Janice Dickinson talks Fashion and the new season of JDMA

True confessions time, I love Janice Dickinson’s crazy modeling reality show. 05/12/2008 - Janice Dickinson - The 2008 NBC Universal Experience Upfronts - Arrivals - Rockefeller Center - New York City, NY, USA © Anthony G. Moore / PR Photos

05/12/2008 - Janice Dickinson - The 2008 NBC Universal Experience Upfronts - Arrivals - Rockefeller Center - New York City, NY, USA © Anthony G. Moore / PR PhotosThe leggy glamazon has the healthiest self-deprecating sense of humor around. Dickinson is the kind of woman my dad refers to as a “hot-shit kinda broad.” I concur.The once queen of the catwalk has kept herself in tip-top shape, and has taken her savvy, experience and moxie into the business side of beauty. Her hit original series "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency" is now in its fourth season on Oxygen. Janice serves as mother-confessor, barker and ringer for her neophyte models.Along with her new partner (Otto modeling) who does the paperwork part she loathes, she has established a bona fide agency. Now it’s time to call central casting and see what fresh luminescent beauties have washed up upon the tar-ball laden shores of Tinseltown from all parts of the world.

All of these elements make for a great reality premise.Monsters and Critics spoke to Janice Dickinson and Stuart Krasnow at the recent summer TCA's at the Beverly Hilton and on the phone a few days ago in a follow-up about the new season of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency on Oxygen, beginning August 26 at 10:00 pm.Tell me what inspired the model house living situation to become an almost Big Brother House set-up for you?Janice Dickinson: I was just doing what I did before when I started my career about 32 years ago living in Paris at the (Christa Agency).When I was that young living in Paris, out of an agency house - it truly gave me an added advantage to get the jumpstart on what I wanted to achieve with my life in modeling.All I did was eat, sleep and exercise modeling. It was 24/7 modeling.Producer Stuart and I both wanted to incorporate that and to provide the boys and girls proper nutrition, health, romance, finance - all things that your average model won’t receive unless they’re, once again, living in a house like this. This is the first of its kind.I’m a pretty tough boot camp sergeant and I demand perfection in myself, and I expect it with the people around me - especially keeping the kids focused.
I don’t expect anything from the kids that I don’t do myself. When I wake up, I make the bed. I clean the house. After I clean the house, it’s exercise and then it’s nutrition. And then we go about our day. And that’s all before 7:30 in the morning, I might add. So the kids have to wake up pretty early to get a jumpstart on everyone else.I expect that because it is such a highly competitive industry.Stuart Krasnow: I want to add that I think if I had done this with any other talent, the first conversation would have been all right, how do we fake it? How do I sneak out of the house and sneak back in, in the morning?Janice lived there 24/7. She was in for the full run. I really can’t think of anybody else who really would do that along with a cast of a reality show.I think what she’s saying the schedule she keeps, her balanced energy, I almost think it was harder for the kids to be in the house than it was for Janice to be there.How do you feel about having a Transgender model in the agency?Janice Dickinson: I personally work with a transgender model in Paris, (Terry Toy), back during the Thierry Mugler Show, and she knocked the socks out of everyone until she got to the end of the runway and got very excited, and the dress started to bulge down by the waistline.(laughs) So it kind of like threw the audience off back in the early 80s. I see nothing wrong with transgender. I think it’s wonderful if the world would catch up to speed. Has your show gotten a fair shake for accuracy with the critics and the media?Janice Dickinson: On The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency - this is as accurate as it gets, trust me. The scenes that you see, when Nathan comes in and says, "Mom, we really need to add a plus size into the agency, the plus size category," he’s correct.I can’t live with it, though. It’s not something that I personally promote. Nevertheless, I do allow my son the room to experience in commercializing the agency.Stuart Krasnow: I also want to add Janice is an executive producer along with me on the show so Janice gets to see the cuts, has say in how she’s portrayed. And I think one of the things that being in a house really allowed us to show even more of this season than previous seasons is the full character that Janice is.I think people mistakenly think that Janice is this over-the-top caricature. And anybody who really knows Janice and any producer who respectively puts her onscreen knows that she’s so multifaceted that as much as Janice can have a side that’s really tough and extreme, she also has a side that’s very emotional.She has so much heart. And I think some of the best scenes that we have this season are when a model is upset and gets under the covers with Janice in her bed, and obviously it’s another female model who’s upset about something...Janice Dickinson: Whoa, no one got under the covers with me, pal.Stuart Krasnow: …but in a really sweet, almost like mother-daughter kind of a way. And I think that you’re really going to see a den mother side of Janice that I don’t think we’re used to seeing. And it’s actually very moving and real.Janice Dickinson: I eat and sleep for kids achieving their dreams. This allows me to give back in a field and an industry that I worship. I still want to remain in the picture. If I can’t be in front of the camera, I’m behind it. I take photographs. If I’m not taking the photographs, I’m dining with the clients.
If I’m not dining with the clients - it’s just all facets of the industry that I absolutely love - fashion.Who was your favorite mistake in love?Janice Dickinson: My favorite mistake in love was - has probably been myself. When you fall into a category when you’re a model and you’re in front of the camera -- this is in my early 20s -- and your editors, photographers, the press, your neighbors are all worshipping you and telling you, you are otherworldly, you begin to take it to - a little bit too far into a grandiose state which happened to me.I mean, I started to believe my own press for a period of time. Thus, bratty behavior comes into play. Tardiness begins to come into play. You know, things that - the negative things that can come along with being a bratty child.And I had to snap out of it really quickly to maintain my status as a supermodel. So I would have to...you want to know dirt on men. I know what you want(laughs). But, you know what, you read the books.I love your answer. You don’t take yourself so seriously and allow yourself to have fun with your “persona” for commercials...Janice Dickinson: May I ask you something? Are you a parent?Yes, I have two sons.Janice Dickinson: Because once you - after the fourth month of pregnancy, you can’t take anything seriously.No.Janice Dickinson: ...because everything is out of your control, honey. So it’s the kind of thing where... I hope I answered your question.Has the criteria for models changed in your lifetime for “supermodels?”Janice Dickinson: Oh absolutely. With what the network and the agency is trying to achieve on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, it’s a show that is so unique and different - the agency ethic.We are trying to bring diversity and equality into the agency with a vision that doesn’t quite fit the magazine and the editorial mold that’s out there as to date. For awhile, there was the Brazilians that came in and took over the industry.Then it was - now it’s the Russians. You know what? I want it to be the Americans.And that’s primarily what we’re doing. We have Americans, also we’ve got a Russian girl in the agency now. We’ve got a Japanese girl - just to diversify it a bit. But we’re trying to keep it all American.Who is the most important support person behind the scenes for your models on your show? Is it the hairstylists, the makeup artists, the costumer? Who’s the most important person that a model relies on?Janice Dickinson: The most important person a model has to rely on is the agent. The agent is the one that sees that the model isn’t wearing too much makeup or needs to put some more on, that she needs to cut her hair to keep up with the times or take it down.It’s the mentor and the agent, which is what I’m supplying, you know, for the girls with my experience - but mind you, I also need to add that without stylists, hair, makeup, (trap) services - just everybody around you, photographers, assistants, lighting guys, you don’t have what - it’s a collective team.
So you can’t have one without the other. You really can’t.Stuart Krasnow: I want to add, Janice, and I’m just going to be a little bit in support what you said because I think it’s hard for you to say this about yourself. As a producer behind the scenes, every model is obsessed with the idea of having more access to Janice.And they’re always coming to all of us saying when can I see Janice, can I come to up to her because we like everything to be on camera. And of course, sometimes they want to come up and do things not on camera.We insist it is on camera. Her time is dedicated to so many other things on the show and it’s literally a line-up when you arrive at the house in the morning of models that surround you when you walk into the house.I need to ask her this. I need to ask her that. They really, really do trust what she has to say and since these models are up for real jobs, and potentially real campaigns and real exposure -- it’s not an elimination show -- so every piece of information they get from Janice, it could be the difference between getting a job or not getting a job.
It is real and they want to have that information on camera, off camera and Janice -- against my better wishes -- insists on making sure that every one of the models has her cell phone number and is able to text her.Even when I will have breakfast with Janice, there’s a call or two from one of the models that’s been on the show with a question about something.
It goes way beyond what we documents on the show. Her relationship with them is very real and very genuine, and she’s very much in their lives on every level.

Wonderful.Janice Dickinson: My only regret is that I’m not really on my daughter’s 15-year-old radar. I wish my daughter had the same - she’s - as soon as she gets in - comes into the house it’s like lock the room and it’s like barricade away from me. But you know, I think that’ll change.When do you squeeze in “Janice time”?Janice Dickinson: The way to do it is, in actuality, meditation and yoga.
That allows me the decompression if I could - in a perfect world, I’d have an acupuncturist follow me around, you know, with a huge needle right through my brain.But the only way for me to do it -- and anyone else -- you have to take that time, that 20 minutes in the morning and in the evening, just to decompress. Otherwise, my heart will burst. It’s too much.Do you have your own sanctuary in the model house, can the models come into your bedroom?Janice Dickinson: No, never. Off limits. You have to - there has to be a decorum of modesty. I don’t walk around the house naked. I’m very modest with what we’re doing although you see some very revealing bathing suits. But they’re never allowed in my room, ever.We have Chris Ciccone, Madonna’s brother who set up the room because it was hideous. And he made it even more trashy and hideous by painting the walls red, putting in a surveillance system within the confines of my room which I might add for everyone that’s listening, is the beauty of the show because the models do not know they’re being observed by me -- the Dr. No of modeling -- 24/7 so they can’t get away with what they think they could get away with.Here’s the deal, when a model goes off on a shoot, they’re expected to book themselves into a hotel, sometimes with other models, makeup, hair, photographer, styling.On trips - I’ve been to Peru, China, Russia, Iraq and Iran. I’ve been everywhere and you have to be able to cohabit with people in order to keep the - keep your working relationship going.And you can’t be like having some hidden secrets because if it comes out on a job somewhere in the middle of Katmandu or for example where I was last November, in the middle of the rainforest in Brisbane, Australia for a month, you’re going to come up into some serious trouble.So I discovered that some of the models had eating disorders. Other models were having to have romantic trysts when it wasn’t allowed inside the house.You have to tune in and watch the show to uncover what I saw on those surveillance cameras which is why after two weeks on the show I was walking around like a zombie - exactly how I feel right now with the Olympics going on. I’m like obsessed with the television at night and I can’t stop watching Michael Phelps.Stuart Krasnow: I think with all these reality shows and these contestants and people that are on shows all the time now, there’s a certain awareness that they’re on camera and they get very savvy about it.And they always try to stay a step ahead of us. You will see as the show progresses, not in a million years did they expect that Janice herself was having the same access the producers had and really able to just go into her bedroom, hit a button - hidden inside of a mannequin by the way.You can see doors slide open as some sort of like glamorous, Dr. No and really be in the know and be able to see everything the models were doing, and really be able to watch it unedited and raw the same way we do.But, we weren’t filtering anything for Janice. She was really able to see it herself and come running out to us and go, "Oh my god, I’ve got to take care of this. When can I jump in?" So we really were doing a very unusual thing and it really worked out well.Janice Dickinson: You know, Stuart, it’s not that unusual to be a parent and set up nanny-cams...Stuart Krasnow: True.Janice Dickinson: ...when you go out on a date to see who’s messing with your babies - even your dog. I’m sorry. I’m going to take care of my kids no matter what. So thus, we came up with the cameras and thus, you will see entertainment like you’ve never seen on any show ever. It’s the first of its kind.Clarify a “proper romance” for a model.Janice Dickinson: Proper romance - where you don’t get in trouble - where one doesn’t get in trouble from falling too in love at a point in the industry where - I know, what does that mean?Eighteen to 22 basically is what - are the models’ ages, chronological ages that are living inside the house. Right now from 18 to 22, the models have to make a choice.Do they want to go out and have careers or do they want boyfriends or girlfriends or girlfriend to girlfriend, to boyfriend to boyfriend? You know what I mean?Stuart Krasnow: That are also very jealous and get in their way.Janice Dickinson: Oh my god, a goldfish makes these models jealous.A day in the life of Janice goes down how?Janice Dickinson: I can tell you exactly. I wake up, I pray. I meditate. I do yoga. I stretch. That’s just before I even like basically wake - open my eyes. It’s just ingrained in me to do this because here’s my motto: if I can dish it out to those models, I better be able to take it for myself.Example: I was hired to appear in a bathing suit for the Orbit commercial, Maui Melon Mint. I was also - we reenacted an advertisement for Orbit that appears in an advertisement in Maxim Magazine.And so if I’m going to put my butt in a bikini, my ass better be off the back of my kneecaps. So if I don’t look good, who am I to be doling out all these commands?So it’s kind of like I can drop trou and keep up with the kids. And there’s a lot of respect in that, you know, from the kids.