#Ophelia DeVore | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

morsking · 4 years ago

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And so we have concluded Lostbelt 2! Now that I’ve experienced it for myself, I have a much clearer picture about how I feel about this chapter. As I progressed one thing became very clear to me, and that was that Hazuki Minase likely did NOT have any influence with this chapter, and its weakest points can be attributed to its main writer, Hikaru Sakurai, once we more closely scrutinize her work.

For starters, I would like to apologize to the people who kept trying to tell me Minase had nothing to do with the writing of Losbelt 2. You were correct, I simply acted stubbornly because I was terrified that one of the writers I loathe the most had returned to haunt and corrupt the franchise I hold very dear to me. I insisted on blaming him for any flaws because he was an easy scapegoat and a bogeyman, and while we all agree he is a pervert and a hack who should be fired, it is simply not fair to point fingers at imaginary criminals. A person should always be held accountable only for the misdeeds they have actually committed. Indeed, we may now explore Lostbelt 2 and the integrity of its writing with a more objective perspective, or rather as objective as I can manage to be.

The overall theme of the Lostbelt is “acknowledging one’s emotions as a vehicle for personal growth”. The issue persistent in the setting of Lostbelt Scandinavia was that it was a place where only young humans were allowed to survive. These humans would be oblivious to what real growth and prosperity were really like. They were innocent, and emotionally and intellectually stunted groups of people who only knew to live for the truth of their eventual demise. They lived short, rushed lives where they would stay ignorant of basic human experiences, such as love, grudges, aging, vice, hate, competition, and companionship because they devoted themselves to living how Scathach-Skadi ordered them to. They were unable to think or decide what to do for themselves, and were thus incapable of not just taking the reins to decide their own evolution as we do in Proper Human History, but also of fathoming doing such a thing in the first place.

This is a mirror to Ophelia Phamrsolone. Ophelia was conditioned to only listen to others for purpose and direction. Ophelia doesn’t actually know how to listen to her own feelings or even what those feelings even are because she was never allowed to connect not just with herself but with anyone. Ophelia, like Surtr points out, is still very much a little girl terrified by everything around her because she has no balance, no capacity for finding her center as a healthy and normal human being would. Unbeknownst to herself, all her interactions with others are a plea for help. Her very first interaction with Mash in 2017 was asking her if she’d like to have lunch with her and Pepe because Ophelia is terrified by male strangers and wishes to connect with other women as well. Ophelia’s conversations with Kirschtaria are also her not knowing how to proceed with challenges and therefore appealing to authority both for comfort and advice. Finally, her monologues with the Alien Priestess are Ophelia venting about how she feels, as if she were unaware of what to really think of herself as her helplessness and indecision drown her in a lake of self-loathing.

These cries for help extend to the way she summons her Servants. Ophelia is noted to be incredibly proficient at evocation. Some might even call her a genius. In fact, she is such a genius she unknowingly managed to contract not just with one, nor two, but three different Servants all at once. The first Servant to answer her summon was Sigurd, the King of Warriors from Nordic mythology. The second Servant was Surtr the King of Giants and Scourge of Ragnarok (titled by yours truly), who hijacked the summoning and took over Sigurd. The third, and most pivotal, was Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Emperor whose Spirit Origin was modified to embody the “ideal Good Fellow who could make dreams come true” rather than the actual historical Napoleon.

What these three Servants have in common is that Ophelia wished for all of them from the darkest depths of her heart. Ophelia desired capable Servants who could give her some form of direction and stability.

Sigurd, for example, is a hero renown for rescuing Brynhild and giving brand new meaning to her life by showering her with love and devotion. Love and devotion are things that Ophelia not just desires to be shown but actively struggles to adequately express to others because she has never known what it’s like to experience those things. To Ophelia, Sigurd represents “being given that which you have never known and finding fulfillment”.

Surtr, on the other hand, embodies a darker type of direction: the terror stagnation, conformity, monotony, inaction, and eternal suffering. Surtr exercises control over Ophelia by threatening to destroy the world if he is released, prompting Ophelia to flash to her childhood locked away by her abusive parents every dreaded Sunday. Surtr locks Ophelia into a state of helplessness and indecision where she has to carefully consider how she will proceed with dealing with Surtr. Ophelia has decided to lock herself in with him as a way to prevent him from breaking out of both Sigurd’s body and the physical prison inside the Lostbelt’s sun. This is a situation where Ophelia is in a constant state of stress and fear, since as a Crypter the last thing she could ever want to see is the destruction of yet another world by her hands. More personally, the death of the Lostbelt would also mean death for Ophelia, as she has failed her purpose once again and thus would have no worth as a person. However, what Ophelia cannot understand, because Surtr himself does not, is that Surtr’s destructive impulses are how he wants to show love and devotion towards her. Surtr has reasoned that since their worlds abandoned them after they failed to perform their ordained tasks, the only thing left is to annihilate them completely as retribution for their suffering. Surtr does not wish to hurt Ophelia, but because he is a being defined only by his overwhelming desire to burn everything, he cannot help her heal or grow in any way that matters. All he can offer is annihilation. To Ophelia, Surtr represents “self-destruction through a static state of being”.

Finally, there is Napoleon. Napoleon represents a pronounced antithesis to Ophelia’s entire personality. He is an upbeat, improvising, confident man who chooses to not stress over things because what he is seeing is only what lies ahead, not what lies in front of him.He also breaks her defenses by asking something so ridiculous and unexpected as her hand in marriage when they have only just met. Napoleon refuses to give in to any negative outcome regardless of how much the odds are stacked against him, as he demonstrated in Scathach-Skadi’s throne room where he refused to let Sigurd kill his Master despite being restrained by Skadi’s paralyzing rune. He demonstrates this once again when he blows his final shot at Surtr during the final battle, sacrificing his own life to give Chaldea the opportunity to regroup and bombard Surtr to bring him down. He is called the Man of Infinite Possibilities precisely because he faces the unknown head on and finds the best path to walk for his comrades to advance. He does not let fear take over his heart and judgement, he creates a rainbow as a bridge connecting the present to the bright, shining future. He is precisely the hero Ophelia needs, because he embodies “the bravery to grasp your own future and find your own direction”.

But analyzing these characters further is a post for another time. What I want to get into are the gripes I have with this Lostbelt.

Now, I could lead you on through a couple more paragraphs before I wham you with what this all means in a much higher metatextual level, but I don’t have the time nor the creativity to do that so I’m just gonna give it to you straight. This square between Ophelia, Sigurd, Surtr, and Napoleon is the storyline that matters most in Lostbelt 2. Scathach-Skadi matters little despite her own parallels with Ophelia and being the Lostbelt King, and the situation with the Lostbelt’s inhabitants matters even less. Why?

Because Lostbelt 2 is Sakurai coming full circle and writing an otome game like Fate/Prototype was meant to be before Fate/stay night became a thing.

SHOCKER!! SOUND EFFECTS OF SURPRISE!! DRAMATIC KAZOOS GALORE!!

Now, that’s exaggerating a little. Or maybe not that much, actually.

What Sakurai was doing was applying conventional otome game tropes into the setting not just what she’s familiar writing for, but because Lostbelt 2 is inherently an incredibly self-indulgent project.

There is a classic trademark otome fantasy at play here: the fantasy of multiple men being devoted to a female main character a player can relate to. There is no denying there is a certain appeal to the idea that there are several handsome men all willing to devore their entire lives to a person. Sigurd, Surtr, and Napoleon all embody certain otome game love interest archetypes. Sigurd is the cold, composed, intellectual man who is actually earnest, just, affectionate, and wise. Surtr is the dark-hearted troubled man with fiery disposition struggling with expressing love. Napoleon is the strong, confident, borderline pixie manic dream boy with almost zero brains but plenty of empathy and... *ahem*, physique to make up for his seeming lack of tact and intelligence (he’s a himbo is what I’m saying but that comes as no surprise). The problems arise with Napoleon himself, however. Napoleon hounds Ophelia with marriage proposals she refuses time and time and again. When he proposes to her in front of Chaldea for the first time, the narrative has Mash take Napoleon’s side and urges you to do the same because Sakurai believed the reader would’ve caught on to what’s actually going on between Ophelia and Napoleon.

The issue here is that Sakurai’s clues up to that point had been far too hidden for the player to make a proper connection, and it’s not until AFTER the proposal that the player discovers Napoleon is predisposed to fall in love with whoever summons him because that’s what Ophelia wanted out of an ideal Servant. Because of the poor execution in presenting all these factors that completely recontextualize the relationship between Napoleon and Ophelia, when Sakurai has Napoleon say “You did not reject me therefore you DID agree,” we jump to the conclusion that Napoleon is engaging in extremely reprehensible behavior and ideology reminiscent of dangerous and abusive men IRL rather than take it as harmless flirtation from a well-meaning oaf of a man as he tries to break the shell of his beloved. Sakurai invokes a very dangerous trope that does more to excuse misogynistic behavior when done incorrectly rather than successfully appear as a romantic gesture of attempting to liberate a loved one from the clutches of isolation and victimhood.

On a larger scale, the application of these tropes is where Lostbelt 2 starts to suffer, and that’s where Sakurai’s writing further begins to resemble Minase’s. Sakurai spent so much time building these interpersonal dynamics that she spent the least amount of effort actually building upon the situation of the Lostbelt and Scathach-Skadi’s character and motivations for keeping the Scandinavia the way it is.

Upon scrutiny, it’s not very difficult to pick apart the setting and make a mark out of the glaring logistical inconsistencies of maintaining a population of only 10,000 humans for a span of 3,000 years by having them reproduce at 15 years old at the latest to execute them at 25. Anyone with a passing understanding of biology would know that forcing children to carry babies to term can lead to terrible health and psychological complications that would certainly end up in a lot more miscarriages, stillbirths, and failed attempts at impregnation than actual successful births. The problem here then is rather evident. Sakurai wanted to use the fact that all these children are young, innocent, naive, gullible, and ignorant to draw a connection to Ophelia’s own psychological and emotional circumstance. However, she realized that because she was writing a setting that obligated her to work around a 3000-year gap between Ragnarok and the present day. She needed something that would compromise the need for a realistic system that would ensure the reproductive viability of a human population through such a long period of time and the thematic vehicle of childhood and repression of growth as a way to connect Ophelia to her environment. This compromise ended up working for the absolute worse because she chose the worst possible system she was aware was the worst possible system she could’ve come up with and therefore decided to forsake that part of the plot without going through the implications of it and leaving the specifics to the reader’s imagination so they could sort it out in her stead.

This unwillingness to properly explore the problematic implications of Scathach-Skadi’s system not only deprived the player of a possible engaging storyline where child endangerment, a common theme in the Nasuverse, is explored and criticized through a different angle, but also actively hurts Scathach-Skadi’s connection to the player because we never get the opportunity to debate with her about her ideology and the state of the Lostbelt. We never hold her accountable for enforcing such a brutally predatory and dehumanizing system that targets children, instead Sakurai opts to build her up as a flawed, self-absorbed mother figure desperately trying to combat the extinction of the remnant of her world who also never really learned how to deal with the revelation there is an entire life she did not get to have in this universe that we MUST sympathize because she occasionally sees through the characters and acts kind towards them until the time comes for us to fight her in earnest as a matter of principle completely divorced from the question of how she’s managed her Lostbelt. The fact Scathach-Skadi’s model of sustainability does not work is made obvious by the fact it takes place in a Lostbelt, what we are trying to get at here is that it does not work from a writing standpoint because of all the different holes you can poke on it before you’ve punched through the paper screen entirely and revealed the superfluousness of it all.

There is nothing inherently bad about self-indulgent storylines. If I’m being honest, if Sakurai wanted to use Ophelia and Musashi as self-inserts to fantasize about romancing the different kinds of characters she finds attractive, more power to her. But the problem surrounding Lostbelt 2, which is the same problem that plagued Septem and Fate/Extella, is a veritable lack of restraint from her part as a professional writer in charge of a multi-billion dollar mobile game. What the writing room over at Type-Moon has to realize is that they are no longer a small doujin writing circle that can get away with whatever they want because they operate under obscurity. They are visible to the entire world and will be held accountable and criticized as professionals by consumers and their peers in the industry. A little bit of self-fulfillment in a published work never hurt anyone, you can cater to yourself most of all with your professional work (I mean, just look at She-Ra), but you must be sure that in your pursuit of indulgence your work does not suffer for it and ends up alienating and disappointing your fanbase and giving them the wrong impression of what you stand for.

Anyway we’re popping the biggest bottles when GudaMoth becomes canon this December.

#fate series #fate grand order #fgo #fate/grand order #fate go #homecooked meta #WOW THIS WAS LONG #for some reason sakurai ends up bringing the best in me even at her worst #IF I MISSED SOME THINGS IT'S WHATEVER IT'S 4:20 AM

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peithoaphro · 4 years ago

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OPHELIA (o-feel-li-a) - greek | help | female

the name was made famous in the hamlet and uncle tom’s cabin. gained modern popularity from the lumineers song ‘ophelia’ notable people with this name include: ophelia benson, ophelia devore and ophelia lovibond

#ophelia #baby name ideas #baby names #baby girl names #names #names and meaning #aesthetic names #names aesthetics #my list of names #my name list #peithoaphro

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themortallivinggod · 7 years ago

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HELEN WILLIAMS WAS THE FIRST female African American fashion model to break into the mainstream. But it was the French, rather than the Americans, that embraced her. BEAUTY PIONEER: Black beauty Helen Williams was the first African American fashion model to cross over into the mainstream, rising to fame in Paris and New York in late 1950s and early 1960s. She is one of many African American fashion models featured in Ben Arogundade's book, 'Black Beauty'. THERE WERE OTHERS before her, but none that crossed over into the mainstream. In 1950s America Helen Williams became the first black female fashion model to do just that. Born in East Riverton, New Jersey in 1937, she was obsessed with clothes from an early age, and began sewing her own garments at the age of seven. As a teenager she studied dance, drama and art before getting a job as a stylist at a New York photography studio. While there she was spotted on separate occasions by Lena Horne and Sammy Davis Jr, who happened to be in the studio doing press shots. Struck by her beauty, they urged her to take up fashion modelling. She was 17. TOO BLACK FOR FASHION With her trademark bouffant wig, sculpted eyebrows and long, giraffe-like neck, Williams worked exclusively for African American magazines such as Ebony and Jet. These early years were tough, as not only did beauty’s apartheid system exclude all non-white models from mainstream fashion, but within the African American modelling scene itself, the girls were required to be light-skinned, just like the African American chorus girls of the 1920s. “I was too dark to be accepted,” Williams recalled. PERFECT IN PARIS But that was America. The French, by contrast, held a very different view of black beauty, and by 1960 Williams had moved to Paris. “Over there I was ‘La Belle Americaine,’” she said proudly. She modelled in the famous ateliers of fashion designers Christian Dior and Jean Dessès. By the end of her tenure she was making a staggering $7,500 a year working part-time, and had received three marriage proposals from her French admirers, one of whom kissed her feet and murmured, “I worship the ground you walk on, mademoiselle.” BLACK MODEL BEHAVIOUR After Paris, Williams returned to America, where things had not changed for dark-skinned African American models. While searching for a new agent in New York City, she once waited two hours in the reception of one agency, only to be told that they had “one black model already, thanks.” But Williams never-say-die attitude meant that she would not take no for an answer. “I was pushy and positive,” she said. Undeterred at being rejected, the young beauty took her case to the press. Influential white journalists Dorothy Kilgallen and Earl Wilson took up her cause, drawing attention to beauty’s continuing exclusion of black fashion models. This opened things up for Williams, who was then booked for a flurry of ads for brands such as Budweiser, Loom Togs and Modess, which crossed over for the first time into the mainstream press, in titles such as The New York Times, Life and Redbook. By 1961 her hourly rate had shot up to $100 an hour. Fashion’s lily-white borders had finally been breached. HELEN WILLIAMS BREAKS FASHION BARRIER It was a pivotal moment in black beauty history, as Williams’s success broke the tradition for only using light-skinned models. “Elitists in our group would laugh at somebody if they were totally black,” said model-turned-agent Ophelia DeVore. “And when she [Williams] came along she was very self-conscious because she was dark. She gave people who were black the opportunity to know that if they applied themselves they could reach certain goals.” Williams was the first beauty to break the four hundred year chain that had branded dark skin as ugly. The same dark skin that was rendered second-class during slavery, that the minstrels once ridiculed, and that had relegated Hollywood’s actors to roles as servants and clowns, was suddenly beautiful. Helen Williams was amongst the first African American fashion models to feature in specialist print advertising for cigarettes, alcohol and cosmetics, aimed at America's emerging black middle class.

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jornaloficial-blog · 7 years ago

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Vocês realmente pensaram que eu nada comentaria a respeito das fantasias?

É claro que eu não faria isso com vocês! Como não quero decepcioná-los, resolvi escrever algo exclusivo para as fantasias e comentarei uma por uma. Então se você quer saber como os convidados estavam, não deixe de ler esta matéria!

Começando pelo básico: Princesas! Sim, sim, eu sei que o Baile estava repleto delas, haviam vinte e duas. Mas eu estava me referindo à fantasia, seus bobinhos. Davina estava encantadora com seu vestido azul, representando a Sleeping Beauty. Não havia nada de Dark, mas estava linda. Seguindo esse conto... Dominic estava de Diaval – sabem aquele corvo que trabalha para a Maleficent? Pois é, ele – e Alicia estava como a própria Maleficent!

Rosemery estava de Cinderella – será que ela perdeu algum sapatinho por aí? – e Ravenna foi a Snow White. Achei bem digna a escolha da nossa herdeira e realmente combinou.

Ayoola decidiu seguir um conto – que acredito ser africano – sobre uma Princesa que colocou fogo no mar. Não consigo imaginar isso fora a cena da batalha com o fogo vivo em um certo seriado. Elena Vega estava de Evil Queen e será que a Princesa teria o temperamento da Rainha? Se for, cuidado Ryan!

O Príncipe Andrej estava como o Príncipe Adam, ou como nós conhecemos: Beast! Faltou a penas a Bella para lhe fazer companhia. Embora Caroline tenha feito isso muitíssimo bem vestida de fada. Realmente irei comprar umas asas para tentar conquistar esse herdeiro.

Ophelia estava de Snow Queen do Baile; Katerina foi a Queen of Hearts com direito a ameaças de cortar cabeças e tudo; Margarida foi de Alice e eu queria ter visto um momento entre essas duas. Alice e Queen of Hearts? Interessante. Elas não foram as únicas a representar o mesmo conto. Tamlin estava de Captain Hook e Dimitri de Peter Pan. Será que algum dos dois estaria disposto a me levar para Neverland? Para completar, nossa amada Rebekah estava de Wendy. Fofíssima! Será que ela e o seu tutor combinaram as fantasias? Uh lálá!

Adalizia, Samantha e Kylie estavam de Mermaid. Adorei os vestidos, a maquiagem e o detalhe nas unhas. Vocês repararam que elas fizeram as unhas parecerem escamas? Arrasaram! Será que isso vai virar uma tendência? Eu usaria sem problema algum.

Felicy foi como a Megara. Sabem a mocinha – que foi um pouco vilã – do Hércules? Aquela mesma, que trabalhou para o Hades. Luna estava de Esmeralda – a linda mulher do Corcunda de Notredame. Hector estava de Rumpelstiltskin. Será que ele quer fazer algum acordo com alguém? Quem sabe para escapar do casamento... Sim, querido, eu vi a falta de chama entre você e sua noiva. Sorry not sorry.

Um conto pouco conhecido é o de Giselle’s Ghost e foi muito bem representado por Anastasia. Penso que ela nem deve ter precisado muito de fantasia. Repararam no quão branca a Princesa é? Achille era o Doctor Facilier, o feiticeiro da Princesa e o Sapo. Angelic foi de Fallen Angel e já comentei a respeito dela em minha última matéria.

Bellatrix e Davina – a ruiva – estavam de Little Red Hood! E sabem quem estava de Big Bad Wolf? Roan! Será que o nosso Príncipe devorou algumas das duas? Ou alguma outra jovem indefesa por aí. Se não, estou aqui, ok? Pode vir me devorar! E já que falei dele, não poderia deixar de falar de sua outra metade: Ryan. O Príncipe mais fofo que já tivemos o prazer de conhecer foi de Puss in Boots. Nada poderia representa-lo mais. Gato gato gato!

Rhonda querida, já disse como está deslumbrante hoje? Enfim, vou me apresentar. Sou Jack e sou o novo - par romântico - colega de trabalho da Rhonda. Minha presença se faz necessária no jornal porque o mundo é colorido demais quando uma mulher toma conta sozinha. Agora que me apresentei, aviso que não sou de medir as palavras e para comprovar, fiquei com a missão de comentar as fantasias que Rhonda não entendeu o motivo de estarem em um baile nomeado Dark Fairy Tale. Rhonda meu amor, não há o que entender. Wonder Woman resolveu sair da Liga da Justiça e encarar os Contos de Fadas? Estaria o Superman não dando conta do recado? Hmmm... Bom, a fantasia estava perfeita e eu poderia me afundar entre aquelas coxas maravilhosas, mas não é um Conto de Fadas, meus amigos. E a Gata Negra??? Acabei de chegar de viagem e fiquei pensando se eu tinha confundido a festa e na verdade era Halloween. Hawaí me fez perder a noção de tempo? E é claro que não podia faltar um vampiro, não é mesmo? Um clássico, todas as mulheres querem doar seu sangue e sentir aquelas presas cravando em seus pescoços e confesso que eu queria ter ido de Drácula, mas em qual Fairytale há vampiros? Por favor, não mencionem nada parecido com aqueles vampiros que brilham no sol. Poupem meus ouvidos. E por mais que eu tenha adorado a fantasia - leia-se decote, Black Swan também não se encaixou bem no tema do baile, mas só para registro a mulher que usou essa fantasia se encaixaria perfeitamente em minha cama.

Agora vamos para a votação da melhor fantasia do baile. Se vocês se perguntaram “Qual votação, Jack? Bebeu mais que o normal?” Sim, eu sempre bebo mais que o normal, mas vocês são péssimas pessoas se não lembram porque a Rhonda gritou para os quatro ventos sobre isso - sabem como mulheres se excedem - e, se vocês não votaram, perderam a oportunidade. Houve um empate muito justo para o título de vencedor e nosso príncipe Ryan (seria marmelada?) e a selecionada Ayoola ganharam. De qualquer forma eu os congratulo! Ryan foi esperto em escolher uma fantasia que amolecesse o caração das mulheres (eu ainda acho que ele é lobo em pele de cordeiro) e a princesa das Ilhas Maurício estava deslumbrante. O vestido dela me lembrou o vestido daquela personagem de uma trilogia de filmes onde as pessoas são feitos de tributos para se matarem em um jogo muito louco.

Para finalizar, digo-lhes que festas a fantasia sempre nos deixam empolgados e este baile nos encheu com boas ideias que retrataram o lado sombrio dos bons e velhos contos de fadas. Só uma pequena dica para os próximos eventos: leiam o convite com atenção para não aparecerem de abóboras quando deviam estar vestidos de coelhinhas. Aliás, os homens podem vestir de abóbora sempre.

#we know you love us #rhonda #jack #rhonda&jack #xoxo #jo:gossip #jonoticias

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modelocity-online · 6 years ago

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Today we honor & celebrate one of my legendary dear old friends, OPHELIA DEVORE, owner & founder of the GRACE DEL MARCO Agency in NYC! Her groundbreaking charm school & modeling agency have prepared a myriad of African American & Latino young men & women into professionals with long lasting multimedia careers like DIAHANN CARROLL, CICELY TYSON & RICHARD ROUNDTREE just to name a few! https://youtu.be/ai8p_shw7zw TODAY ON "THE VIEW" Ophelia DeVore held a savvy attractiveness - African American Registry https://aaregistry.org/story/ophelia-devore-held-a-savvy-attractiveness/ Ophelia DeVore's Biography https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/ophelia-devore-41 https://youtu.be/PpF3wHcUdp0 A MODELING CAREER https://youtu.be/LBnzCpWG_y4 BLACK HISTORY LEGEND https://youtu.be/KNMUBnKMUeo DIAHANN CARROLL SPEAKS ON OPHELIA DEVORE https://www.instagram.com/p/BtmJ2fUFbol/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=10xzquavt7ftq

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acehotel · 8 years ago

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Interview: Bethann Hardison with Justin Strauss

New York, New York

Bethann Hardison is a powerhouse of vim and vigor. A household name amongst the upper echelon of the 1970s New York fashion scene, Bethann was a supermodel-cum-entrepreneur, starting her own agency Bethann Management before turning her efforts toward fashion activism. She’s since become an advocate of equal representation for POC models and is an outspoken consultant in an industry that turns over faster than a seven-inch. For this edition of our Just/Talk series, Ace friend, legendary DJ and music producer Justin Strauss reminisced with Hardison on “leaving them yelling your name,” rocking the fashion boat and why she’s fighting for models of color.

Justin Strauss: Bethann Hardison. I've known you for a long time.

Bethann Hardison: Yes, you have. Yes, you have.

JS: How did you start in fashion? Was it something that you felt a passion for, or something that happened by chance?

BH: No, I don't even give fashion any credit, I grew up in the garment district. I started at a button factory in the late 60s. That was where I got my first job. I stayed on there a bit and then went over to a low-end dress company. Then I went to a junior dress house before I got discovered by Willi Smith. And, eventually, I would start to work for Stephen Burrows.

JS: With Willi Smith, was that as a model?

BH: Yes... That's how I first started to model. He was the one who saw me on the streets of the garment district, on Broadway and 40th.

JS: This is still the late 60s?

BH: Yeah. He basically thought I was a designer because he'd always see me. He asked me to be his muse, someone he could work with, talk with, maybe do some appearances with. I was working in a showroom dress house at the time with Ruth Manchester, so I said yes and so we started to be friends.

JS: At that time, were black models a rarity?

BH: No, they weren't rare. Because at that time — what was so nice about that time, and what's not so nice about this time — is that there were two different divisions. There were the print models, and then there were models who service designers in the garment district.

JS: Fitting models and runway models?

BH: Yeah, they did fittings, they did runway. Those girls didn't do editorial work, and the girls who did editorial, catalog and advertising didn't do fittings. So yes, there were girls of color. They were more sophisticated around that time. I was a girl who came along to sort of start changing that mode, but they were definitely around.

JS: The first black model to be on the cover of British Vogue was Donyale Luna in 1960. It seems like that's not so long ago. And it wasn’t until 1974 that Beverly Johnson was the first black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue.

BH: Yeah, but the girl who really meant something to someone like myself, who brought something really to the table, was Naomi Sims. She was the one who someone could aspire to for the reason that she was a dark-skinned girl, the way she was very tall. She was gazelle-like, the way she walked. She was wonderful on the runway, but she had so much style and it was just genius.

JS: What was the attitude of magazine editors and designers as far as working with black girls? Were they very open to that?

BH: Well, when it comes to designers yes, because we had people like Giorgio di Sant’Angelo, Halston, Scott Barrie and Stephen Burrows who would hire me. You had a lot of designers who were open to girls of color. There's never going to be more girls of color than there are white girls because it's not how business works. It's something we know. First of all, we're like extras in the show. The show, to me, is America, and we're extras in it. We're not people who came here creating these businesses that are the majority — we're always going to be the minority in most spaces, unless it's basketball, football, you know, boxing. Then, maybe athletically we can.

JS: Today in popular culture, black music and black films are mainstream America.

BH: You can be creative, but you don't own it. You can be individual, own your own masters, own your own publishing, but what I'm talking about is industries. Industries where we don't own any of these things. We can be part of it. We can influence you. We can make you happy. We can inspire you — but at the end of the day, we're not strutting around and saying, "This is what's going to go down," and everybody sort of bows down to it. You know what I mean? Eventually, yes. People are successful, but it's not our industry. I don't know one industry that's our industry. Do you know one industry that's a black industry? Industry, not company.

JS: I'd have to think about that. But I’d say yes, you are right.

BH: I know, that's something. That's something to think about, huh?

But at the end of the day it's kind of a good thing that we had those moments and times that came along, because it helped us. There were white kids who were in the advertising industry who really wanted to see change. “Black Is Beautiful” was a slogan from the civil rights movement that carried over. Those white kids who worked in those advertising industries wanted something different, and they pushed for it. Meanwhile, there were agencies that had all blacks, like black agency Ophelia DeVore. But these were agencies that really acted to service the industry, because people would want black.

JS: When you saw Donyale Luna on the cover of British Vogue, or Beverly Johnson on American Vogue, was that inspiring for you?

BH: Obviously she was beautiful. But I really always felt that she was someone where it happened for her because of the people who pushed for her. And yet, once you get anyone across the line, you can see that they have beauty. When Beverly Johnson happened, I had known her a little before. She was still in school. She would come down from Rochester and she'd come to the atelier that I had worked in, so of course I felt it was a little sort of familiarity. You felt like you were part of it. You saw this kid come down, and she was coming for a go-see with my designer that I worked for. Then, next thing you know she was gone. A year later or so later, she was on this cover of a magazine, and you said, "Right on!"

JS: So it didn’t seem like a big deal when it came out?

BH: You got to remember, you're coming up on the heels of “Black Is Beautiful” and also of the Civil Rights Movement. There's a lot of that information around, and so girls on the cover of Vogue really meant nothing, we got some other serious issues going on. I guess in some ways, it meant something to somebody.

JS: At some point, you decided that you didn’t want to be involved in modeling. What was the transition? Did you go right into working for agencies?

BH: There was a lot happening in-between because I was very well known, and so I did a lot of things to help other people. I worked with Valentino, I was in Europe for a minute, and then I came back and he wanted me to work with this company that did his licensing for bathing suits so I wound up doing that. That sort of took me in another direction. I just quit modeling right around that time because I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to go on that stage anymore.

It's always nice, as I say, to leave them yelling your name. I went back to working in showrooms. From there I wound up working for a designer, Bill Kaiserman, and then I wound up working for another designer. I was doing everything that I could, helping each when they needed help. People called me, and I worked as a freelancer.

Then, this guy scammed a bunch of us. He was hiring me to be the editor of a magazine and we all found out — luckily I hadn't left my job, but others had and found that the guy never had the money. This woman who had started a modeling agency named Frances Grill called me and said, "You’ve got to help me. I hear you're going to be an editor." I said, "I was, but it's no longer going to happen." She had me look at her agency and she had all these white boys. All these white boys and black girls. It was the strangest thing.

JS: The agency was?

BH: It was Click. She reached out to me again and said, "Are you working? Are you doing anything? We really could use someone." She knew everyone knew me, so I went to work for them.

JS: Was the idea to bring more diversity to the agency?

BH: I never thought about diversity. I never did. I only think about when I see something not being right. For me, everyone just looked right. If you looked good, I didn’t care what color you were...white, black...

You look at different people and you just see something that's great about them. You believe, that's what I'm saying. Click was a place where we pushed the envelope. Where we pushed the envelope was with the type of kids we were finding to represent. We were different from what anybody else had. There were kids like clam diggers out of South Hampton, potato farmer kids.

JS: The photographer Bruce Weber vibe?

BH: Yes, Bruce started to work with Click. He was finding boys out there who were just kids, who were sports kids. We were finding kids, and they were all similar looking. Same thing with the girls.

JS: Were you working with Naomi Campbell at the time?

BH: No, but I went to London to represent her because her agent who found her called to tell me about her. I went to London and met her mother and her stepfather, and asked to represent her. By the time I got on a plane and got back, she had changed her mind, so I didn't represent her. When she came to New York, I was really the only person she knew, so she called me because I was the only person she felt comfortable with. She was then with Ford, but she didn't know them. We stayed close. Now, over the years, of course I went in and out of managing her team, being a consultant to her, in a way managing her expectations. She always could call me.

JS: I produced a song for her record. Remember, she did an album for Sony?

BH: Yeah, of course.

JS: You worked at Click for a few years?

BH: Two years, yeah. Two and a half years.

JS: Then you started your own Bethann Agency.

BH: Yeah, because I kept getting calls from people, but one person who was most attractive to me was Louise DesPointes out of an agency in Paris called City. When I was at Mick and Jerry's house, I met a lawyer who knew who I was and who said to me, "I have somebody in my life that's a good friend of yours and they tell me you work too hard, and you're not getting anything out of it. You're working all the time for these people, you're not even a partner. I need to help you."

The next thing I know, the man followed up on a phone call and I went to talk with him. That's how the idea of leaving the company happened. Then what wound up happening was I had to go to Paris, and I took the opportunity to meet with Louise, and she really wanted to do it. She really had a great eye. She was very successful with City, so I said yes, and I started looking.

JS: Were you kind of like their New York office at first?

BH: She wanted it to be, but what happened is that Francis Grill sent me to EST. She said, “If you go then I'll pay for it. You just go for the weekend." I said okay, I went to the weekend, and it was during that first session that the man said something to me that gave me the courage to leave them.

JS: It backfired on her.

BH: That's exactly what her son said, "You fucking go and pay for her to go, and then she leaves us." I walked right in there after the weekend and said, "You know what? I have to quit." I had the courage. I never had the courage before.

JS: What did he say to you that gave you the courage?

BH: He just said, "How many people in this room really try to respect the other guy at all times? Come on, come on. Raise your hands," so I raised my hand. He said, "And how many of you, if you think about it, would rather do right by that guy than to do right by yourself?" I knew that was me. I raised my hand. There were only a few of us who did. He said, "Okay, let me tell you all something. If you're afraid to ripple any water that'll make somebody else's boat rock, you'll never go anywhere." I thought to myself, "Wow, he was talking to me. You never want to hurt anyone else. You don't want to hurt their feelings. You don't want to upset things. You want everyone to stay happy with you.” That's the name of my game.

JS: You just stay still.

BH: Yeah, so you just do what's comfortable, But are you really gaining anything out of this? No. I'm helping everybody. That's what Joe McDonald told me. He said, "Bethann, you've got to get out there while every one of us still knows you. Use your talent. Stop working for everyone else." "But I like working for people. I like working with people." He said, "No, you need to do more than that."

JS: You started Bethann Management.

BH: Yeah, I found a good accountant, and I had that man who put the idea in my head, he was a partner of a law firm. They charged me nothing. They did everything for me.

JS: And you started with a few of the girls you were working with at Click?

BH: That's right. Five of them left, and they all each one went in there and explained why they were leaving. I remember Ariane's was the best. Ariane said — it will always stay in my head what she told them — she said, "I'm leaving, and don't think that it's because of any other reason. If Bethann leaves, I got to go. She's the one who took care of me. If Bethann is gone, I'm gone. There's nothing to discuss."

JS: How long did the agency last for?

BH: Well, the agency stayed as an agency for models till 1996. I started in 1984. Tyson Beckford came in 91, 92, but who came before him was Brent King. Now I can't even find him, because Calvin Klein is looking for him. I can't find him.

Brent King was my inspiration. He's another white boy. Blonde. He's one that Stephen Sprouse gave him to me. He called me, "Bethann, I got a guy. This time he's really right. I think this one's really right.” You know, he sent me a lot of kids, Stephen did. I don't do street models. I don't like that. That's what's happening now. That's what's ruined, half of what has ruined our business.

JS: I did the music for his first big show at the Ritz, which was incredible. What a spectacle.

BH: Yes, oh, my God. It was such a joy, right?

JS: I was so lucky to have been...

BH: Yeah, a big part of that. When you wrote that thing about Keith Haring, it was so true, what you wrote. I saw that on Facebook. It was so true. I mean, we are blessed.

JS: People are fascinated by that time, and the whole cultural explosion in New York at that time.

BH: I met a young artist, a furniture maker. She's a young white girl and she says to me, she said, "I go to these galleries in New York and I get nothing out of them. I don't feel any soul. I so wish I lived with y'all when y'all came up." I told her, "Go up to the Studio Museum, then go see Kerry James Marshall's show." Was that not some show?

JS: It was incredible. I hadn't been moved like that...

BH: When does this man sleep?

JS: I didn't really know much about him.

BH: I said to Thelma (Golden), “I've got a couple people in my life I've said this to, and you'll be the third. You are truly a national treasure." The people that she's found, because that's the way they all start. She's the one who has the eye that finds them, gives them a start, gives them a lift. But that show...

JS: It was beautiful.

BH: Amazing. I'm so happy you saw it too.

JS: Tell me about 1996. You were noticing that things weren't right, like you said.

BH: I was busy laying in my hammock in Mexico, having tequila and smoking. It was Naomi (Campbell) who kept calling me for like a year. 1996 I left the business. Well, I kept my office and two staffers.

JS: And you still had the office space?

BH: North Moore Street. I still owned North Moore Street but I got rid of the majority of the staff and I got rid of the models. The only one I kept was Tyson Beckford, because Ralph Lauren told me that they wanted to go forth with a deal.

That's what was nice about still having Tyson, because I helped to make something really great happen, which was historical. Ralph bought it, because he knew I didn't just want money. I gave them an idea for how Ralph could use Tyson in a better way than he had been.

JS: Historical in what way?

BH: Financially, and the fact that no other male model has ever had a five year deal with a designer, no other model had it. Josie had three years, Kate had it, and Tyson had it.

JS: That's amazing! So, Naomi calls you up. You're laying in your hammock in Mexico...

BH: Yes and she tells me, "Ma, you got to get back here. There's no black girls. There's nothing."

JS: Why do you think that it changed?

BH: It changed because culturally things started changing. Eastern Europe was some place that they could now go search much more strongly than they were doing before. The walls all came down. It became a situation where now they were scouting like they never scouted before, and that became competitive to what was out there already. The editors weren't seeing things, you know, Kim Hastreiter of Paper Magazine has always blamed me for that moment of change because she said the New York Times had written an article when I was leaving the business of what's going to happen now in the industry, because Bethann was such a force to keep things balanced. I really swear to God I was like, "Motherfucker, don't be talking, don't put that shit on me. I'm out." You know, I wanted to get out of that business so badly, you couldn't even. So when they started making me feel like, you know, who's going to carry —

JS: The weight of the world.

BH: Yeah, I was like, "Not me boy, you're going to be fine." I thought they really would be, and it wasn't. By the late 90s, I would come into town, I'd have dinner with Kim, and as Kim was saying, "I'm telling you, Bethann. You had something, and you came along at a time that kept everybody clocked in."

JS: They weren't booking models for shows?

BH: Yeah, it was change. They found the girl like Alek Wek and then it just seemed like it had just begin to disappear. It was before the Eastern European girls started coming in strongly. All of a sudden Alek Wek was someone that they found, even though, you know, Mrs. Wintour at Vogue has resisted, she had editors and photographers who believed enough in the girl and pushed her forward. She was walking in every designer show, and that seemed to be enough. Then, another little girl came along, like Kiara Kabukuru. Kiara came along and Mrs. Wintour, thank God, loved her, and pushed for her. That was another little brown girl, you know, she was on the cover of Vogue, so that was it.

Basically, it was dry. You'd come, and you'd talk, you'd go to a little show, and you'd see the editors, "Oh, Bethann, you have to get us black girls. There's no black girls." I'd call the same magazine that they came from, and I speak to James Scully and he was like, "Bethann, these people are bullshitting you. I bring them the black girls. I show them a black girl, and they go right back to the white ones. They're not serious." I let that be and then Naomi would call, and then Andre (Leon-Talley) would call and tell me the same thing. I said, "Oh, shit. Naomi was the one. You got to do something. You got to do something." It took me a while. I think from really 2004, that's when I knew I was going to do something, because you could really see the divide.

JS: You wrote some letters.

BH: That was 2013. This was coming up to that time where I actually was seeing that they had gotten to a place where there was no... You know, we never had casting directors before and suddenly there were casting directors. What the hell is that? Don't even get me started on that. We hate casting directors.

JS: I remember, at the time I met you, I was dating Ariane and I would go to Europe with her when she did the fashion shows, in the early to mid 80s. She would just walk into a room and meet Mr. Valentino, meet Kenzo, meet whoever.

BH: Yeah, exactly. It's designer to model. That was the genius about it. That's how you became a muse. Not with having castings. I'm so glad that my other cohort, James Scully, is out there blasting people right now. Got two casting directors fired just like that.

JS: It's such a different world.

BH: It's a different game. Same world, different game.

JS: It's like now everyone's a DJ. Now everyone's a model. Now everyone has a modeling agency. Now everyone has a record thing. It's a whole other mindset.

BH: Yeah, anyone can be. They get a computer, boom, boom, boom.

JS: Which is good, I guess, and also awful.

BH: That's the same thing I feel like saying. I'm sitting there at the FIT arguing my point — and it's not even an argument — it's a fact, just like you're saying. The model industry is a titanic, like the music industry was before it. It's a titanic. I don't care what anybody says, and what has happened has helped to ruin it. We have casting directors whose job every day is to go out and find more models. Then what happened to the kid we found last month? What's going to happen with the music?

JS: It's like music. I got something last week. I'd forgotten about it, because there's 6000 more things in my e-mail that I have to listen to.

BH: Yes. It's so much that it's really crucifying our industry. That’s what I was saying and Veronica Webb was sitting on the other side of the panel saying “But I think it’s something good about the internet when you can discover models that way.” I want to say, “no. You don’t mean that.”

JS: So what did you do?

BH: 2007 was when I said, "Okay, I can't keep putting this off," because I was putting it off. It's a lot of work to do what I do.

JS: You have your own life to live.

BH: Yeah, even though life is like lying in the hammock and being in Mexico. When you like being lazy and no one thinks you are, but you really are, and you're the only one who does all these things. Black Girls Coalition is me. I say everybody's a co-founder and stuff, but it's me. The great thing about having the Diversity Coalition, I have people I go to. I'm the front of the band.

JS: That's different from the Black Girls Coalition?

BH: Yeah, and that's what people didn't realize when I did this thing in 2007. I held a press conference, invited model agencies, certain models, editors, stylists and writers in a room at the Bryant Park hotel, had press, and I talked about —

JS: Just you?

BH: Just me, sitting in front with a whole room. I wrote out ten things that I found disturbing in the industry, which no one had ever heard before. I just came at it gangster. People were like, "Wow." They didn't know what they were coming to. They just knew Bethann said come, and they came. Naomi flew in for it, Iman came, Tyson was in the back, I got a lawyer to come, nobody knew he was there, but he was a human rights lawyer. He got up and spoke, and of course it upset IMG because they thought we were trying to sue people, which that was not the point.

That was the beginning. I brought up the reality about “no black, no ethnics,” and of course, in New York, the papers that covered it first were Women's Wear Daily and the Guardian from UK, and then it went on to every other news outlet.

Is racism truly in fashion? That really makes people uncomfortable, nobody wants to be a racist. I keep reminding them, “You may not intend to, but I'm telling you the road you're walking is that.” We do it very nicely because I do it organically. Then we had one at the Public Library one month later where we had 250 people, standing room only.

I just kept going, kept talking, because there were bigger rooms, big exposure, more people. Then it was the New York Times cover, then it was more. It was just to keep talking about it; to make people uncomfortable, you can't do one. I did four in a matter of so many months.

Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue, was appreciating what was, and what wasn't, going on. She came to me right around that same time in September, 2007 to say she was doing an issue that was going to be all black, “private, private, private, don't tell no one. I want to do an article on you, and I got ten pages I've saved just for brand new girls. Ten girls you can find of color."

With all that's going on, the black issue came out, which was mind blowing because never in the history of Conde Nast did they ever have a reprint, but definitely not three times. It was all over the world. Wasn't that amazing?

JS: There were how many covers?

BH: Four. Four different covers.

JS: It was like a book almost, because it kept getting reprinted, and it was a phenomena. Sad, in a way, that that has to be a phenomenon.

BH: But it had to be the right source. Like I said, it's not our world. Someone of power decides to make it, shine a light strongly on something. If people say, "Why couldn't it be all black? Why were there white ads?” Well, because they’re a fucking Italian magazine.

Somebody has to pay for the magazine getting out. I mean, the white people probably saying, "What the fuck is this?" But she pushed, and did it. In the film about her she says that that is her shining greatest moment.

Franca Sozzani knew she was onto something and she was quietly getting ready to do www.vogue.it, which gave me another opportunity to expose black beauty. She asked me to be the editor of Vogue Black. Doing that gave me an opportunity, she put me with a great, great editor. I was to make little videos of all the black models I would find that I'd want to feature on the site. It was brilliant.

JS: Now the issues sell for big bucks.

BH: Yeah, the issues came out first. Then we did vogue.it, that was a secret, too until the time we launched. Then I was on as an editor for two and a half, three or so years. She couldn't get people to keep supporting this financially.

JS: Did you notice a change — other than the Italian Vogues that rocked the fashion world — did you notice a shift?

BH: Yeah, some things would get really better, especially with the discussions, but then it would all fall back. I sort of backed off for like three or four years and you could see it just shift right, it would start to shift. Edwin Enninful came to me in 2010 and said, "They're slipping back. I'm seeing less and less of the girls out there."

JS: What you're saying is that it's a constant battle?

BH: Yeah, I think the genius, though (to give the positive side of it), is that in 2010 we did some more editorials. But then just decided that that was not going to make things change. I was going to do something more radical. I asked my crew to start telling me what was really going on when they go to Europe, models, agents, all that. Then I started looking, and I had somebody go through all the shows, and then I made a list. That's when I wrote that letter from my home in Mexico.

It was short. It was to the point. We sent it to the Council of Fashion Designers of each city internationally, and I sent it to Women's Wear Daily. When they got it, they said, "Have you sent this already to people?" "Yes." "What's been in response?" "No one's responded." They said, "We have to call them. Are you the writer?" I had to admit that I was. They called them, and that's when it started hitting. The only person who responded very smartly was from England, Natalie Massenet, the girl who started Net-a-Porter.

She was running a British Fashion Council. New York was just so funny. They said, "She knows us. Why did she write us a letter? Why did she do that?" They act like I just sent it in the night and there was no way to connect. It had its affect. Right before that, Eric Wilson for the New York Times had written a piece on the whole thing and made it a cover story. He knew I was going to do something because I’d just gotten the Frederick Douglass Award and Women’s Wear Daily said that I was getting ready to do something.

JS: Did this go to the actual designers?

BH: No, only to the Council of Fashion, but it went to the press. We were on television internationally, nationally, all the newspapers. Everybody picked it up. Iman and Naomi stepped with me every step. They've committed. Iman said, "I don't care what has to happen in my life. This comes first."

After 2007, no casting director ever said again “no blacks, no ethics.” By the time the letters went out in September here, this fashion week, by October fashion week in Italy and London and Paris changed. I mean, Céline was the hardest one I hit. I love that girl, but she just was never having anyone of color. What wound up happening is that she had five girls in her show and then the next season she even did advertising with a black girl. Armani had a black girl open, a black girl close.

But we don't want just that. We also want permanent understanding.

JS: We don't want a flash.

BH: We want Asians, we want Blacks, we want Latinos. We want to mix it up. Come on.

JS: We want the world.

BH: At the end of the day, it changed and it really got better. From 2007–08, the model agencies had support. They were no longer told, "You can't." They started finding better girls. They started doing better, and now it is much better than it's ever been, and that's the truth.

JS: Amen.

BH: Amen, but you still can't take your foot off the clutch.

#Bethann Hardison #yes #70s #fashion #justin strauss #model righs #just/talk #bethann #just talk #interview

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