Kharkiv beauty in middle of fight between local Elite representatives and the powers that be at troubled modeling agency
Kamila Tokareva, a 16-year-old ballerina from Kharkiv, was supposed to represent Ukraine at the world finals of Elite Model Look-2000 in Geneva on Sept. 9. But she won’t participate in the event and nor will another finalist from Morocco.
The models’ refusal was caused by a conflict between the president of Elite Model Look, Christian Larpin, and former partner Omar Harfouch, who along with his brother, Walid Harfouch, have organized national Elite contests in Ukraine and Morocco since 1998.
Although Tokareva earned the right to represent Ukraine by being selected from among 4,000 contestants, her place in Switzerland might be taken by another girl who was chosen in Kyiv after a brief casting held by Ukrainian modelling agency BMG on Aug. 24.
“If the girl, whose name Elite keeps secret, represents Ukraine at the contest we will sue both Elite and the Ukrainian agency,” said Omar Harfouch at a press conference in Kyiv on Sept. 6.
The conflict broke out a few months ago when the Harfouch brothers demanded that the Elite competition be completely transparent, and that the media have access to the judging procedure to ensure that the models would be treated fairly by the jury.
This year the jury was made up mostly of Elite representatives, whereas in the past there were famous people from the fashion industry, such as Jean-Paul Gaultier and Wolfgang Joop on the jury.
Omar Harfouch worried that the make up of the jury created doubts about fairness.
“There is no point in participating if everything is decided beforehand. I have no doubts that Kamila is number one in the world this year, and I don’t want her to lose,” explained Omar Harfouch.
Elite Model Look, founded by American John Casablancas in 1983, is one of the richest and most prestigious modeling contests in the world. Supermodels Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista and Cindy Crawford got their start as Elite models. Ukrainian models Diana Kovalchuk and Victoria Sementsova won the international contest in 1996 and 1999, respectively.
After Elite’s reputation was struck by a sensational BBC report about sexual exploitation of models a year ago, John Casablancas resigned and his 33 percent share in the contest went to Swiss Christian Larpin who previously held various management positions in the agency, according to Swiss newspaper Le Matin.
Larpin then sold his rights to hold the world contest for five years to the company Super Nova Geneva SA, which was owned by Omar Harfouch.
“We were offered [an opportunity] to buy the license for five years for $10 million and paid $2 million for the first year, although after such a huge scandal one could buy it for nothing,” Omar Harfouch said.
Last spring the partners had a falling out and signed a secret agreement that required Harfouch to sell the license back to Look of the Year SA, run by Christian Larpin.
Yet the Harfouch brothers say they still have a chance to own Elite Model Look if Christian Larpin fails to buy a 33 percent share from one of the other co-owners, Alain Kittler or Gerard Marie, by the end of September.
Currently the Harfouch brothers own the right to organize only national contests in Ukraine, Egypt, Morocco, Albania and the Dominican Republic until 2002. However, one Elite representative would like to see them lose that right, too.
“The Harfouch brothers are impostors. They have no right to speak on behalf of Elite or about Elite models. Depriving them of the license to hold a contest in Ukraine or elsewhere is just a matter of time and legal formality,” said Vitaly Leiba, director of Moscow’s Red Stars model agency and the organizer of Elite Model Look in Russia. He held a press conference Aug. 11 in Kyiv on behalf of Elite and Christian Larpin.
“I only feel sorry for Ukrainian girl Kamila Tokareva who has became the ultimate victim in the situation,” he added.
Leiba’s and Elite’s attempts to reach Tokareva and convince her to go to Geneva scared the girl and her family, according to Kamila’s mother, Larysa Tokareva, who spoke at an Aug. 31 press conference in Paris.
Meanwhile, Elite Model Looks representatives are downplaying the boycott.
“In Elite we regret such incidents but it’s unlikely that this boycott was caused by moral problems,” Elite Model Looks press-service told the Associated Press.
