Fashion execs exposed as sexual predators

By Frances Grant

Normal gripes about the fashion industry's influence on female body image paled in comparison to the revelations in last night's investigation on TV One of exploitation of young models, MacIntyre Undercover: Fashion Victims.

"Heroin chic," is more than just a "look." The BBC documentary, which screened in Britain last Tuesday, captured agency employees openly dealing drugs to the models in their care.

More chilling yet was the range of male predators - from the so-called "PRs," men paid by agencies to chaperone models around Milan, to premier agency Elite's senior executives - bragging to undercover reporter Donal MacIntyre about using the aspiring teenage models for sex.

The expose has already resulted in the resignation of two of Elite's top employees: the agency's second-in-command Gerald Marie (ex-husband of supermodel Linda Evangelista) and the head of the Elite Model Look Contest, Xavier Moreau.

Two others, New York recruitment director Olivier Daube and Elite's then Milan chaperone, Daniele Bianco, have been suspended.

The programme has sparked a judicial inquiry in Italy, and the Government there has promised to investigate the scandal and review the laws surrounding the treatment of young models abroad.

But this is cold comfort for the young girls who dreamed of fairy-tale careers on the catwalk and magazine covers and fell into the hands of the monsters.

"It's not just about having a lot of women. It's just getting in the position in which women, for you, are money," explained Diego, a PR whom MacIntyre befriended in his guise as a fashion photographer.

Diego's use of the word "women" to describe girls aged as young as 14 and 15 was disingenuous. But those at the top of the fashion food chain did not bother disguising their appetites.

One happily admitted he felt like a paedophile.

"I tend not to think of them as human," said another of his perceived disposability of the models.

Then there were the racist comments by an executive of Elite - which represents Naomi Campbell - about his distaste for "black girls."

But it was Marie's glee over the prospect of luring a bevy of unsuspecting young beauties on to his boat, and the visible frustration when his plans were thwarted, which made the blood curdle.

The lucrative world of high fashion was revealed as a place where the sharks are in control, not just circling round the edges hoping to pick off the vulnerable.

In his conclusions to the programme, MacIntyre pinpointed the problem in bringing those at the top of the fashion world to book. "Fashion has always set its own rules. It's been allowed to exist outside the normal parameters of society."