There is Nothing
Like a Brain,
especially when it belongs to the
model of the moment
| by Amy Spindler (New York Times: Style, April
11, 1999) Source: Devon Aoki is the Bomb Devon Aoki, Chanel's new face, has just finished the perfect prep course for the fashion industry: Goethe's "Faust." "I thought it was really good," she says, giving her book review between shots as Ellen von Unwerth takes photographs of her for the story that follows. "It's about this guy who is more or less unhappy with the way his life is. He wants to go beyond human thought and understanding." She takes a break from the plot summary to pose coyly for von Unwerth, tugging up her pink knee-highs and wrapping a strand of braided hair around one finger. Then: "He's of superior intelligence to the people around him" -- something someone who can give a synopsis of "Faust" must keenly feel during a fashion shoot -- and his last option is to go to the Devil to see that side of the world through black magic." Devon didn't need the Devil or black magic to become the hottest new model in the business. What she had instead was a godmother (a real one, not the Cinderella kind) who was best friends with Sam McKnight, the celebrity hairdresser. When Devon was 5 years old, McKnight would dress her up, put wigs on her and do her makeup. It's those photos, and not the new Chanel campaign photographed by Karl Lagerfeld, that still decorate her godmother Christine Rucci's refrigerator. "I heard you were a good poser at 5," teases Ashley Ward, the makeup artist on the shoot. Devon, who is 16 (the all-too-common age at which fashion models get started) giggles. Devon has such a versatile look that this season she served as muse for both Lagerfeld and that wild young upstart Jeremy Scott. For a model, that's range. Part Japanese, part German and British, she was born in New York, where she lived until she was 9. Then she moved to Malibu, Calif., for two years, and after that to London, where she lives now with her mother and stepfather and two of her nine brothers and sisters. Her mother, Pamela Price, is a jewelry designer. At "12 or 13" she was discovered at a Rancid concert by a casting director who was looking for models for Calvin Klein campaigns. When she was asked if she would pose for some pictures, Devon replied, "If you introduce me to the band." And they did. For her first fashion shoot with Mark Borthwick, Devon showed up with huge fake eyelashes and yellow eyebrows, "and I wouldn't let them take it off," she says. It was at a show of photographs inspired by the 50's pinup Betty Page that Ellen von Unwerth first laid eyes on Devon. Soon afterward, von Unwerth directed her in a Duran Duran video and photographed her for the cover of the trendy magazine I.D. Such exposure has led to the kind of fans that Kate Moss has, young girls like von Unwerth's 9-year-old daughter who sigh, "Oh, Devon!" In case you're wondering whether a designer lets his muse know she's his muse, Devon says that Jeremy Scott "has told me, sort of." Scott is nice enough to help Devon with her French homework, though she's taking seven other classes that he doesn't help with, including anatomy, physiology, American history and photography. (Von Unwerth used to be a model, too.) This will enable Devon to enter a world beyond modeling, becoming either a painter, a writer or an actress. And like all former models who go on to do other things, she'll welcome being judged for something other than her face. Although hair is another matter. |
