Even for those among us who don't follow fashion, the names and faces of Linda Evangelista, Iman, Paulina Porizkova, Amber Valletta, and Naomi Campbell are recognizable. But we bet that most people don't know the person who made them so — and who claims to have coined the term "supermodel' in the first place (sorry, Janice Dickinson, but it's not you).
John Casablancas, the man who founded Elite Model Management and is credited with raking in over $100 million in model bookings per year (and giving us some of the biggest names in the industry), has gotten the fashion-documentary treatment. And by the looks of the trailer, nothing was off-limits. The film follows his career from the '80s up until his death in 2013, and is narrated by Casablancas himself. Director Hubert Woroniecki, who worked in the modeling industry with Casablancas for over a decade, has spent the past five years digging through archives to sculpt a story that celebrates the career of one of the industry's founding fathers.
But why now — after decades and countless changes to the modeling industry — did Woroniecki decide to revisit where it all began? "John was a fun character whose life had all the entertaining qualities of a good fiction story — the 'American Dream' pushed to its limits with love, glamour, fame, success, betrayal," he told us. The betrayal he mentions might refer to the early 2000s when, following a BBC documentary that showcased the rampant drug use and sexual exploitation of young models within Elite, Casablancas stepped down from the helm of the company and turned on everyone from fellow agents to the supermodels whose careers he helped launch and finance. As The Independent reports, he called Heidi Klum a "talentles German sausage" and Naomi Campbell "odious."
Love, glamour, fame, success — sounds better than the next Bond film. But to make sure the movie gets delivered to your screens, Woroniecki needs some financial support to wrap things up, which he's seeking via a Kickstarter campaign. So far, at the time of this publishing, he's garnered $11,571 of his $55,310 goal and has 26 days to go. Check out the Kickstarter here to learn more, and be on the lookout for Casablancas on Netflix hopefully around June 2016.