Thinking about Gia Carangi

While in Philadelphia, the story of Gia Marie Carangi came back to my mind.

The model was born in Philadelphia in 1960 and, in the mid-to-late 70s, she moved to New York where she quickly became famous, ending on the cover of many international fashion magazines, Vogue included, and becoming the protagonist of many advertising campaigns and photo shoots.

Thanks to her modelling job, she started earning thousands of dollars a day, but fame and money didn't rescue her from her vulnerability.

Drugs – first cocaine, then heroin – turned into her comfort, but also into her path to destruction (and despite what Steven Meisel's 2007 editorial for Italian Vogue wanted us to believe about glamorous models in rehab, there wasn't anything glamorous in Gia's attempts to detox from drugs). Her career soon became affected by her drug abuse and Carangi tragically died in November 1986, after being diagnosed with AIDS.

To discover further Carangi's life, but also the darker side of the "glamorous" 70s and the Studio 54 scene (vital if, like me, you want to avoid getting trapped in the 70s revival designers have prepared for us come next Spring….), check out Stephen Fried's book Thing of Beauty (1993) or the 2003 documentary The Self-Destruction of Gia by JJ Martin (you will find a clip taken from the documentary embedded at the end of this post).

The documentary – featuring Gia, members of her family, actress and screenwriter Zoë Tamerlis, and Sandy Linter, the makeup assistant who had an on/off relationship with Gia – is better than Michael Cristofer's film Gia (1998), starring Angelina Jolie.

Yet, I've recently rewatched Gia for research reasons and took notes of some parts of the script you may find interesting for further inspirations or ponderings about the fashion industry and modelling. Here they are:

"At that time, everybody was tall, thin and blonde. Everybody posed, everybody gave you a look. But Gia was different."

"She was the first one who…who moved."

"They all try to do it now…give you an attitude, but she invented it."
                   
“Fashion is not art. Fashion isn't even culture. Fashion is advertising and advertising is money. And for every dollar you earn, someone has to pay."

"It was the right moment and being of the moment is everything in fashion. And, of course, the more you are of the moment, the faster you become of the past."

"Talking at all is not really required in this profession or even encouraged. Anything you may have to say you say through the camera, the image and the product. What comes out of your mouth is totally irrelevant."

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