WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2 2 , 2 0 0 8 PAGE 1 3 Backstage,it’s down to bare essentials For a fashion writer the atmosphere at fashion shows is weirdly unerotic — which is a surprise, given that the rooms backstage are full of beautiful unclad men and women BY GUY TREBAY NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK see naked people. This is not while silhouetted behind a theatrical scrim. big success stories of the season, and who because I have the uncanny Nowadays, they would be lucky not to be recently turned 16. powers of Haley Joel Osment or asked to appear stark naked, as one model “It is an issue,” Kloss said, as she waited because I own X-Ray Specs. It is was in the designer Hussein Chalayan’s before a show in Paris for her turn with hair because looking at naked people is spring 2007 show. and makeup. “People respect that you want part of my job. Twice a year for a “What I hope for backstage is that and need some privacy,” she added, or most month or so I find myself spending everybody that’s there at that moment is do, anyway. a great deal of time backstage serious and professional, and there for the “One time, I was with Vlada,” Kloss at fashion shows. And few other settings clothes and not to be disrespectful and take a said, referring to the Russian model Vlada Icome to mind in which observing or standing picture of a naked girl,” Zimmerman said. Roslyakova, and “a photographer took alongside or quizzing people who are wearing This seemed a lot to ask for, given that a picture of her topless and then left.” next to nothing is an occupational … well, the backstage area at Chloe, a tent set up Roslyakova leapt from her chair, chased the hazard is not the word. in the Tuileries, was a typically elongated woman into the street and tussled with her That these people happen to be among rectangle lined on two sides with tables until she deleted the shot. the world’s most beautiful does little to and mirrors and chairs and stools and as Still, it’s going to happen, Kloss added; diminish the surreal dimension of the crowded as a clown car. even in these early days in the business, she circumstances. Consider what it is like to said: “I’m numb to the nudity. It’s just part of take notes as Gisele Bundchen holds forth the job.” while dressed in nothing but a G-string and As Kloss said that, as if on cue, the Polish you will get the idea. Picture interviewing model Magdalena Frackowiak wandered into Chad White — a model from whose torso view in a G-string and with her arms modestly statues could be cast — as a makeup artist wrapped around her bare torso. “I was raised strokes bronzing gel on his thighs, and the as a small kid in the theater,” explained odd dimensions of the task become clear. Frackowiak, who just turned 24. “So, for What is strangest, perhaps, about this me, doing modeling is a little bit like being particular form of employment — for which in a play. And being backstage is like every there is no comprehensive job description — backstage, where you’re changing costumes is that being around rooms filled with unclad and you have to be nude and so what?” women and men is anything but stimulating. What is the point of being prudish, as the At least this is true for people in the fashion model Chad White once told me before a business, who are either puritanically Duckie Brown show. At the time, White was decorous about nudity or so involved with barefoot and wearing a postage stamp bikini. clothes that often they can barely see the When asked whether it wasn’t embarrassing naked limbs for all the glorious weeds. And to parade nearly buck naked in front of so it is true for me. many strangers, he laughed. “You should see It is not as though one is unaware that what they put me in on the runway at Dolce wandering backstage at a Victoria’s Secret & Gabbana,” White said. “Compared to that, fashion show is a died-and-gone-to-heaven right now I’m wearing a lot.” dream for some people, or anyway, most Maxim readers. And it was plenty exciting when once, in a backstage scrum, Helena Christensen brushed against me with her There were makeup teams and breast. Still it must be said that, as in pro-sports hairdressing teams and manicurists and locker rooms and on pornographic-movie sets, pedicurists. There were house photographers after a while you stop being shocked. assigned to capture the atmosphere, fashion “It’s all context,” said Tim Blanks, a photographers assigned to capture the contributing editor for Style.com and clothes for Vogue, beauty photographers Men.Style.com, who over two decades of who sell their images to the wire services. backstage reporting has watched generations There were public relations people wearing of models stripping down to their skivvies. earpieces and black suits. There were “When you see some doll walking down the the security men known informally as les catwalk in some sheer thing or nearly naked, cravates rouges for their red ties. it’s fashion,” Blanks remarked in Paris earlier There were modeling agents and bookers this month. “If you saw that same girl pole and boyfriends and hangers-on and minders. dancing in a club, it would be hot.’ There were the models themselves, of It is certainly true that the atmosphere course, and it is probably worth pointing at most fashion shows is weirdly unerotic. out that every person in that room had some It may seem strange to say so, but even in kind of camera. a season like the one just ended — during Undoubtedly this is why so many pictures which designers offered sheer blouses, of unclothed models turn up on the Internet peekaboo skirts, dropped crotches and and also FTV, the French fashion channel bared breasts — sensuality seemed far from whose video feeds the Indian government central. The parts that were revealed seemed banned this year for what it called no sexier than the parts that remained “unsuitable” content. covered. Nakedness was less provocation “It’s completely inappropriate” to capture than another design tool. pictures of models while they are changing And backstage at the shows the in or out of their clothes, said Robert Fairer, atmosphere is always so frenetic and who has photographed fashion backstage focused, the deadlines so tight, the volume for Vogue for over a decade. But it happens. of tasks to complete so improbable within “Backstage areas are not hermetically the time allowed that Eros is the last thing sealed,” Fairer said. on anybody’s mind. They are imperfectly secured by the red “We’re here for the clothes, and so there’s ties in France and the house bouncers in nothing erotic about it,” the model Raquel Milan and the black suits hired to police the Zimmerman said before the Chloe show Bryant Park tents. They are also policed in in Paris. “If you think about it, in Europe an informal way by those in the business, everyone goes topless on the beach and it’s who tend to be vigilant when it comes to the Top left and right: Models on the catwalk for the not a big deal,” she added, noting that the models, especially “the girls.” Marlies Dekkers lingerie S�����pring Summ��er 2009 naked pictures that surfaced from Carla “And they are girls,” said Brana Wolf, ready-to-wear collection �����������presented during���� Paris���� Bruni’s modeling days did not exactly hinder the fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar and Fashion Week. her transition to first lady of France. a seasoned stylist who has been known to Center: A model wears shoes by Chinese fashion Things weren’t always so relaxed, of chew out photographers caught snapping designer Frankie Xie during the presentation course. Anyone who remembers Unzipped, topless shots at shows she styles. “I go after of his Spring Summer 2009 ready-to-wear Douglas Keeve’s 1995 documentary about them if I catch them taking pictures they collection for Jefen������ during P������������������aris Fashion Week. Isaac Mizrahi, will recall the lobbying shouldn’t,” said Wolf, referring particularly Above: Models present creations by Maison required to persuade people like Naomi to photographs of the teenage Lolitas Martin Margiela as part of its Spring Summer Campbell and Cindy Crawford to change currently much in favor — girls like Karlie 2009 ready-to-wear���������������������������� collection for P������������aris Fashion clothes in front of a fashion show audience, Kloss, a St Louis native who is one of the Week. PHOTOS: EPA.