Women join men in quest for eye candy
Jaime Jeske
Apr. 11, 2002
Women join men in quest for eye candy
By David Graham
Paris Hilton, the super spoiled hotel heiress, gets what she wants.
She has all the toys any 21-year-old jet setter could wish for. But what
the pretty little rich girl really wanted was her own supermodel
boyfriend.
So she got one.
Jason Shaw (see him on a Tommy Hilfiger billboard near you) is Hilton's
new sweetie pie. And as the couple grins from the society pages of
international fashion magazines, they look good together.
"He's like the most beautiful man in the world," Hilton gushes in this
month's W magazine. Shaw says the feeling's mutual. But he's rankled by
the boy-toy image that's plagued him since he hooked up with the richy
rich party girl who's as famous for dancing on tables till dawn as she
is for her glamorous parentage.
Could it be true?
Is there such a thing as female modelizers?
On Sex And The City, the characters regularly refer to a category of men
who abide by a models-only dating policy as modelizers. While these men
are seldom oil paintings themselves, they still have an insatiable taste
for those rare women who make their livings off their looks.
But could the reverse be true?
Authorities on the subject of sexual and romantic allure have always
promoted the stereotype that men prefer the company of beautiful women
while women lust after powerful men. But that paradigm may be shifting.
Social anthropologists and experts on sexual allure suggest it was just
a matter of time before adult women started acting on the impulses they
developed as girls reading Tiger Beat magazine. In the larger social
picture there is a segment of women who are financially independent. Now
that they are not preoccupied with finding a man who will be a solid
provider, they have acquired an appetite for physically attractive men.
Britney Spears, who recently broke up with the super successful 'N Sync
singer Justin Timberlake, has been seen on the party circuit with former
supermodel Marcus Schenkenberg. He has a pretty face and an awesome
body. But according to the men's fashion industry, his career may be on
the wane.
"He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer," says Hugo Boss publicist
Dawn Thorpe about Pamela Anderson's ex-boyfriend, Schenkenberg. But he's
still easy on the eyes and he definitely has a place of honour in the
supermodel hall of fame.
There's no question modern young women are getting in touch with their
superficial side.
In her new song "Hands Clean," Alanis Morissette turns the table on her
boyfriend and suggests she might be interested in pursuing something
long-term if he could guarantee his looks would endure. "I might want to
marry you one day if you'd watch that weight and keep that firm body,"
she sings.
Thanos Tripi is a model with Giovanni Model Management and a barman at
Toronto's newly opened Mint nightclub. "I can only tell you what I see
and I don't see women looking for men with coin. They are not talking to
the guys with fat wallets. I get the idea they think guys without money
are more fun. I think they are more attracted to the glamour and
excitement of a model than to the security of a banker boy."
One woman I talked to, who didn't want her name mentioned, told me that
she often felt pressured by her friends to date only beautiful men.
"I always felt that each boyfriend had to be better looking than the one
before," she laughs. Best of all, "models make perfect rebound
boyfriends," she says. "If you've just been dumped, a few dates with a
model can lift your spirits."
As Toronto model Moe Kelso reflects on her dating history, she
acknowledges that she's dated considerably more models than non-models
or "civilians" as she calls them.
While she knows it is perhaps politically incorrect to admit it, she
confesses she prefers the picture perfect features of a professional
model.
"I know a lot of people think I only go out with them because they are
so beautiful. But once you get to know them they are often really cool
guys with a lot of personality."
Brooke Bailey is an agent at Giovanni Model Management, who has seen how
women react to the male models she represents. "They are besotted," she
laughs, qualifying, these men are not mere mortals. If they are working
models then they are in a league of their own. No wonder some women
behave badly.
Where do women go to bag a male model? The nightclub and restaurant 606
(at 606 King St. W.) has been a longstanding hunting ground for both
male and female models.
Now many of them have migrated to the new club Mint, just down the
street.
In the end though, there is a fundamental difference between the two
genders of the same breed. While the men who pursue female models are
rarely model material themselves, the successful female modelizer is
invariably a looker in her own right.
Ask Hilton.
Observers have suggested that her eye-candy boyfriend (whose means are
paltry compared to hers) has struck pay dirt.
They call him the male Stephanie Seymour.
Hilton snaps back: "Does that mean I'm, like, Peter Brandt? Ew. He's
ugly.
"I'm beautiful."
Reach David Graham at dgr...@thestar.ca.
Copyright 2002 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.
Jaime