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by Mark Ellwood, for The Independent on Sunday in London
When Top Denim Labels Want to Create the Perfect Pair of Women's Jeans, They
Shape Them Around Curvaceous Paige Adams-Geller, the Woman With the Most Revered
Bum in the World. As She Launches Her Own Brand, She Talks to Mark Ellwood.
Meet Paige Adams-Geller: with her toned-but-not-too-thin California-girl
physique, this woman has been the denim industry's secret weapon for almost
a decade. Its top "fit model", Adams- Geller's statistics have been
vital to the success of almost every A-list denim label from Seven and Citizens
of Humanity to Habitual and True Religion. And since it's the promise of having
a bum as perky and firm as hers that�s lured women to drop upwards of 200 dollars
on a single, slimming pair of jeans, this month Adams-Geller launches her own
collection, Paige Premium Denim, which will have exclusive rights to her rear.
Growing up in rural Alaska, Paige Adams-Geller never planned to become a
fit model - or
any kind of model come to that. "I knew I was smart, a straight-A student,
but I had never identified myself as pretty. In a nutshell, I was an overweight,
chubby kid - I used to be called Pudgy Paigey," she giggles. "I wouldn't
have labeled myself fat, but other kids poked fun at me and teased me because
I had very chubby cheeks and a pear-shaped figure.�
By her teens, though, her body was buff enough to snag the chance of representing
her state at the America's Miss Charm pageant; she also competed in other wholesome
contests such as Miss National Teenager and America's Junior Miss. Soon spotted
by local modeling scouts, Adams-Geller was advised to lose more weight if she
wanted to be booked for print work.
"I started working-out, and got into that bad, diet-obsessed craze of
trying to be a little too skinny," she recalls. It paid off, after a fashion:
by 16, she'd graduated from school two years early and was living in New York
under the aegis of the Elite model agency. The snag? At only 5ft 7in, in that
pre-Moss era, Adams-Geller was relegated to the petite division.
Her enthusiasm for catwalk life didn't last long, and she ended up heading
to LA to study broadcast journalism - in part, at least, thanks to a crisis
of confidence. "I was a person that always thought of myself as being
the smart kid," she explains. "I knew that I was smart but I still
didn't really believe that I was attractive."
Yet for the teen beauty queen the lure of the circuit proved too strong;
she was soon back competing in pageants and was crowned Miss California in
1991 (though she didn't go on to win Miss America, she did spend her reigning
year as any all-American girl should - singing the national anthem at sports
games and visiting sick kids). From there, she started acting and auditioning
for commercials, while also doing "hot body" guest spots on television
shows such as Baywatch.
But everything changed when a woman who owned a local fit- modeling agency
approached Adams-Geller on the street. "I kept her card for a couple of
days and then thought I'd give her a call," says Adams-Geller. �But I've
always been a worker, and thought it could be something to fill in between
auditions. At first, though, I didn't understand what fit modeling was at
all."
Few outside the fashion world do. Put simply, fit models may not make the
cover of Vogue or refuse to get out of bed for less than $30,000 a day, but
they're far more important to the industry day-to day. The best, like Adams-Geller,
John Gallagher, and Julie Pruger, can command five-figure day rates. These
women and men have the bodies we all want, and designers use them to help decide
the most flattering final cut on clothes. A skirt will be tweaked on a fit
model until it's at its most slimming; a man's jacket re-pinned until the shoulders
are strapping and the chest fully barreled. And, once a fashion house has found
its fit muse, that man or woman will usually be offered an ongoing contract
to ensure that the label's fit is consistent season to season. After all, no
one wants to buy a pair of Prada trousers this year, only to find that next
year's designs no longer flatter. It's the biggest difference between fit models
and their catwalk kin; while mannequins must live on nothing but cigarettes
to stay
skinny, fit models can be any size as long as they maintain it.
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"For
print and runway work, you need to be 10 to 15lbs under weight," says
Adams-Geller. "I was always fighting the 15lbs that never wanted naturally
to stay off my body. It was tough for me - I had to treat my body abusively to
get that weight off, restrict myself from eating or exercising too much,"
she says. "With fit modeling you can't get a job if you're too skinny -
you need to be a nice, healthy, American size. The reason a fit model gets paid
really well is that she has to stay in shape and keep her measurements
accurate." For the record, she was (and, of course, still is) 36-27-37.
For
five years, Adams-Geller worked as a jobbing fit-model-cum- actress in LA; but
that all changed when she met designer Jerome Dahan. He launched the Seven
jeans label using Paige's perfect bum as his basis. "He said he wanted my
butt to look like cherries," she laughs. "Because I didn't have the
roundest ass, he said if you could give it the appearance of cherries you'd
have a sensational jean." Dahan's instincts paid off - Seven was an
overnight sensation and Adams-Geller became the denim industry's go-to girl,
booking back-to-back fittings five days a week. It's not surprising: there's
arguably no product where the fit is as important for women as with a pair of
premium jeans. And anyone who's bought a pair of Blue Cult, Dickies, Hard Tail,
Guess, True Religion, Bluejeanious, Joe's Jeans, Seven, Citizens of Humanity, A
Gold E, Lucky Brand, Habitual, Liquid, London London, Arden B, Bebe or Wet Seal
in the past five years is making the most of Adams Geller's perfect figure.
Chris
Gilbert, who runs Paper Denim and Cloth, one of the few brands that hasn't used
Adams-Geller's contours, nevertheless knows the importance of a good fit model.
"She's a key component that's intimately tied into a brand's strategy: the
choice of a fit model can help define who your customer's going to be," he
explains. "Denim fit models are a little bit fuller in general than a
non-denim fit model. We must have gone through 50 or 60 models before we picked
the right one for Paper Denim and Cloth: we chose a slimmer, leggier body type
that led us to be more exclusive as our product won't fit on every woman's
body."
But
it's clear when Adams-Geller talks that her success wasn't just down to her
figure; what made her stand out is her personality - she has an easy-going
sunniness and a goofy enthusiasm that's rare in fashion. "I think the
reason I had a lot of success is because I wasn't just a person that stood
there as a hanger while other people made suggestions," she notes. "I
like people to know I have a brain, so I became very vocal as a fit model. I
learnt the technical as well as the creative side... to see how I could make my
hips look smaller, my legs longer, butt higher if I place pockets in certain
places." The difference between fit modeling and catwalking, she says, is
simple: "It's about having an eye for detail and design and not being
afraid to speak up about it."
Her
forthrightness isn't just about fashion. When a designer, she claims, attacked
her during a fitting, she brought charges of attempted sexual assault against
him despite worries that it might end her career.
She
knows she'll never be a one-name, one-woman brand like Cindy or Naomi, despite
her new denim collection. "I never thought I'd get credit out there in the
public eye - what pissed me off was that I thought somewhere along the line
there'd be some kind of bonus or reward." In fact, the only time her
California peppiness stumbles is when faced with questions about plastic
surgery - after all, are women across the world aching for a butt that isn't
natural in the first place? "I don't think I want to talk about plastic
surgery - that's a personal question," she says after a pause, then
regains her composure. "Put it this way: I think I have good genes."
Genes
or jeans, from this month Adams-Geller will be wearing just one brand: her own.
Officially retired, her rear is available only for fittings at Paige Premium
Denim. "I had the opportunity to see what was missing in denim," she
explains. "I want to take some of the things I like about couture garments
and adapt them - the way a garment feels luxurious on the inside, for
example." Her capsule collection of jeans and tops will be manufactured in
LA, which has replaced London, Italy and Japan as jeans HQ.
But despite
the wealth that she now enjoys, Adams-Geller struggles to spend the money. When
she travels to Europe, designer boutiques don't hold much allure. "All I
want to buy is shoes and handbags because I don't want to try on any more
clothes," she laughs.
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