Lost in Showbiz appears before you shame-faced, bearing a heartfelt apology. Last week, you may recall, this column reported on the news story that Kim Kardashian’s half-sister Kendall Jenner was receiving rather a thin time of it from the world of fashion as she attempted to make her name as a model. The story was that her fellow models were bullying her by putting their cigarette butts in her drinks, and that fashion magazines were running stories sneering that, at 8st 7lbs, she was “too fat for the runway”, printing pictures that suggested she had cellulite etc.
In fairness, Lost in Showbiz remarked at the time that this seemed scarcely believable: the fashion world has certainly never seemed like a shallow place where mean-spirited bitching might be the order of the day. Now, it appears, the stories were entirely inaccurate. This week, Lost in Showbiz was pleased to read that Kendall Jenner has in fact “wowed” the fashion world. It can’t be 100% sure, but it has the weird feeling that it may have read this in the same celebrity press that seven days ago was squawking that the fashion world was ranged as one in a conspiracy of hatred against her, but let’s not sully a happy day with a lot of hair-splitting niggles.
Either way, this week, they’re queuing up to praise her. Amid the gush, Lost in Showbiz alighted on the words of Katie Grand, editor-in-chief of Love magazine. Chief among Jenner’s many accomplishments, she claimed, was that “she’s unique in wanting to turn her back on celebrity. It would have been easy for Kendall to go with a bigger agency and down a celebrity route.”
What a laudable sentiment: what smart, independent-minded young lady wouldn’t want to distance herself from the media circus that surrounds the Kardashian family, with the journalists always passing comment on their appearance and the constant intrusion of the paparazzi? And what better way to avoid journalists staring and judging and that incessant, maddening click-click-click of the cameras than becoming a fashion model? It’s a job that Lost in Showbiz has always considered roughly similar to working in the stockroom at Argos in terms of visibility, a kind of latterday equivalent of being an anchoress, hidden from the public gaze, quietly retreating from society, blissfully anonymous. If there’s one job where you’re guaranteed that you won’t be forced to live life surrounded by some kind of media circus, it’s definitely fashion model. Lost in Showbiz salutes her decision to turn her back on celebrity, and, casting an eye over the gossip mags, notes: the plan’s going terribly well so far, isn’t it?
