Supermodel Forever - Анна Бондарева

Supermodel Forever

Anna Bondareva

© Anna Bondareva, 2020

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

In the dangerous whirlwind of events where one has to constantly adapt to new sceneries, behind the veil of glamour and dreamy bohemian setups, hides a harsh reality  the glittery world is full of cunning mazes.

This sensational book sheds light, for the first time, on the most secret facets of the worlds finest profession, that of the fashion model.

Its not only a memoir, but the frank confession of an incredibly brave woman. In order to survive in an eccentric scene where all the actors change rapidly, this brave woman made herself. She created her own universe. She won the right to always remain natural, desired, feminine, and talented and became her real self.

Chapter 1. Early Bird

I came to get my classmate at the entrance of the auditorium, where her classes were held, and then we went to the opera. I was attending music school, and Modest Mussorgskys opera Boris Godunov was on the program. My classmate said that she had enrolled in paid modeling classes offered at the National Fashion Center of the famous Tamara Agency. I loved looking at magazines and watching fashion shows. I was hip, but I had never really thought about a modeling career.

Miss, how old are you? Are you at least fourteen or fifteen years old?

The velvety voice of Tamara Viktorovna had a magical effect. A few minutes later, I was leaving my phone number for the director of the agency, Gontcharova. The director called me the next day and offered me a free professional modeling course. To become a real swan and spread my wings, I would learn how to hold the correct posture, walk gracefully on heels, and apply all the subtleties of makeup.

The beauties standing on the podium were very prestigious and tall. They seemed like real goddesses. My size was considered average, one meter seventy-five.

Your growth is not over, said Natalia, the choreographer. You have to install a pull bar in your apartment and hang on it to lengthen your spine! she said.

I installed a pull bar in the apartment, and sometimes I worked there at night, without really believing I would be successful in the business. But after the first official and fruitful photo shoot for the fall collection of a local fashion house, I was chosen as a model among confirmed models for the main fashion shows. The girls were all very different, and our interests rarely converged. My punk rock period was over, the music had changed, and our outings to underground dance parties with friends became regular.

The first person who noticed my potential for a modeling career was the beautiful Italian, Tony. A year earlier, we had been sent by a Christian Organization, like child victims of the Chernobyl disaster, to Italy for the Christmas holidays, and we had gone with our schoolmates to an incredible event organized by Catholic Charity Funds.

Anna is a model, Anna is a true model said Tony to the guests of her pizzeria, run by a big family north of the Adriatic coastal town.

At our special English school, I had a friend named Ilya, a big fan of the British band, The Cure, Ilya asked us to call him Robert, because it was the name of the bands soloist. Ilya told me that if I were black, I would look like Naomi Campbell. During our walks and phone conversations, he used to sing to me the Kraftwerk song from their 1978 album The Man-Machine:

Chapter 2. Japanese Gambit

Yoyogi Park is a large park near the Meiji Shrine. The subway station adjacent to the park was the closest to the apartment where I was staying, by the contract with the agency. I had come from Paris to Tokyo for six weeks. My driver was called Hiro, and we started each morning with a ritual of listening to the song Dont stop me now by the group Queen.

Without this divine music, I cannot run the engine of this guy, joked the driver-manager caressing the wheel of his minibus.

Hiros job was not just to bring the girls to the rendezvous, but also to present each model during the casting, to tell the client about her latest achievements, and to describe in a few words the nature of her character and her closest modeling plans.

There were hardly any days of rest. Days without filming were full of castings, and weekends were devoted to photo shoots. Up to three shoots could take place in one day: the first from six in the morning to eleven oclock, the second at noon, and then an evening shoot. It was our youth that saved us. Its no secret that Japanese brands and magazines preferred very young doll-like girls with marble skin. Any tan was formally forbidden, and there was a separate paragraph in the contract on this subject. One girl was sent back to Canada and was forced to pay a fine after tanning on the beach one weekend.

The Japanese lexicon does not contain abrupt expressions. Customers and photographers called the models they liked my sweet girl,my pretty lady, and kawaii. The Japanese language is designed in such a way that there are practically no curses in it. They were always flattering and difficult to refuse. Just answering no was a problem. It was this circumstance that turned one of my incidents into an unexpected urban adventure. Usually, we were brought by the agencys minibus to the castings, but for the morning shoots, we had to take the tube. This was the era before mobile phones or GPS, so all we had to go by was a map, drawn either by the manager or the client, and after getting out the subway, the only directions were the big billboards where the station names were written in the Latin alphabet. For example, one of our drawn maps might say, Go on foot to Honda, then to the left of Motorola.

One morning in May, I was rushing to arrive on time for my client, but when I got out of the subway, I found myself in a labyrinth of nameless streets, each one just like the other, trying in vain to find at least one passerby who could point me in the right direction. But each one I asked, looking at my map and address, sent me in the opposite direction of the previous one. After an hour and a half in this maze, with no place from which I could make a phone call, my rescuer finally appeared.

Hai, hai! he said.

A little Asian man in an elegant suit with a metallic briefcase in his hands made an affirmative gesture with his right hand without looking up. He walked in front of me and looked back every ten seconds to see if I was following him. I do not know why, but I trusted him and followed the stranger in silence. We walked on like that, for about twenty minutes, winding the labyrinths of the busy Roppongi district, until the man stopped in front of a small two-story house.

Hai! he said again.

This part of my story was really inexplicable, and it ended very unexpectedly. It was a sort of initiation. Subsequently, I never had any orientation problem in the cosmopolitan megalopolis, and by the end of my stay in Tokyo, I could even speak a little Japanese with taxi drivers. The stranger in the elegant suit took a pair of traditional Japanese knives out of his slim briefcase and, by kneeling like a knight, offered me the relic as a gift, then disappeared immediately After a long delay, I arrived at the studio for my photo shoot, where, waiting for me was an excellent green tea, an assortment of sushi, and a Japanese shiatsu massage.

Chapter 3. Paris: First Days

Stephan was waiting for me at the Charles de Gaulle airport. It was very hot, late August day. We settled into a black convertible Mercedes. And the happy Frenchman managed to describe to me how my first days in the capital of haute couture would go. The first Parisian agency, with which I signed a contract after winning the Miss Photo title at the national competition Supermodel 1996, was called Idole. A Bulgarian, Alex, was the wife of Michel, the director of the model agency. She came to Minsk for the beauty contest and was part of the jury along with singer and songwriter Dmitry Malikov and a film director, Vladimir Yankovsky; they choose me. It had to wait until my sixteenth birthday in order to legally cross all the borders. It was the first time I had ever flown alone, and I liked it.

The agency office was located just in front of the Eiffel Tower, on the glamorous Avenue Montaigne on the right bank of the Seine.

Now, lets take the measurements, said Samantha, the director of the booking.

This procedure takes place almost every week for beginning models, and every extra millimeter is taken into account. I had always been naturally thin and never followed a diet. Calories consumed by themselves, and I even had to gain weight for certain clients, in order to keep a certain chest size.

We are going to send you tomorrow to meet Karl Lagerfeld at the Chanel fashion house; he has an office on our street! said Samantha. And now, shopping! You have to transform yourself: you must become a true Parisian, she said.

I had only about a hundred U.S. dollars in my pocket, but the agency made a commitment to pay all the costs. At accounting, I was given five hundred francs for a week. The apartment where I stayed with two other Russian models was located in the seventeenth arrondissement, and I could get to the agency by bus or the Metro. They gave me a map of the city that I had to study in detail because I sometimes had a dozen castings a day.

I was hired right away, from the first casting. At the rendezvous, the famous and futuristic Japanese designer Issey Miyake invited me to present the youth collection. Thanks to that, I could repay the agency for my air tickets and my renovated wardrobe. But expenses accumulated quickly. We had to pay the agency rent for our apartment and often photo tests with photographers. There were also phone calls, the photo prints, and the courier services to be paid. So, even though I had work, I found myself in at the end of the month. Something had to change.

In the aforementioned small agency, there were queens, that is, superior girls, and now, a young lady decided to eliminate her rival and spread rumors on her.

We met with Sylvie in casting, and she invited me to her house for lunch. As we ate, she told me about her life. She said that she had been living in Paris for five years, that she had just broken up with her boyfriend, an Italian photographer, and that she was now trying to fall in love. As we talked, Sylvie rolled a joint and offered me a puff. That evening, after returning to the agencys apartment, I found that someone had put a bag of marijuana in my bag. The next day, I was summoned to the director of the agency Michel.

Anna, how is it possible? We have a contract, and you trade drugs? said Michel, clearly angry. Sylvie told us everything! Youre in town with a bag filled with marijuana! he exclaimed. What must we do? Tomorrow, theres a special dinner being held at Andrés. Be ready, otherwise we will have a serious talk about your future in Paris. It cannot last! Do you understand? Is that clear? he finally said.

Chapter 4. Dinner at Andrés Place

It was the weekend; I did not want to go to this agency dinner. I had a strange feeling about it, but I could not cancel.

Alex called me to confirm the dinner time and to try to show me who was the boss. The famous fashion photographer André was ready to meet new models of the agency.

Anna, this photographer can change your life, as he has done for many models, she said, very seriously. André just took the shots of Karen Mulder for the covers of Vogue and ELLE and we cannot miss such a fabulous opportunity. Stephan will pick you up tomorrow at five oclock in the afternoon. Wear the clothes we bought together, please.

When I first arrived in Paris, there were only colorful rave-party clothes in my arsenal, clothes which were fashionable in the mid-nineties. My favorite clothes were exclusively blue and I dreamed of dying my hair blue which I would have done too, if I hadnt signed with the agency. But everything Alex had bought me was black: a black miniskirt, a fitted black jacket to lengthen the feminine silhouette, a tight black shirt, and black high-heeled shoes.

The dinner was held in a chic, multistory apartment with a terrace. In addition to Michel and Alex, there were two other models from the agency were there.

Hi, André! Let me introduce you to the new delivery that has just arrived, Michel said.

André tapped Michel on the shoulder and invited us in. The living room walls were full of photographers he had taken. After the main course, André approached Natalia, a blonde from Riga, and whispered something in her ear. Both climbed the glass staircase, and we all stayed downstairs drinking champagne.

Alex, what do you think they went up there for? I asked. I was interested.

Alex pretended not to have heard my question and continued his conversation with a beautiful brunette from Romania. Natalia came back downstairs. Her hair was disheveled, and there was not even a trace of her scarlet lipstick. She headed directly into the bathroom where she stayed for at least half an hour. Then André himself came down and, as if nothing had happened, finished eating the food he had left on his plate. I went out on the balcony to smoke. I wanted to go back to my apartment as soon as possible and listen to music. I had an uncomfortable feeling, and Natalias worried look spoke for itself. I knew this did not suit me, and I was ready to end my relationship with the agency if it persisted in demanding such dinners. Thats when André himself joined me on the balcony.

Natalia, is she your friend? We have a wonderful view from here, dont we? You can see and admire the Grande Arch, said André.

I did not answer and instead just lit a new cigarette. André gallantly lighted up my cigarette me and asked, Do you want me to show you my pictures upstairs? he asked.

Maybe, you want to come tomorrow to the Pin-Up studio with your friend for a photo shoot? It might be possible for you to get a test shot.

André was unpleasant. There were traces of Natalias lipstick on his neck. I gave him an icy look and went back to the living room to ask Alex to take me home. She must have sensed my determination. She did not object.

Yes, of course! Darling, you dont need to worry! Stephan will drop you off right away. Whatever you want. Its important to get some sleep well, and you have to work on Monday! Alex said.

Chapter 5. ¡No pasarán!

Miss, whats your name? I heard from a colleague that you are looking to change agencies? said Ada.

So, I met Ada. The majestic brunette with rapacious eyes approached me in the hallway of a room where dozens of beauties were queuing for a casting. Ada was the agent who represented a model from Tallinn. After the casting, we went for coffee at a nearby café, I told Ada that I was dissatisfied with the agency I was working for and I wanted to find a bigger agency.