Hannah Pool: Lots of the supermodels are making comebacks. Is that what you’re doing?
Cindy Crawford: I certainly don’t want to repeat where I’ve been, and I never felt like I went away. There’s evolution and your path changes. I have a skin-care line, a home line and a furniture line. They keep me pretty busy. I go to product development meetings and marketing meetings. It’s half like being a model, because I have to do the commercials and the ads, and the other half is being a businesswoman. It’s a nice balance.
HP: There was a time when people talked of supermodels not getting out of bed for less than US$10,000. Was that true?
CC: Linda [Evangelista] probably regrets the day she said that. It was a crazy thing to say. There is a misconception, because every time you do a Vogue cover or something like that, you don’t really make any money. Then there’s other times where you do a big advertising campaign or a commercial where you make a tonne of money, and it averages out.
HP: Your look was athletic. After you it was about waifs. Did models become too thin?
CC: The girls who are models now, that’s just their body. Did fashion celebrate thinness more? That’s a different question. You can’t fault the models for that — they were just thin girls. Kate Moss, she eats. I’ve seen her eat, and she’s just thin. Fashion is all about extremes, and it’s constantly in flux. It’s just fashion.
HP: Fashion gets blamed for encouraging eating disorders.
CC: That’s a little bit of a stretch. I don’t know that much about eating disorders, but I’m certainly not one of the people they’ve blamed, because I’m not super-skinny. I think people want to find something to blame. An eating disorder is way more than a girl looking at a magazine and seeing a picture of a skinny model. Maybe that’s one tiny piece of the puzzle, but I think it’s a lot more about self-esteem and self-love and control, so it’s too simplistic to just blame it on models who are skinny.
HP: What does being in the fashion world do to a woman’s self-image?
CC: It’s good and bad. If you end up being able to work as a model, in some ways it’s a seal of approval, but it also puts a lot of pressure on you. I used to feel like I needed two hours of hair and makeup to look good — that was in the late 1980s, early 1990s, when hair was big and makeup was like full drag. Being at a runway show and changing backstage with 30 incredibly beautiful women brings out all your insecurities too.
HP: What do you see when you look in the mirror?
CC: I don’t spend that much time looking in the mirror. I’m so busy. Most mornings I’m getting kids ready for school and I spend more time helping my daughter pick out her outfit than I do my own, as most mothers do. I think I’m pretty accepting of myself. At the same time I feel like I’m taking care of myself and I’m holding together pretty good.
HP: A lot of models are incredibly young. Is that a good thing?
CC: It’s really a career for young people, when you don’t have any ties and you can fly all over and work long hours, and you can take it seriously. I can still do it, but I’m not quite as invested in it. I’m happy to do it, but at 4:30[pm] I want to get home because I have to do homework with my kid.
HP: Would you consider yourself a feminist?
CC: I guess, in some ways, but I also feel like I didn’t grow up thinking I had to prove I was equal to boys. I just assumed I was, because of the feminists before me. Do I feel women should earn the same amount of money as men? Absolutely, but those things seem a given to me.
HP: Does the fashion industry like women?
CC: We as the consumers, we as the women, have the power. If you don’t like something, don’t buy it. Don’t buy the magazine if you don’t like what it says. If you don’t like the image a brand is putting out, don’t buy it. What I really don’t agree with is people who complain about it but still support it. You’re giving your power away. If people don’t want skinny models, stop buying the magazine with the skinny model, and believe me those magazines will change fast. It’s business.
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday delivered an address marking the first anniversary of his presidency. In the speech, Lai affirmed Taiwan’s global role in technology, trade and security. He announced economic and national security initiatives, and emphasized democratic values and cross-party cooperation. The following is the full text of his speech: Yesterday, outside of Beida Elementary School in New Taipei City’s Sanxia District (三峽), there was a major traffic accident that, sadly, claimed several lives and resulted in multiple injuries. The Executive Yuan immediately formed a task force, and last night I personally visited the victims in hospital. Central government agencies and the
May 26 to June 1 When the Qing Dynasty first took control over many parts of Taiwan in 1684, it roughly continued the Kingdom of Tungning’s administrative borders (see below), setting up one prefecture and three counties. The actual area of control covered today’s Chiayi, Tainan and Kaohsiung. The administrative center was in Taiwan Prefecture, in today’s Tainan. But as Han settlement expanded and due to rebellions and other international incidents, the administrative units became more complex. By the time Taiwan became a province of the Qing in 1887, there were three prefectures, eleven counties, three subprefectures and one directly-administered prefecture, with
Among Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) villages, a certain rivalry exists between Arunothai, the largest of these villages, and Mae Salong, which is currently the most prosperous. Historically, the rivalry stems from a split in KMT military factions in the early 1960s, which divided command and opium territories after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) cut off open support in 1961 due to international pressure (see part two, “The KMT opium lords of the Golden Triangle,” on May 20). But today this rivalry manifests as a different kind of split, with Arunothai leading a pro-China faction and Mae Salong staunchly aligned to Taiwan.
As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
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