Tag Archives: gemma ward

Can Gemma Ward Fit Back Into The Fashion Industry?

Leonora EpsteinFebruary 12, 2010 //

For models who gain weight, whether it’s five pounds or 15, finding a fit in the fashion industry is generally an uphill battle, and often suddenly sinks a career. Take the case of Gemma Ward, the Vogue cover record breaker who seemed poised to conquer the runways when she hit the scene at only 14 years old. Quickly becoming a top-earning model, Ward’s super skinny limbs and protruding bones captured the essence of undernourished beauty that designers and critics loved. Around the same time, fellow youth model Coco Rocha remembered being advised, “The look this year is anorexic. We don’t want you to be anorexic, we just want you to look it.” Keep reading »

Gemma’s Return: Why Even Announce “Retirement” If You Can’t Stick To It?

Leonora EpsteinNovember 19, 2009 //

Random rant: why do celebs make such a big deal about announcing “retirement” only to un-retire months later? Publicity stunt? A heated “eff-you” move that reverses itself once they cool down?

Supermodel Gemma Ward, 22 (ahem), marks the latest in comebacks—or something to that effect. Her agency recently announced Ward’s official retirement after everyone started to realize that she’d been missing from the mags and catwalks of late. The rumored reason for the young model’s departure? A desire to escape the industry’s pressure of body issues. (Noble cause.) It looks like this announcement wasn’t even a PR screw-up, but possibly just a vocabulary issue. Gemma herself posted on her Twitter page: “I’m content with my decision, but I have said nothing will be permanent.” OK, seriously? You make the “decision” to retire … you know that’s supposed to be permanent? Then this week she told an Australian newspaper that she hasn’t quit the business.

Does everything have to be so black and white with A-listers? Why not just say you’re taking some time off? What’s that? Oh, so you say there’s big money in a comeback … Aha! [Stylelist.com] Keep reading »

10 Suggestions For Gemma Ward’s Retirement Plans

Nina CarboneNovember 10, 2009 //

This just in: Supermodel Gemma Ward’s agent has officially announced that the Australian catwalk queen has retired from the fashion industry! if you’ve noticed, there hasn’t been much of Gemma lately; she’s been absent from magazine covers and, more notably, the past few runway seasons. The reason for her departure? She wasn’t as into modeling “following the death of Heath Ledger, to whom she was romantically tied.” So, yeah, now she’s headed for retirement, at the ripe old age of 22. (Twenty-two!) But word on the web is that her life away from the catwalk is really making a healthy difference. “She was photographed last week in New York wearing a print jacket, shorts and biker boots and looking more like a healthy young woman and less like an emaciated wraith.” (Jeez, harsh much?)

While, I could go on for paragraphs about how frickin’ jealous I am that she can even afford (both financially and career-wise) to give it all up, it’s more fun (and less woe-is-me-sad-sack) to play the what-will-she-do-next game! My very strategic guesses, after the jump. Keep reading »

Fashion Week: Models Who Do More

Claudia CrousillatSeptember 11, 2008 //

During Fashion Week it’s easy to forget some of the pretty ladies walking down the runway do more than just act as coat hangers for fabulously over-priced garments. That’s why our girls at Glam put together this list of models who do more.

The (oft over-used) term supermodel gets tossed around a lot. But whether or not these catwalk queens have been officially coined with that status, they’re all super in our eyes. Somewhere between strutting down the catwalk in New York and Paris, and shooting high-fashion spreads at some exotic locale in the South Pacific, these beauties have also found time to become social activists, authors, and aspiring actresses–proving that they’re much more than just a pretty face.

The Writer: Alek Wek — Discovered at an outdoor market in London, Alek Wek’s strikingly unconventional look can be found grazing the catwalks of leading designers across the globe. But what has remained undiscovered, is her unconventional upbringing in the south of Sudan. Published in 2007, Wek released the autobiography, Alek, which probes into those youthful years: the bold escape from a home torn by civil-war and ultimate climb to stardom.
Keep reading »