NOT SO MODEL BEHAVIOUR

The hypocrisy in the fashion and advertising industry over the Kate
Moss affair is nothing short of astounding

Dianne Rinehart Special to the Sun

One of my favourite movie lines is delivered by Sean Young to Kevin
Costner in the film No Way Out as they are going through security
gates to attend a high-powered Washington political party.

"Good thing this isn't a bullshit detector," Young says of the metal
detector, "or none of us would get in."

She was talking about life in politics, but she could just as easily
have been talking about life in the fashion industry if Super Model
Kate Moss's dramatic fall from the catwalk over her alleged snorting
of cocaine -- hitting the "cake" walk? -- is any indication.

This is not about defending drug use. Snorting drugs is nothing to
sniff at, clearly.

And, of course, no one wants a fashion icon portraying drug use as
chic to her young fans, do they?

Or, ahem, do they?

Hello? That's what she and countless other super models have been
being paid to do for the last couple of decades.

And how loud were we screaming when some of the biggest names in the
fashion industry in London, Paris, Milan, and New York were hiring the
biggest names in the advertising world in London, Paris, Milan and New
York, to deliver the biggest names in the modelling world in London,
Paris, Milan, and New York looking like they were stoned out of their
friggin' minds?

And how much are we all spending on perfumes variously named Opium,
Addict, Crave and Rush? Did we think they were named after flowers or
birds?

No, it's not what Moss was doing in her own time that was selling the
idea that doing hard drugs is chic. She actually looked scuzzy
snorting coke through a #5 note, and ironically may now -- with a
reported $9 million US in annual contracts at stake -- become the
poster child for Just Say No.

It was what she was hired to do during her working day by some of the
very fashion houses that are now pretending outrage that she might
actually be doing drugs, that is the height of hypocrisy.

Here's an idea: How about any one at a fashion house who demanded an
advertising agency deliver a "heroin chic" look to a fashion spread or
television ad resign?

Aren't they the ones -- not Moss -- promoting heroin chic? (Not to
mention starvation diets.)

And how about those icons in the advertising industry that put
together the bids that the fashion houses bought: That "heroin chic"
sells, and promised they could put together a team of art directors,
photographers, makeup artists, stylists -- and, oh yeah, models -- who
would deliver the dilated-eyed, slick with perspiration, crazed
I'm-ready-for-sex-because-I'm-too-stoned-to-say-no look that the
powers that be in London, Paris, Milan, and New York obviously feel
sells a lot of clothes for a lot of money. Could they be partaking in
illicit products, too?

And why would anyone feel Moss should be fired as a bad influence
because of her drug use when we have PQ leadership favourite Andre
Boisclair admitting that he used cocaine during the years he served as
a cabinet minister in the Quebec government and U.S. President George
W. Bush leading the world's most powerful nation -- and powerful youth
cultural influence -- though he has never come clean, so to speak,
about repeated news reports alleging he used cocaine.

No, it's no surprise that some people in the fashion industry -- like
some of those in our cabinets and boardrooms -- do drugs.

What is a surprise is the hypocrisy.

Which reminds me of former U.S. presidential hopeful Gary Hart who
denied he was having an affair and challenged the media to catch him
- -- and they did on a boat (why is truth stranger than fiction?) called
Monkey Business, indulging in some, er, monkey business.

How about some shots of the heads of fashion houses or their art
directors who determined this look should be used to sell clothes
doing what they do in their spare time? Why don't I think it's going
to be playing croquet while they sip yogurt drinks?

Moss is a beautiful and talented model -- and believe me, looking
beautiful for hours on end as you are pinned, prodded and poked by
stylists and photographers takes talent -- who has had a penchant for
abuse, it is true. And it is nothing to be admired or imitated.

But it was widely known. And it was sometimes why she was hired. What
better person, after all, to deliver the I'm-drugged-out-of-my-skull
look than someone who knows what it feels and looks like?

No, the big surprise is that anyone who fired her could pretend they
didn't know about her reputation (she entered rehab in 1998) -- before
they hired her -- and then go home and sip, snort, swallow and inhale
their own drugs of choice without choking.