Model-turned-actress vs. actress-turned-model

-Into the Gloss remains an infinite source of pedicured-foot-in-mouth. The latest, Erin Wasson, is no exception. There's of course the requisite: "Everything really needs to be paraben-free for me. I mean, because if I’m going to smoke cigarettes, then I need to be aware of all the other bullshit I’m putting into my body." (A little gift to the fat-acceptance, thin=/=healthy community.) And better still, re: a new-agey-sounding facialist: "It’s not about the superficial layer of your skin, it’s about all the deeper layers and what’s going on inside of you." Sounds totally holistic, and not even a little bit like vanity.

But apart from the usual 'wisdom,' there's some actual, well, wisdom. First, on the difference between acting and modeling:

“I got really lucky with modeling. The only casting I went on was with Mario Testino...and then it was kind of, you know, my whole life got flipped upside-down. But with acting now, it’s not walking into a room and being like, ‘Hey, nice to meet you.’ It’s like, you walk into a room and you put on an effing performance, and then you leave the room. In the world of modeling, you just show someone a book and you’re completely objectified from your surface. But with acting it’s like, do you have a fucking skill? Do you know what you’re doing? Did you put the work into it? Are you emotionally available? You can’t even compare the two worlds. Acting is fucking hard. Modeling is easy; you just travel a lot.

This gets at the utter weirdness of a profession existing in which people are hired specifically for their looks. But it also got me thinking of the Kaling-Dunham discussion I had with myself in the previous post. Basically, it's long been the norm (or at least quite normal) for actresses to get their start as models, child models, etc., or at the very least, to have been 'discovered' as models, choosing instead to pursue acting. They first need to prove that they are paid-for-looks-level attractive, and can then go on to portray characters. Then there's Dunham, who is currently a writer/actress and model, with everything going the reverse order. She's being paid for her image because of what it represents, i.e. a cultural product that - overhyped or not - hit a nerve. It's quite different to establish yourself and then get paid to model because your identity sells clothes, than for modeling to be the prerequisite.

Oh, and then I kind of loved this, also from Wasson:

I don’t spend money on clothes. I’m not that person. I don’t do the whole Isabel Marant thing. I love her as a person, and I think what she does is fucking amazing, but am I going to buy into a world of a French woman selling me what I grew up with? Do you know what I mean? Am I going to sign up for that? I’m sorry, but I’m not going to spend $1,200 on a Western shirt and go back to Texas and get it for five bucks.

Indeed. A friend and I spotted a t-shirt of that label going for I believe it was 90 euros, a plain white t-shirt, because people will buy absolutely whichever ordinary crap if they believe a chic Frenchwoman gave it a seal of approval.


-Kei, any other readers with Japan-thoughts, hair-thoughts: is this any good? Or the one in the red container? I was at Sunrise Mart stocking up on yuba after a great lunch at Sobaya, and got distracted in the haircare aisle. Products made for "normal" hair in the U.S. (or, worse, Europe) are all wrong for me, as are the ones made for "ethnic" hair. Maybe Japanese products are the way to go? Shiseido is generally an expensive brand here, but there appears to be this moderately-priced Japanese line...

-Are (black) tights with (black) open-toed shoes taboo? This impacts Belgian-wedding-packing, so if you have thoughts on this most urgent matter, now's the time to weigh in.