Interviews From The Short Century. Marco Lupis

that can offer cheap manual labour, these countries need solid economic representation and a proper commercial union. We also need to stop dividing the world into two groups: the traditional Anglo-Saxon elite and poor countries that are there purely to be exploited. We should be celebrating the differences between people in each individual country, not trying to make everybody the same.

      

      

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      Claudia Schiffer

      

      

       The fairest of them all

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

       She was the most beautiful and highly paid woman on earth, and probably also the most censored. “I’m the only model who's never been photographed topless”, she used to boast. Even her multi-million-dollar contract with Revlon forbade her from posing nude.

       But everything changed when two Spanish photographers from the Korpa Agency lifted the veil, allowing the whole world to admire the legendary Claudia Schiffer's perfect breasts. The international press had a field day; only German weekly Bunte spared her blushes on the cover, and even they plastered the topless photos on a multi-page spread inside the magazine. Claudia protested furiously and announced she would be suing and seeking astronomical damages.

       I had a couple of contacts in the fashion industry, so I decided to strike while the iron was hot and try to arrange an interview with her for the Italian weekly Panorama . It was certainly no cakewalk, but after dozens of phone calls and protracted negotiations with her obstructive agent, my persistence was rewarded in August 1993, when I was invited to interview Claudia on a family holiday in the Balearics.

       This was a genuine scoop. Claudia had never previously spoken to the Italian press and I was the first journalist to be invited into the intimate family surroundings of her holiday home. This was the very place where the photos at the centre of the scandal had been taken: Port d’Andratx, an exclusive resort west of Palma on the island of Majorca, and the location for many years of a holiday home belonging to the Schiffer family.

       In 1993, Claudia had a particularly good reason for heading down there to relax. She had just finished playing herself in a long film / documentary entitled Around Claudia Schiffer, directed by Claude Lelouch's former assistant director Daniel Ziskind and filmed in France, Germany and the United States. Filming had just ended, and TV stations the world over were scrambling to acquire the rights.

      

      

       Just before I set off, I let it slip (probably not entirely by accident, if I’m honest) to a rather wealthy friend whose family owned a renowned tool company that I was going to Palma de Majorca to meet Claudia. At which point my friend assured me I wouldn’t need to book a hotel: “I've got a [magnificent hundred-foot sailing] yacht down there. There are five sailors and a cook swanning round Palma right now at my expense with nothing to do. At least if you head down there, they’ll have to work for their money! And you’ll get to enjoy a nice little cruise from Palma down to Port d’Andratx!”

       I didn’t need a second invitation, and so on the day of the interview I stepped down off my buddy's yacht on to the marina at Port d’Andratx after a two-hour journey from Palma. Giving a cheery wave to the crew, I headed for Café de la Vista, a nice little spot opposite the throng of moored yachts, where I was scheduled to meet Claudia at three-thirty.

       Surely no journalist had ever arrived for an interview in such style!

      

      

       *****

       I don’t have to wait long before an Audi 100 with a Düsseldorf plate rolls up. They’re here. Two men are in the front, and on the back seat I can see her ever-present agent Aline Soulier. ‘Where is she?’ I wonder anxiously. I’m not disappointed for long. A wavy-haired blonde appears from behind Aline and leans forward in her seat. “Hi, I’m Claudia,” she says, extending her hand and flashing me a smile. She's astoundingly beautiful, a mesmerising mix of Lolita and the Virgin Mary.

       No one gets out of the car. “There are paparazzi everywhere,” whispers Aline as we make the short journey to the family holiday home, a brick-red, single-storey villa. Leading the way, Claudia tells me I am the first reporter she has ever invited here, before introducing me to her family: “This is my little brother, my sister Carolin, my mother.” Claudia’s mother has a typically German look: short blonde hair, very refined and standing even taller than her five-foot-eleven daughter. Her father, a lawyer practising in Düsseldorf, is not here. Those in the know say he is the one who has orchestrated her success from the shadows, the man responsible for her fame as one of the world’s most beautiful women.

      

      

       It all started for you in a Düsseldorf night club, didn’t it?

       I was so young. One night, I was approached by the head of the Metropolitan agency, who asked me to work for him.

      

      

       How did you react?

       I said to him: “If you’re being serious, you can talk to my parents tomorrow.” I mean, people try all sorts of different chat-up lines in clubs. That could easily have been another, and not a very original one at that...

      

      

       Are you close to your family?

       Very. As a family, we have our feet on the ground. My father is a lawyer and my mother helps him with the admin side of things. They haven't been changed by my success; it takes a lot to impress them. Of course, they’re very proud of me, but to them it's just my job and they expect me to do it to the best of my ability.

      

      

       Aren't your siblings jealous?

       Of course not! They’re just proud of me, particularly my twelve-year-old brother. I have a sister who’s 19 and goes to university, so there's no competition between her and me, and finally I have a twenty-year-old brother and we get on great.

      

      

       Do you always come on holiday with them to Majorca?

       I have done ever since I was very young. I love this place.

      

      

       But now you're older, it looks like you find it hard just being able to go out for a walk around here...

       You're right. There are paparazzi everywhere, hiding in plants; it’s embarrassing. Every move I make is observed, studied, photographed... It’s not exactly a holiday if you look at it like that! (laughs ).