions. She begged Ziff and Schell not to use the material. Ziff was disappointed but she didn't feel comfortable betraying a friend in an industry where women, she believes, are betrayed all the time. "There is a lot of shame in telling a story like that, but it is really widespread," says Ziff. "It doesn't happen in front of anyone. It happens in the dark recesses. [we're not talking about your average catalogue shoot where everything is all very menial and relatively innocent; we're talking about "elite" photographers and the sociopathic mentality of the "fashion elite", controlled by sociopathic ruling class; this symbolism is an expression of their own mentality which is deeply soaked into the media in general ] Pretty much every girl I have talked to has a story like it, but no one talks about it. It's all under the radar because people are embarrassed and because the people in the industry who are doing these things are much more powerful, and the model is totally disposable. She could be gone in two years."

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The industry has always had a predatory side. Anyone approached in the street by a middle-aged man and asked if they'd like to be a model would think twice about giving him their details (which is the reason model scouts are generally women). There is something inherently intimate about the whole business of fashion photography - the all-seeing lens, the exposed subject, the powerful photographer. What's shocking, listening to Ziff, is how prevalent, and how far up the fashion food chain, sexual exploitation goes. "Vulnerable girls are being put into a potentially predatory environment," says Ziff. "What's in the agency's interest is not always best for the girl, and if she's in a compromising situation, she doesn't necessarily have anyone to turn to."

What alarms Ziff is that there's an expectation that models are comfortable using their sexuality. Often they can feel under pressure to conform, not least because they're being paid a great deal of money. On occasion, Ziff says, she has earned as much as $150,000 a day. "I've done shoots naked, totally naked [half of her face (split mind; below half face in darkness) symbolically covered above]. They sell it to you as: 'Here's this great artist and he wants to take your portrait.' I had to switch off the voice in my head that said: 'Do you really want to do this?' When you're being paid a lot of money and you want to appear cool you really don't want to show any resistance to going with it.

"But at the end of the day I used to wonder: what's the difference between doing a shoot in your underwear for Calvin Klein and being a stripper? Obviously you are compromising yourself. How far am I willing to go? How much am I willing to show for a big fat cheque?"

The industry has become increasingly sexualised, and the lines between what is acceptable and what isn't have become more blurred. Naked models inside the pages of a magazine or on a billboard are ubiquitous. Add to this the fact that in their bid to find models that have the "ideal" model shape - flat chests, boyish hips - some agencies are hiring younger and younger girls. Ziff recalls one model sitting backstage at the shows playing with a colouring book. "It is an inherently unbalanced and hierarchical relationship when you pair a 15-year-old girl with a 45-year-old man who is trying to create a sexualised image. You are asking for trouble."

The sexual side of the industry can go beyond the shoots, says Ziff. "When you are working at a higher level there is no separation between life and work. You are expected to go to certain parties and schmooze. There is a pressure to have a drink with someone with an ulterior motive and not offend them because they may book you for a $100,000 campaign. They have the power." ["Having a drink" with various "elite"/"elite-pawns" isn't all they're "asked" to do...]

In the past, she has found herself in compromising situations that she wishes she'd dealt with differently. She tells the story of a 16-year-old model who complained when a 45-year-old photographer made a pass at her. "Her agency said she should have slept with him." [Modelling agencies are sex-traffickers; agencies' handlers are essentially pimps, their models essentially sex-slaves for the "elite".]

"Imagine being an eastern European model from Latvia," says Ole, "who can barely speak English and is supporting a family back home. Imagine how compromised they are." [Ole 'Schell'/(shell) seems to be very aware of what's going on in terms of young girls trafficked from Eastern Europe for the purpose of 'modelling' (and sexual slavery; their bondage may well be relatively gilded, but it's still enslavement where everything they do/say/wear; the whole identity/sense of self is 100% controlled) below one girl (still clearly under their "spell" refusing to discuss what she had to do to survive when she was brought over as a 13-14 year old... it's a "good school")]

Do models start too young? Olga Sherer and Tanya D. discuss.

Sara Ziff was 14 when she first began modelling. Her third casting was in the East Village in New York. "We had to go in one by one. The photographer said he wanted to see me without my shirt on. Then he told me that it was still hard to imagine me for the story so could I take my trousers off. I was standing there in a pair of Mickey Mouse knickers [obviously this sexualization of children/pedophilia isn't limited to the fashion industry; Disney is of course a major culprit, more on Miley Mouse shortly] and a sports bra. I didn't even have breasts yet. 'We might need to see you without your bra,' he told me. It was like he was a shark circling me, walking around and around, looking me up and down without saying anything. I did what he told me to. I was just eager to be liked and get the job. I didn't know any better." Teenage girls, she says, are being persuaded to pose in a sexual way when they don't even know what it means yet. She recalls being a "virginal teenager" and posing innocently when she didn't feel remotely sexy. "The images came out and they were practically pornographic. What the photographer saw was not what I felt. It had nothing to do with that 14-year-old and what she was feeling and everything to do with what the person behind the camera projected onto her."

For all her success as a model - she was out-earning her father, a university neurobiologist, by the time she was 20 - Ziff was probably always an outsider in the industry... [not sure I buy the cliché of a 'young girl rebelling against her parents by becoming a model'; her father being a neurobiologist (this guy I think, worked at the Rockefeller University and such) researching may suggest more complex/organized MK]

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The irony is that the women in Picture Me may be earning large amounts of money - Schell laughingly recalls piles of cash like you see in movie scenes - but they seem to have little power over their lives. "You become this living doll," says Ziff. Every decision is made by someone else. They remain somehow like the girls they were when they first entered the profession, encouraged not to think about their futures, anxious to remain the same body shape they were when they were teenagers. There's a suggestion that some models lose weight because it's the only aspect of their lives that they have any control over.

Picture Me shows Ziff turn from a breezy, confident 18-year-old intoxicated by the amount of money she is making into someone exhausted, emotionally and physically, before she hits her mid-20s. "By the end," she says, "I was a shell." [thanks in part to her "boyfriend"/handler Ole Schell; seems to be very aware of the exploitation of young girls from Eastern Europe (human/sex-trafficking is very much connected to this as girls will often be told they're going to be models by an 'agency' but are used as sex-slaves on their arrival... but also used as models as these trafficking agencies are often one and the same as actual 'Modelling Agencies') and other things] Twenty-hour days were routine. In the film we watch her begging to be allowed a day off and being told that she's not allowed. "Sometimes people forget you're human," [models are depersonalized/dehumanized mannequins/dolls] she says. We see her haggard and tearful, her skin spotty, her hair dragged back and greasy. By the end of the show season she weighs less than 100lb, not because she's been starving herself but because there's literally no time to eat. [Interesting that Ole Schell, her alleged 'boyfriend' at the time doesn't seem to be helping her, stopping her becoming a 'shell' (though I'm sure the movie will show him giving lots of 'verbal support'/"sincerely" encouraging her to quit) image below of models with Monarch slave Elvis on all the kittens on the catwalk.]

Teenage girls will have seen Ziff in glossy magazines and wished they could look like her, but Ziff is filmed leafing through the same images in her local newsagent and saying how dreadful she thinks she looks. It seems the industry which makes the rest of us feel insecure and imperfect leaves its own stars feeling the same way.

She's 27 years old now, a full-time student at Columbia University who models when she can fit it in around her studies. She's with an agency she likes. Her portfolio may have paid her student fees but the cool loft apartment has been swapped for a one-bedroom flat, the catwalks for the college library. She describes her life now as nerdy and monkish. "Contrary to my wide-eyed, rather opportunistic outlook at 18, perhaps I learned that there are no short cuts in life," she tells me in an email after the interview. "Modelling brought some money and attention - but not the kind of attention you'd want."