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late 1984
Presenter: Welcome to a model of the month edition coming to you from London. You will meet a British beauty, Yasmin, a superstar model who's been working for only one year and yet reached the top of her profession over here, soon to conquer America. And we're backstage just before the showing of one of the best and top British designer collections, Roland Klein, where the makeup, the models, the fittings, the clothes, all come together before they hit perfection on the runway.
Yasmin backstage before the Roland Klein fashion show, her hair already
sleeked back and braided, the look of a neat, small head Roland Klein wants
to show with his clothes. Tables loaded with makeup ready for the faces
of a dozen models to be worked on. Yasmin's doing her own basing:
Next few minutes: Yasmin illustrates applying her makeup. Pretty dull, moreso
without the video. Talks about having to conceal the bags under her eyes
which make her look "haggard." She says, "I used to
play around with makeup quite a lot, just because I thought it was fun to
put it on. I don't wear it out very much though, just because it's such
a pain to take it off." She explains that since she has to wear makeup
all day long as part of her job, when she gets home she just wants "to
relax and get comfortable. Makeup is fun and I definitely do enjoy wearing
it, but for the right things at the right time. I think if you use it all
the time you don't appreciate it either, I mean when I go out I hardly ever
wear it, but when I do I really appreciate it, I really enjoy putting it
on. It becomes fun then. It should never ever be a chore. Makeup should
never ever be a chore, it should be something you enjoy and you do as a
pleasure and you should never feel you have to wear makeup; I mean that
is the worst, that's terrible." She says that she has "one eye
that is more deep-set than the other... and I have to compensate for that
sometimes." She always uses a brush to apply lipstick, which she learned
through modeling; "it makes an incredible difference." She will
occasionally line in a neutral pencil, but because it takes time she wouldn't
be doing it that day. "I have to be careful; my mind wanders when I
do my lips. Often slide it halfway down my face." She doesn't have
a very definite lipline, so she thinks she looks "quite different"
when she applies lipstick. "A lot of people, when they go to sleep,
you know, they put on piles of very expensive creams and that's fine, but
I'm only 18 years old and I think if I start using creams like that at 19,
what am I going to use when I'm older? So I just use an ordinary moisturizer
that I use in the daytime. I just put a bit on at night; sometimes I don't
even bother.
Presenter: She's with Models 1 in London, with Elite when she arrives in New York. Roland Klein's successful show is over now, and on the empty runway amidst empty chairs, Yasmin talks about her work, her life, and how it all began.
Yasmin: It's weird after a fashion show. It's such a high when
you're working, you're backstage. For hours it's really boring, it's
tiring, you're on your feet, you can't wait for
the show to [begin], then you get out there and it's fun and you're having
fun and it's a real buzz, it's a high. And it's all finished and you see,
it clears all too quickly. And it's like you suddenly come out and there's
no one there, and it's just... you just go home and go to bed. It's very
very different to print work. Doing magazines, doing pictures, is what I
suppose I really love the most. But I like the change; catwalk is fun, it's
really very very difficult, I really admire the girls who do all the collections,
and they're doing so many shows every day and, you know, they have to do
London, Paris, New York, Milan... it's very tough, very tough; and I'm glad
I'm not really a collections girl. I don't know; that's not quite for me.
But I like doing these occasional shows. It's good fun. Good for change.
I've always been a city girl. Was born in Oxford... 19 years ago, 20 years ago? And... I don't know; I always wanted to be a Formula One Grand Prix racing driver actually. It's still my main aim in life. But I'm sure I'll do it one day. Maybe. And... I never really knew what I wanted to do; I knew I wanted to do something, I wanted to travel. But whatever I was gonna do, I was gonna try and go for the top. If you want to do something, do it wholeheartedly. You put a hundred percent in to get a hundred percent out. It's as simple as that. Hard grind. But it's all about... and I mean I knew that from the start, I knew that as a child, I was gonna... I just wanted to get out and work hard, school really wasn't very... useful to me in the sense that I just wanted to leave and be out there. Out there with everyone else. Working hard, working for what I want. New York I hope will be exciting, and I'm sure it will be. I'm excited about it. I've got a great agency out there who already are working very hard for me, which is nice to know. I know some people out in New York who I can go and live with; and it's gonna be different, it's gonna be I think probably more of... I've had my fun in Europe now, and I'm continuing to have fun here. New York's gonna be... the work's gonna be harder in the sense that, it's gonna be more businesslike, it's definitely gonna be a business there. And that's gonna be a good side; I'll have done my playing then... [whispers] it's business in New York. And I'm looking forward to it... in a big way.
Presenter: Her hobby is photography, the inspiration came from her father. And now that camera is always with her. And so we ask Yasmin to come along on one of our taping days in London and click away. And then we talk with her some more about her interests and ambitions.
Yasmin: My father's Persian, my mother's English... I'm a mongrel. Proud mongrel, don't get me wrong, proud mongrel. It's eye-opening. I actually really enjoy having the two sides to me. It's made me a little more open-minded, I think, being able to see a different way of life, a different culture. An English life. Mixture of the two. I love my father's photographs, I mean he was a very very good photographer, very very good. And then the other thing that [indecipherable]. I know he actually is my father, he's inspired me to take photographs. It's a perfect opportunity. I'm working with photographers every day. I pick up tips from them, I note down their lighting, and he has all the equipment and all the technical knowledge. Anything I don't understand, I just ask my father and he tells me. And it's fun, it's fun just snapping. I just walk on the street and I take photographs of things I like. I used to do art. I think I appreciate looking at other people's art more than I actually appreciate doing my own art, as in painting. I've lost all inspiration for that, but photographs is new for me and I really like it. I'm really enjoying it as a hobby now. Oxford will always be my home because my parents are there, but London's become a second home, and I like it. It's a good city. A lot happens in London. And my father wasn't too keen on me modeling in the beginning. I mean years ago people used to say, 'you aught to be a model,' and he'd spit on them and... [laughs] just because, you know, models still do today have a bad reputation, you know, it's a dirty life, all the traveling, you know, all the photographers who want to grab you and jump into bed with you and all this rubbish, and as soon as I joined Models 1, he was over the moon because I'd taken the step, I'd broken away from home, I'd done something by myself. As soon as I started working and earning money. My father's my biggest fan now. No two ways about it. He wouldn't want me to do anything else. He realizes that it's right, that college wasn't right for me, and I'm just a little bit too independent for that. So this is perfect for me. Perfect career. Mother, I mean... it was actually my mother and my sister, I must say, who first gave me the idea of really seriously thinking about this career. And they gave me all the encouragement, all the support, that I could ever need. So I think really [indecipherable]... I have to credit them with that.
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