At 6 feet, 3 inches, Hope is all legs and eyes and righteous indignation.
Tears threaten to flood her mascara. This is the second time, she says, that she has been told that she’s too tall to model. Go to New York, they tell her–they might like you there.
Hope had come on this night to an open call audition for the Elite-Lee Jeans Model Look competition at the House of Blues, but she just found out that she’s not going to make it into the contest. And because she’s 16, she has been barred from even entering the club, where, Hope imagines, a bastion of New York model scouts are waiting for her.
“I almost cussed her out,” Hope says of the woman who turned her down, her head snapping with vexation. “You’re not going to tell me that I’m too tall. How can you be too tall?
“I walk down the street, and there’s not a day that goes by when someone doesn’t ask me, `Are you a model?’ It’s an omen. It’s what I’m supposed to do. I can feel it. I feel I’ve got the height, the look, the name, and I happen to be pretty.”
Adds her half-brother/agent, Brian, a scrawny lad in baggy pants and a baseball cap: “She can sing too.”
– – –
After months of scouring the malls of the Midwest and plucking pretty faces out of a sea of young wannabes, scouts from the New York-based Elite Model Management and their local agency, Elite Chicago, have whittled down their choices to 25, whose ranks will be further winnowed tonight. The career of a model is exceedingly brief, so they are all, as the evening’s emcee, Sports Illustrated supermodel Roshumba, describes them, “puppies.” The youngest is 12. The oldest, by far–most of them are 14 or 15–is 21.
As extra insurance, to make sure that they don’t miss out on the next Cindy Crawford or Linda Evangelista or Naomi Campbell, the Elite scouts are simultaneously staging an open call audition.
And so, there are two sets of young women haunting the House of Blues this August evening: Those like Hope who are trying to get picked via the open call, and those who’ve survived the first cut and are trying to surmount Round No. 2.
Backstage, the chosen few cluster with newfound friends, all of them impossibly young, impossibly tall, impossibly sleek and perky of bosom, surrounded by racks upon racks of clothes as they whisper and snicker and fidget with their hair.
The air is thick with hope and desperation and jittery giggles.
Are they nervous? Oh, yeah. Who wouldn’t be? They’ve volunteered to be judged by their looks. As Eli, a 16-year-old Kenwood Academy senior with the face of an angel confesses, “Now that I’ve gotten into modeling, my self-esteem has gone down a bit.”
Those who win, regardless of the state of their egos, will be whisked away to New York to compete in the national competition Tuesday. Winners of that contest–there will be only 10 — will go on to compete in the Elite Model Look International in France in September. That winner is to receive a guaranteed $925,000 in modeling contracts.
Winning is a big “if” — even Cindy Crawford failed to snag the international crown. But victory doesn’t really matter so much. What really counts is grabbing the attention of modeling scouts who can launch a career into the I’ll-only-get-out-of-bed-for-$10,000-day stratosphere.
– – –
“We’re looking for the next supermodel, a superstar,” explains Elite Chicago scout Loretta Wilger as she scrutinizes the line of would-be models snaking through the lobby and back outside the House of Blues.
“We can see through everything, a bad haircut, bad clothes, an overweight body,” she explains. “We can do a makeover.”
Music rocks the lobby as young women try to look cool while shuffling past Wilger’s gaze.
Wilger homes in on a pretty brunette. Looks her up and down. Smiles. Tells her that she should stop by the Elite office. Next week. Who knows?
“She’s really pretty, but I was worried about her legs,” Wilger murmurs as the young woman walks away. “They looked a little thick.”
So just what constitutes a superstar?
Beauty. Charisma. But mostly it’s indefinable. Wilger says, “When we see the girl, we know she’s right. But we’re not perfect. We can make a mistake. We can say `no’ to one girl and she could become a star.”
Oh? Has that ever happened to her?
“Never.”
– – –
Eeshell Bristow, sporting a blond ponytail and a what-the-hell attitude, waits patiently in line, clutching her application form in one hand, her purse in another.
Ever since she was a little girl, Bristow says, she toyed with the idea of being a model. She and her best buddy would do their hair and makeup and strut around the house, putting on an impromptu fashion show for the folks.
“My mom always said that I’d be good at it because I’m tall and thin,” Bristow says, laughing ruefully.
The folks at Elite didn’t agree with her mother. One Elite gatekeeper looked at her curvy figure, and tactfully asked her what size she was.
Which meant . . .
“That I’m not right,” Bristow says, cracking up. “They’re looking for a specific person, and I’m not it. I knew I wasn’t gonna be, so it’s not a big disappointment. Look at all these other girls. They’re young. They’re pretty. They’re sticks.”
– – –
Hairstylists, makeup artists and wardrobe stylists fuss over the candidates’ maquillage, spraying their hair and quizzing them on their wardrobe changes. But mostly, they reassure: “You all look beautiful.”
In one corner, two pretty teenagers practice their moves, temporarily shedding their girlish gawkiness as they imitate the single-monikered goddesses–Naomi, Cindy, Linda, Tyra, Claudia–that have gone before them: Strut, 2, 3, 4. Stop. Turn. Hip. Stop. Look. Throw “shade.” (Translation: show attitude.) Snap head. Strut, 2, 3, 4.
The 13-year-old stands apart from the others, ambition and longing stamped across her pretty face. She doesn’t speak or smile. Instead, she walks in slow motion, occasionally checking her reflection in a little compact mirror. When she spots a photographer, she hovers near him, waiting expectantly.
Two weeks ago, her hair was pink. Today, it’s a golden blond shade.
She doesn’t mind the makeover. In fact, ever since the 8th grader was picked out at Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee, her life has changed pretty dramatically.
She has moved in with her aunt, who is a beautician. Her mother, she says, “doesn’t really get along with other people”–a hindrance, she believes, when she needs an escort to take her to modeling jobs.
Having an aunt who is a beautician is a boon in this business, she says: She gets free leg waxes. Not to mention free advice.
“She tells me that I have to do what people say and have a good attitude,” the girl says. “She says my attitude will be my downfall.”
– – –
Off to one side, a mother, still cultivating her own faded beauty, stands next to her 15-year-old daughter, whose loveliness is in full bloom. The girl’s brow is furrowed. She is polite. She is soft-spoken. But she does have some questions for Wilger. Namely, just what’s going on here?
“We don’t feel you’re ready for the competition tonight,” Wilger tells the woman’s daughter gently. “You’re a darling girl. Darling. Beautiful. But the girls we’re looking for now are more exotic. Original. I recommend that you go for commercials, rather than magazines.”
The mother and daughter leave, and Wilger slumps.
“I’m exhausted,” she says.
Karen Lee, Elite’s national scout, says that to constantly deliver disappointing news takes its toll. “We see girls in tears, and, believe it or not, it gets to all of us,” she says. “We’re here to help their careers. But we have to look at reality. The girls need to realize this is a business. And even working models deal with rejection every day.”
By the end of the evening, the girls are bathing in rejection. When the judges at last announce their winners, there are only four–all wholesome blonds who look as if they’ve just sprung from the same mold.
None of the girls from the open call is among them.
– – –
They’ve driven a long way to be here–420 miles–from Masury, Ohio. They came two days early, long enough for them to stock up on some White Sox souvenirs and settle into the city.
David and Lisa Dias are small-town folks, so this is all new to them. But their 12-year-old daughter has a jones for this modeling thing, so they’re here.
“She’s been to school for it,” David says of his daughter’s fascination with the beauty biz. “She did the runway back home, and they picked her.”
“I just worry that she’s too young,” Lisa adds. “But it’s what she wants to do and we’ll back her all the way. We’re learning as we go.”
“She’s very photogenic,” David boasts.
And if she doesn’t make it?
“There’s always next year.”
