Top model Manon Leloup speaks with WWD about her latest endeavour: a documentary called Speaking Dolls. Here are our highlights:<\/p>\n
But presumptions aside, the day-to-day life of this industry\u2019s top catwalkers is largely a mystery. Manon Leloup, the 22-year-old French model, one of the most in-demand girls in recent years (she walked in 37 fall shows), recently codirected a new documentary with Niels Benoist titled \u201cSpeaking Dolls\u201d (now available on Vimeo). It attempts to pull back the curtain, for better and for worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to show the reality of this unusual job,\u201d Leloup says in the first few minutes of the film. But unlike other docs in a similar vein, \u201cSpeaking Dolls\u201d doesn\u2019t make the predictable case. When allusions to industry reform (e.g. the CFDA Health Initiative and the like) come up, she recoils. \u201cNo, no. I approached it with no agenda,\u201d she says, over a glass of sauvignon blanc in New York. \u201cThe movie isn\u2019t about a single message, like, \u2018This is a bad thing.\u2019 It is just about what is the reality of young girls living the modeling experience. It\u2019s not a message, it\u2019s just to show the truth from our perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leloup is in town from Paris for a few days, mostly for a Vogue magazine shoot. Before that, she had a brief respite in the French countryside after doing the haute couture shows (she walked four, including Armani Priv\u00e9 and Jean Paul Gaultier). \u201cI\u2019ve been very busy,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019m happy when I\u2019m busy. That\u2019s why it was good to shoot this during the shows. I prefer to be thinking about something else and not \u2018I\u2019m so tired.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeaking Dolls\u201d documents Leloup\u2019s journey \u2014 and, by proximity, the journey of other working models \u2014 through the multicity circus of spring 2014\u2019s fashion month. With Leloup often behind the camera, it focuses on a handful of her cohorts: Yumi Lambert, Marine Deleeuw, Cora Emmanuel and Pauline Hoarau. She ended up shooting more than 14 hours of film, which was whittled down to 52 minutes. \u201cEditing was a big mess,\u201d Leloup says. The film covers everything from the seemingly prosaic \u2014 Lambert stopping into a Potbelly in Times Square to shove a football-size cheeseburger down between castings \u2014 to models\u2019 real concerns, namely making a living off a job with an inherently short shelf life. \u201cAt Phillip Lim, one girl looked just like me. It\u2019s the girl who opened the show. People say it\u2019s my double,\u201d Lambert says of fellow model Emma Waldo in one scene. \u201cDespite the fact that they know me, that they like me, she is a new, new face. She opened the show, not me. Sometimes, I just feel like I\u2019m not fresh enough. I feel old, even if I\u2019m only 18 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leloup explains that more than anything she wanted to show that models, deemed essentially anonymous faces by most attending the shows, have a unique perspective on the industry. \u201cWe are in the middle of the most intimate, most private parts of fashion. We see every part of it. I wanted to show what we observe,\u201d Leloup says. \u201cI wanted to give us a voice, a third dimension. We\u2019re not just a face.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top model Manon Leloup speaks with WWD about her latest endeavour: a documentary called Speaking Dolls. Here are our highlights: But presumptions aside, the day-to-day life of this industry\u2019s top catwalkers is largely a mystery. Manon Leloup, the 22-year-old French model, one of the most in-demand girls in recent years (she walked in 37 fall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1840,495,1995,587,588,997,1994,516,1997,1996],"class_list":["post-11227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catwalker","tag-documentary","tag-emma-waldo","tag-fashion-month","tag-french-model","tag-interview","tag-manon-leloup","tag-runway","tag-speaking-dolls","tag-yumi-lambert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11229,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11227\/revisions\/11229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}