Guess
(the jean company) had their name tagged on a brand of perfume
in 1989. As part of the roll-out, they held in-store promotions in the
major US markets featuring "have your picture taken with Claudia
Schiffer"
events. This event took place at the Fairlane Mall, Dearborn, Michigan,
in either Hudson's
or Lord & Taylor.
I had been wanting
to get my picture taken, looking like bf/gf, with some
highly unlikely supermodel to pass off as a Christmas Card. The kind of
stupid
cards that people send with photos of themselves wishing you a Merry
Christmas
and Happy New Year. I was going to title it:
"Merry Xmas from [insert
supermodel's name here] and Worldmikel".
What would have made it better was to
have us both waving like backwoods hicks ala The Beverly Hillbillies.
At the event with Schiffer, I proceeded to tell her, in short, what I wanted to do. She was not very accommodating. Besides having the caricatured Germanic gruffness and sternness, I am not sure she really understood what I was saying, let alone saw the humor in it. She wouldn't cooperate. So, I just went ahead and made the best of it. As I walked away with the Polaroid picture, I noticed that the film was defective and had all these emulsion spots all over it (see the miniature on the Guess photo holder). I went back and showed it to the photographer. They agreed to do another, but by this time she was even more miserable and there were still about 100 people in line behind me. That may have contributed to her bad attitude. The second picture was technically better, but the lighting was awful. Schiffer was made-up and well-powdered and I was sweating like a pig with the lights flaring from my face.
I had misplaced both of these pictures until recently (in May, 2001) when I found this one tucked in a box of old CD's. I scanned it and digitally eradicated the emulsion spots off our faces. I still don't like it. It still would not make a good joke Christmas Card.
Things you might want to know about Schiffer: she is close to my height (5'10"/177.8cm), but appears much taller because she was in heels. I could tell that she did have a pretty face under all that makeup. Her body really didn't look more special than many average college-age women.
