She studies English Literature, but the mathematics of being a student prostitute were too tempting to resist.

Ellie is 19 and will leave university with a £30,000 noose of debt around her neck. So, she takes £300 a time from clients while she studies to avoid a financial headache after graduation.

She told Loaded she has paid sex an average of twice a week with men she says range from “about 25 to probably 55 and 60”.

The teenager is one of an estimated 25,000 students in Britain whose financial desperation has forced them to turn to sex work to fund their studies – that’s one in 20 of those studying in the UK.

Around 100,000 students (one-in-five of Britain’s student population) have considered turning to sex work since university fees rose to a minimum of £9,000-per-year in 2012. 

Ellie said, “I’m going to be thousands of pounds in debt when I finish studying. Would I have become a sex worker without that debt hanging over me? Of course not.”

She started working as a student prostitute in February, after realising she was skint following the Christmas break.

If Ellie has paid sex twice a week in term time, it’s roughly £18,000 a year. The money beats minimum wage and 10-hour shifts at bars or supermarkets between studies.

“It happens at my flat. If I haven’t texted my friends to let them know I’m OK, they’d contact the police”

Ellie added, “There are days when I don’t feel great about it. Maybe I’ll be ashamed about it when I’m older. But it’s a reality, and I don’t feel ashamed right now. It’s not glamorous, I’m not doing this to live a wild life. I’m just doing it to keep my head above water.”

Her family don’t know, nor do friends from her home town.

She said, “It happens at my flat. I make sure one of my three best friends is aware it’s happening. If I haven’t texted to let them know I’m OK, they’d contact the police. It wasn’t as big a deal as I thought. At the end of the day, it felt like the simplest way of earning money really quickly.”

In an age where fees are so high, Ellie admitted she is jealous of her parents’ generation when tuition fees didn’t exist.

“I’d probably be working in a pub if that was still the case,” she said. “But it isn’t, and sex work is openly discussed as an option at my university. You don’t talk about it with lecturers, but among your best friends it’s a realistic ‘Is it worth it?’ kind of discussion.”

Ellie’s family and friends may not know, but her boyfriend does.

“He’s supportive,” Ellie said. “He’d rather I didn’t do it, but he knows the reality. I thought he’d freak out. He changed the subject at first, but now he says he’s OK so long as I’m safe. A male friend of a friend of his is a stripper. It’s just what goes on.

“I take all the precautions I can. The guys I see are fine with that. I’m maybe lucky, because I haven’t had the cliché of the violent punter. I feel a bit sorry for most of the men. They’re usually lonely rather than the psychos people may think they’d be.”

A three-year study by Swansea University called the Student Sex Work Project (SSWP) reported in April 45 per cent of Britain’s 25,000 students who sell their bodies do so to avoid debt. The study concluded 63 per cent use sex work to fund a more luxury lifestyle.

Students earn an average £150 for half-an-hour of webcam sex, or £30 per naked selfie. Sex work industry experts have warned students beaming images of their bodies over the web could come back to haunt them years later when they’re in jobs, and could cost them employment if they’re found out by bosses.

Student sex work isn’t a women-only industry: one-third are male. This means around 8,500 male students in Britain are selling their bodies.

The SSWP surveyed 6,750 students for their report. Its author Dr Tracey Sagar said, “Males may fall through the student support net because they aren’t associated with sex work.”

“Maybe I’ll be ashamed about it when I’m older. But I’m not doing this to live a wild life. I’m just doing it to keep my head above water”

Researchers at Swansea University have called on universities to do more to support those involved, just as the English Collective of Prostitutes has campaigned for the government to offer protective services for sex workers.

Dr Brooke Magnanti’s diary of her adventures was published anonymously under the pen name Belle de Jour. It was later turned into ITV’s Billie Piper series Secret Diary Of A Call Girl. Dr Magnanti famously said she started working as a call girl to fund her studies. But sex work is obviously now an open business and not the stuff of ITV drama.

Many escort agencies have student categories on their sites and target students on freshers’ week by advertising for new blood on online student networks.

London-based agency Haute Girls advertises having students on its books. It states on its website, ‘Faced with the options of poorly paid term time jobs and more lucrative escorting, a cash-strapped London student may turn to the latter, especially when escorting gives them the extra time and flexibility to study.’

The phrase, “I’m only stripping to get money for my studies” used to be a cliché restricted to the US, with its soaring and prohibitive university payment system.

But Britain’s university fees regime has been criticised for creating the most stratified, least socially mobile and cruelly unfair society in UK student history.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has apologised for the party’s introduction of student fees in 1998. He said, “I opposed those changes at the time, as did many others, and now we have an opportunity to change course.”

Corbyn added a plan to change the structure of university fees to help students could be funded either by a seven per cent rise in national insurance for those earning over £50,000 a year and a 2.5 per cent higher corporation tax, or by slowing the pace at which the deficit is reduced.

If his plans ever come to fruition, it will still be too late to help students like Ellie.

Ellie’s name was changed at her request for this interview.

the secret economic thesis of a student call girl

Millions of wankers went into meltdown last month when news spread Sasha Grey was dead.

The tale went that the former S&M porn star had been moonlighting as a nurse for the Russian army when she was captured by Ukrainian militants who filmed themselves molesting her before they dismembered her with an axe.

After the rumour was carried by newspapers and websites, Grey jumped on Twitter and denounced it as a hoax. Apparently it had been a bizarre test by anti-Kiev propagandists to see if pro-separatist Russians were gullible enough to share social media rumours about Ukrainian depravity.

Her millions of fans panted sighs of relief after she posted news it was a weird prank – none of them would have wanted to think about tragedy in Ukraine when cracking one off to any of her 315 porn films. Grey wasn’t happy about being a very minor part of the violent conflict in Ukraine that has cost almost 7,000 lives since April 2014.

She bit back at Russian propagandists by seething on Twitter, ‘People are dying. People are losing family members and bullshit outlets mock the deceased with fappery.’

It was ironic she referenced the Hollywood ‘fappening’ in her response given she was happy to document every gaping moment of her sex life when she was working in porn.

But never mind international tragedy.

Grey now wants to promote the art she’s been creating since she left porn in 2011 aged 23.

She’s gone from being dubbed ‘the dirtiest girl in the world’ (Grey has licked toilet bowls during her porn flicks) to being a novelist, DJ, singer and Nietzsche-loving amateur philosopher.

Grey was on the promotional trail last year to promote Open Windows – a film in which she played an actress and Elijah Wood her stalker.

She talks here about her continuing battle to move on from porn and reveals how an unhinged fan targeted her in reality while she was shooting the film with Wood.

Grey also gushed about how she’s on an existential quest to find her “strong female voice” and why she’ll never return to the world of triple-X.

Her eternal problem remains, however, that she is still one of the highest-searched stars on PornHub.

Fuck Slaves, Anal Cavity Search 6, Throat: A Cautionary Tale and Babysitters.

They are the only films that have earned Grey any acting awards so far.

For Fuck Slaves, Grey picked up a porn gong for Best Three-Way Sex Scene. Babysitters saw her lap up accolades for Best Oral Sex Scene. And Anal Cavity Search resulted in an award for… Best Anal Sex Scene.

Grey swallowed a lot of praise in the porn industry after Throat: A Cautionary Tale got her an adult video award for Best Oral Sex Scene.

That lot was only four years ago.

Smoky-eyed, sylph-thin Grey did a massive 315 porn films in her five-year career as America’s ‘princess of porn’ from 2006 to 2011. One dedicated fan has calculated it would take eight days, 58 minutes to watch her oeuvre back-to-back.

She didn’t get any awards for the scene where she licked a toilet bowl. That video is called Sasha Grey Anal Licks Toilet Like A Dog, and it was promoted with the scene description, ‘Sasha Grey is one nasty ass slut with Chris Charming. After being forced to lick a toilet bowl, this babe goes right to work deepthroating his massive white shaft before being nailed in the ass. She takes his wang in various nasty ass positions before swallowing a load of gooey nut butter.’

“I saw a lot of people die, a lot of people go to jail and a lot of people become addicted to crystal meth, coke or heroin when they were only 16 or 17”

When Grey was in porn she boasted she used “all her holes”, earned at least £130,000 a year, contracted STDs and was into “spitting, slapping, choking, submission and sensory depravation”. She has insisted none of it was “abusive” and said the only acts out of bounds for her were “anything to do with children or animals”.

Now things are different and Grey has moved into mainstream movies. The only problem is, unlike her turns in porn movies, her performances in Hollywood films have been panned.

Grey’s breakthrough role in the world of mainstream flicks was playing a high-end escort in Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 film The Girlfriend Experience.

Reviews were horrific and Grey returned to the grind of porn after critics sneered her performance was, in the words of one hack, ‘just shit’.

She made Seinfeld: A XXX Parody and The Butt Sex Bonanza before her next big break came in the mainstream. Grey’s performance in The Girlfriend Experience caught the eye of Entourage creator Doug Ellin.

He cast Grey as herself in the seventh series of Entourage, as the girlfriend of lead character Vince – an opportunity about which she gushed, “You can’t get any better.”

Entourage was the start of the end of her porn career. In 2011 Grey announced her retirement from the industry by saying she was quitting while she was “on top” because she had done “everything” she wanted to do in the industry.

She said at the time, “I didn’t feel there was anywhere else for me to go. I outdid my goals in that industry.” When Grey, now 27, starred in Open Windows opposite Elijah Wood critics smirked it wasn’t the first time she’s performed with a man who has the surname ‘Wood’.

Again, the reviews were savage.

One critique of Open Windows by Variety sneered there was too much wooden acting without the presence of Elijah Wood.

Variety’s critic said about one scene, ‘Trembling with mock fear and loathing in a partially open bathrobe, Grey could be enacting a more-twisted-than-usual bondage-porn scenario.’

Actress Jill Goddard was Grey’s character in Open Windows – a diva trying to shed her image as a Hollywood badgirl. The film was a failed attempt at high-tech Hitchcockianism – a modern mashup of Rear Window and Rope. It told how Jill was the object of Wood’s character Nick Chamber’s rabid affections. Directed by Spanish cinema trickster Nacho Vigalondo (of Time Crimes and Extraterrestrial), the film unfolds using footage flashing up on Nick’s computer screen, and takes in plotlines involving stalking, privacy, hacking, surveillance, blackmail and murder.

Grey revealed art imitated life and there were two parallels with her own life and the movie.

Firstly, she said she is fighting for respectability, just like her character Jill, in her continuing battle to become established in Hollywood.

Second, while Grey was shooting the flick about a stalker she was suffering in reality at the hands of her own demented fan.

Grey said, “Jill has had a really successful career but she doesn’t feel respected. She wants to change. She was portrayed as the bad-girl actress of her generation and looked at as a second-class citizen. When she wants to change she’s met with two forces – forces from her internal circle of friends and managers, and this force from outside in Nick.

“In one respect I’m used to being very public and open about my life. But then at the same time, I don’t know what it’s like to be an actress like Jill. But she deals with fame in a different way than I’ve had to deal with it. I’ve had to expose myself in a different way, therefore I’m less interesting to people because I have nothing left to expose, so in that respect it’s different.

“But I’ve definitely had to deal with criticism and scrutiny and online haters and cyber stalkers. Those things are very real and very, very scary. While we were shooting the film, I was dealing with something very scary so I had a lot to bring to the film and I’m glad I’m involved.

“It’s a very real thing for me so it was a good experience. Acting has set me on a path to find a strong female voice.”

Grey was born Marina Hantzis in North Highlands, California. She was the youngest of three children and her parents, a devoutly Catholic mum and a mechanic dad, split when she was five.

From that point Grey had minimal contact with her father, who she says always supported her choices and just told her “not to fuck up” when she told him she was in porn.

“I’ve had to deal with criticism, scrutiny and cyberstalkers. Those things are very real and very, very scary”

Grey’s father died in June. She marked the occasion by posting a picture of Lake Garda on Facebook and referenced Sartre in a message next to the image. Grey wrote, ‘Difficult times are always easier with someone by your side. But as Sartre said, “I can not meditate on the sea”… however in this case it’s a lake. Point being there’s no right or wrong way on how to deal with loss.’

Grey reckons being exposed to the harsh realities of life from an early age helped her toughen up. She has said, “I saw a lot of people die, a lot of people go to jail and a lot of people become addicted to crystal meth, coke or heroin when they were only 16 or 17.”

Surprisingly, Grey says she was the last of her friends to lose her virginity, although it still happened at the tender age of 16.

Like many an actress, she waited tables to save for her move to LA before she issued adult film directors with a porn ‘manifesto’ that announced her entry into the adult entertainment business. It vowed she was up for any sexual act and said she wanted to elevate porn films to the level of performance art.

Part of the manifesto read, ‘Most of the XXX I see is boring and does not arouse me physically or visually. I am determined and ready to be a commodity that fulfills everyone’s fantasies.’

When choosing her XXX alias, Grey didn’t go down the traditional porn star name-game route of combining the name of your first pet and her mother’s maiden name.

Sasha Grey is a combination of the German industrial musician’s name Sasha Konietzko and Oscar Wilde’s story The Picture Of Dorian Gray. There’s also a dash of the “scales of grey” measurement from sexologist Alfred Kinsey’s grade of sexual orientation. Grey proclaims herself bisexual on the scale.

Grey followed up the vows made in her porn manifesto by asking her first XXX co-star to punch her in the gut during their scene to make it more ‘real’. She was 18. He was 50 – and he nobly refused to give her a dig in the stomach.

Despite her apparent eagerness to elevate porn to the height of performance art, Grey has since claimed her boyfriend Ian Cinnamon, who she started dating when she was 16 and he was 29, forced her into the industry. She claimed he told her he was a US spy who needed her to do adult films as it would be the perfect cover for his James Bond lifestyle.

Grey said Cinnamon inflicted years of physical and mental abuse on her and she now has a restraining order against him.

Despite her mainstream movie appearances Grey still battles every day to reinvent herself. She constantly flaunts her apparent appetite for art and literature online to show she has put her past in the past. Grey constantly references her beloved Sartre, Baudrillard, Nietzsche, the French new wave and Italian neorealist cinema on all her social networks.

No matter how deep and philosophical she tries to get, Grey can’t get away from the fan comments that get posted alongside her social network posts – telling her they want to see her ‘ass and gash’ again ‘instead of all this book shit’.

Maybe that’s why she’s published two books.

Grey’s first tome was a photo diary that documented her days in porn. A Madonna-style herpes-and-all coffee table book, her photographic hardback Neü Sex was filled with photos of Grey with her make-up smudged and mascara running after porn shoots, and shots of her wearing the plastic pig nose she used to sport in rough humiliation scenes.

Neü Sex contains a section called ‘The Cum Chapter’ written by Grey. Part of it reads, ‘Come – what is that if not a synonym for God? I’m going to state for the record: I’m a true believer. I worship come.’

Grey continues in her ode to jizz, ‘I like to guess what he’s had for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in-between from the way it tastes and the way it smells. Salty, bitter, sweet, sour and smoky. Beer, coffee, asparagus, banana, pineapple, chocolate. Sometimes it’s runny like half-cooked egg whites, sometimes thick and lumpy like semolina, sometimes both of those at the same time. And sometimes it’s smooth like cough syrup, which is how I like it best, because it goes down so easy.’

About the chapter, Grey has said, “When I was just discovering sex I thought come was disgusting. And then when I started shedding myself of those stereotypes ­­­­– what I’m supposed to think is sexy and what I’m supposed to think is dirty – and I started to really enjoy it. Once you feel that confident as a woman, you don’t have to think it’s disgusting because we’re told it’s disgusting.”

She also writes in Neü Sex about Sartre’s “philosophy of the gaze”. Grey says in the book, ‘As individuals we are what others perceive us to be. They objectify us, and in turn we objectify ourselves. What’s important is how we redefine ourselves.’

Then there came Grey’s first novel.

Suffered for her Sartre

It was published after E. L. James’ Fifty Shades Of Grey trilogy and its plot isn’t far off the S&M best-sellers. Grey’s The Juliette Society follows a sexually restless student girl who gets inducted into an underground bondage society – a sort of Fight Club for the S&M world.

The semi-tongue-in-cheek hardboiled writing, while not exactly Raymond Chandler, actually isn’t bad.

Grey says about penises in the novel, ‘It doesn’t have to be big, but it definitely has to be hard and operated by someone with a licence to drive. Because there’s no point banging hard on the accelerator if you don’t know how to apply the brakes, turn the wheel, or shift gears. And that gear stick? If you want to put it in my box, you better know how to use it.’

Her book was published in 20 territories around the world, and Hollywood has already snapped up the film rights – a sign she is finally cracking the business.

Yet, still there’s no getting away from her past.

Getting some mainstream Wood

Grey is now viewed with disdain by much of the porn community.

One of her former adult movie co-stars James Deen (their films together included I Wanna Bang Your Sister) claimed, “Her manager dropped her because in the Entourage meeting apparently she had this whole freak out about how porn ruined her life. The second they left the meeting, in the elevator she was like, ‘I think I’ll get the part now’, and the manager was like, ‘Are you serious? You just said that porn ruined your life and you’re just laughing about it now? What was that, fake?’”

“The difference between Hollywood and porn? Money”

There are online blogs dedicated to how Grey is a “vapid bitch” who has duped fans into thinking she’s smart by name-dropping philosophers at every turn. She’s also been attacked by feminists and America’s reactionary right.

When Grey went on a Tyra Banks show about porn stars who had boyfriends she said after she was set up and ridiculed by the way the episode was edited.

When she tried to promote children’s reading, parents wanted her banned from giving talks at schools. But Grey persists with trying to build a showbiz career, giving faint hope to LA’s hollow-eyed drug-ravaged porn actresses they will be able to do likewise.

Porn again

Grey says she has a picky policy now when it comes to choosing “projects”. She added, “If someone comes to me and asks me to work on a project you have to prove to me you can work in that context. If it’s a filmmaker I don’t know I have to watch what they have done before I even read the script to see if they’re capable of telling a story.

“If it’s a bigger project I want to find a character that is an outlet for my expression. My career is now obviously going in a new direction and I am looking for a strong female voice – that’s what I’m most interested in now.”

It’s odd Grey claims she’s so particular – she said she sees only one fundamental difference between the Hollywood studio system and the porn game.

Grey sighed with more than a hint of world-weariness, “I always like to say the difference between porn and Hollywood is that Hollywood just has more money.”

sasha grey: alive but not licking anymore

Unless you’re a Star Wars anorak, you probably wouldn’t recognise her if she walked past you in the street.

Daisy Ridley’s got the sort of plain, wholesome English face that makes her blend into the crowd. But in a few weeks she will become one of the biggest stars in the galaxy when she appears in the upcoming Star Wars juggernaut, Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

She first got geeks itching when she appeared in a photo of the new Star Wars Episode VII cast that came out last April.

Fans soon discovered very little. Ridley, aged 23, had her first notable role in Casualty in 2013 – meaning no one in America knew who she was.

So how did the girl, whose scenes in the second Inbetweeners movie were cut, end up doing so galactically well, and so far, far away from her birthplace in central London?

These are the top 10 things you need to know about the girl set to take over the universe, including details on the only scene in which you’re likely to see her naked for a while… and it’s probably not what you think.

1

School-friends in high places

Schoolmates

The youngest of five, Ridley trained as an actress at Hertfordshire performing arts school Tring Park until she was 18. Before Ridley, Tring Park’s most famous former pupils were X Factor finalist Ella Henderson and Downton Abbey actress Lily James.

Ridley said she was only sent to the school as, in her words, “I was very naughty… my mum thought if I was busy, I’d be better.”

Tring Park’s marketing director Miriam Juliver said of Ridley, “Daisy specialised in musical theatre. She’s bright, hard-working and very talented.”

2

Acting is in her genes

In the family

Ridley’s great-uncle was Arnold Ridley, who played Private Godfrey in Dad’s Army. Her dad Chris is a photographer and one of Ridley’s sisters is model Kika-Rose, signed with Models 1 – the same agency that represents Erin O’Connor.

3

Her big breaks were Casualty… and playing dead

Ridley made her TV debut in Casualty, starring as a snotty girl called Fran who sets out to enjoy a day at the funfair with her mate Robyn (regular cast member Amanda Henderson) before she gets trapped under a broken ghost train carriage and needs rescuing.

Things got more painful for Ridley in her next TV gig – playing the part of a naked and scarred corpse in Silent Witness.

Dead good

4

She’s been told to shut it about Star Wars

Her force is about to awaken

In one interview Ridley let slip her character Rey is the daughter of Han Solo and Princess Leia. She’s been a lot quieter since about plot developments, as her contract demands.

5

She’s quietened down online

Ridley may have posted this fairly intimate video on her Instagram of her in bed watching the new Star Wars VII trailer.

But Ridley has gone quieter than she used to be elsewhere on the web. She removed one of her original showreels after getting the Star Wars part, apparently so fans could focus on her new character (or to whitewash previous embarrassing acting efforts.)

“I’m so proud of what I’ve done before,” said Ridley about the deletion. “Everyone wants just to see me as Rey and not as the people I’ve played before, even though the jobs I’ve done before are amazing and obviously led me to this incredible point.”

6

Spot her in Mr Selfridge

Along with her Casualty and Silent Witness parts, Ridley popped up as Roxie Starlet in Mr Selfridge, in which she managed to progress past not being injured or murdered. Her TV CV also features bit-parts in E4 youth drama Youngers and Matt Berry’s chucklesome sitcom Toast Of London.

7

She was cut from the Inbetweeners sequel
(a good thing for anyone’s career)

It was for the best

Ridley’s appearance in The Inbetweeners 2 had to be cut due to her Star Wars commitments.

Inbetweeners co-creator Iain Morris admitted he was sad to have to edit Ridley out. “Daisy was in the opening of the film,” he added. “We reshot the opening because the script didn’t work. We desperately wanted Daisy to come back and do it because she’s brilliant and really funny. But by that point she was doing Star Wars.”

Ridley is still included in the deleted scenes DVD extras, but it’s not advisable to sit through the film.

8

Scream queen

There will be an opportunity to catch Daisy on the big screen (or, more likely, straight-to-DVD screen) before the prefix ‘Star Wars’ is permanently welded to her name. She stars in low-budget horror film Scrawl, out this winter. It looks almost as good as The Inbetweeners 2.

9

She has a good-looking actor boyfriend

Young love

Ridley has been in a long-term relationship for years with chiselled actor Charlie Hamblett. Like his girlfriend, he’s about to be thrust into bigger and better things thanks to his part in The Secret Agent, also featuring Vicky McClure and Toby Jones, out next year.

10

Grime princess

Ridley loves grime and has appeared in the video for Wiley’s hit, Lights On, looking edgy with a beanie, chain and non-branded vodka. The irony being that Lights On is a pop tune and not remotely grime.

daisy ridley: from naked corpse to galaxy ruler

Seventies New York was soundtracked by Chic and Blondie, snowed in cocaine and steeped in pre-AIDS promiscuity – all while the city careened into bankruptcy and crime, and a generation mourned the death of ’60s idealism.

At the epicentre of the Studio 54 mayhem was Chris von Wangenheim. If you were deemed glamorous enough to be permitted entry to the club, or your name was Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol or Grace Jones, you were shot by the photographer.

In the ’70s, German-born von Wangenheim was, along with Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin, known as one of ‘The Terrible Three’.

“The best things in life begin with C: champagne, caviar, cash and cocaine”

But after aristocratic von Wangenheim died in a car crash in 1981 aged 39 he was overshadowed by Newton, Bourdin and then David Bailey. Yet of the ‘Terrible Three’, von Wangenheim’s images of women were the most extreme. He had a penchant for taking oiled-up, puffy-haired, fur-clad models and photographing them chained up, gettting tattooed, being bitten by menacing dobermans and being licked by horses between their spread legs.

One of his shots had American model Patti Hansen (Keith Richards’ wife) drenched in milk with a car ablaze in the background. One of his advertising shots involved a bloodied bra and a gun – and later there was the lesbianism and needles in his portraits.

Armed with a camera and dangerous

Von Wangenheim’s mission was to reflect the female liberation of the ’70s, but blend it with the darkness of the Big Apple’s crime and corruption. He worked in the days of New York grime portrayed in Taxi Driver, in which Travis Bickle’s fixation with ridding the streets of the “scum, junkies and skunk pussies” would have been totally understandable to the city’s residents.

The definitive book of the photographer’s work, Gloss: The Work Of Chris von Wangenheim, has been published to celebrate his decadent style. Designer Marc Jacobs backed it by holding the launch party for the book, and here we present a dissection of von Wangenheim’s calling card images. 

Von Wangenheim’s renaissance has a lot to do with the days in which we are living.

Just as the backdrop to von Wangenheim’s image was glamour, crime and corruption, we have superficial celebrity and pornography pumped into homes to dumb down nations and distract from the horrors of terrorism, government corruption and global financial meltdowns.

1

Girls With Horse
1975

Neigh bother

Horses are heavily fetishised in von Wangenheim’s photography – not only because he loved the sensationalist mischief of including hints of bestiality in high-fashion shoots.

There’s also a very personal reason behind his fixation on putting a filly in focus. Von Wangenheim’s father Konrad, a German Army captain, won a gold medal in equestrianism at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Konrad was captured by the Soviets in 1944 when von Wangenheim was three, and remained imprisoned until long after World War II ended. In 1953, a week before he was finally due to be released, Konrad committed suicide.

Although von Wangenheim didn’t inherit his father’s horse-riding ability, this 1975 photo was typical of his equine homages. Another shows a horse nuzzling between the legs of a brave model.

2

Tied Up
1978

Pretty tied up

Von Wangenheim was heavily influenced by the dark glam of 1920s Germany and Bob Fosse’s 1972 film Cabaret. The photographer arrived in New York at a time when the city was getting bleak. Its local government was on the verge of bankruptcy that peaked in an incident in 1977 when there was a 25-hour power blackout in the middle of a heatwave.

To distract themselves, and with cocaine suddenly flooding in, the city’s residents were desperate to get off and get on one. This attitude, and so much more, is captured in images such as Tied Up, taken in 1978. Von Wangenheim told Time magazine in 1977, “Violence is in the culture – so why shouldn’t it be in pictures?”

3

Regine & Angeleen
1975

Porno chics

A lesson in how to get your wife to cop off with another woman while you watch. The model on the left is Regine Jaffry, who von Wangenheim met in 1971 when she was hired by Revlon for one of his advertising shoots. They married the following year and had a daughter, Christine.

On the right is Angeleen Gagliano, who dated another photographer, Bob Anderson. Gagliano was a trained horse rider and posed in several of von Wangenheim’s other horsey photographs.

4

Bianca Jagger
1977

Jagger’d edge

Mick Jagger’s wife Bianca was the epitome of Studio 54 style. She attended the club’s opening night in April 1977. A week later, Bianca rode into the club on horseback, which must have been von Wangenheim’s ultimate fantasy.

Or so everyone thought. In April this year, Jagger said she only rode the horse once she was already inside the club.

“I made the foolish decision to get on it for a few minutes,” she said. “As an animal rights defender, I find the insinuation that I would ride a horse into a nightclub offensive.”

Jagger may now be intent on injecting boredom into the tales of legend on which Studio 54 was built. Action film godfather Joel Schumacher isn’t one who wishes to demythologise the club, or its debauched reputation. He recalled about the nightspot, “There wasn’t a lot of information about drugs at the time. People were pounding lines of cocaine in front of everyone.”

No-one indulged harder than von Wangenheim, who said, “The best things in life begin with the letter C: champagne, caviar, cash, cocaine.”

5

Gia Carangi
1978

Wild beauty

One of von Wangenheim’s more restrained snaps (aside from the blush of nipple) features one of history’s wildest models, and the snapper’s most enduring muse.

Gia Carangi was the world’s first supermodel and, although she looks years older, was aged 18 when this image was taken. Eight years after it was taken she was dead of AIDS-related complications.

Carangi preferred the grit of New York punk club CBGB over the gloss of Studio 54, and she’s universally hailed as the world’s original supermodel.

In the early 1980s she sank into heroin addiction and when track marks started to become visible in Carangi’s shoots (one of which was for Vogue) her work offers started to dry up.

Carangi ended up working in the café of a nursing home before dying of Aids in 1986. Her life was dramatised by one of Hollywood’s wildest actresses, Angelina Jolie, who played Carangi in the 1998 HBO drama Gia. Von Wangenheim said she was the perfect clotheshorse, adding, “Fashion photography is a way to sell clothes, and the way to sell clothes is through seduction.”

6

Gia Gets Tattooed
1980

Agony and ecstasy

One of von Wangenheim’s final classic images, this is Carangi getting tattooed in 1980.

A leather-clad tattooist inflicting close-up pain while appearing to take a model from behind was vintage von Wangenheim but, by then, he was getting bored of his career choices.

His marriage to model Regine Jaffry was over, and he said he wanted to move away from bondage imagery. By the time of von Wangenheim’s death his new girlfriend Christine Starfield said he had shunned the party lifestyle and was studying Buddhism.

On his death, Jaffry inherited the rights to von Wangenheim’s photos. She had quit modelling and shunned the fashion industry, allowing her late husband’s work to become forgotten.

Gloss, written with Jaffry’s cooperation, gloriously opens up his work again.

“He was driven,” says Jaffry in the book. “He ate, slept and shat photography.”

Gloss: The Work Of Chris von Wangenheim by Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha is published by Rizzoli priced £60.

the gloss and grit of the man who shot the ’70s

It’s almost a decade since Kaya Scodelario played in-yer-face schoolgirl Effy Stonem.

She landed the part in Channel 4’s teen-bait series Skins while being bullied at school and has said she’s been uncomfortable in the spotlight ever since.

The pensive 23-year-old is going to have to get used to it – she’s already filled seats by starring in The Maze Runner. Next year she fills Keira Knightley’s boots as the leading lady in the next instalment of Pirates Of The Caribbean.

We learned it’s a mix down to earth pleasures (including a quiet pint in a beer garden) mixed with grand gestures – such as surprising her with Cartier jewellery – get her going.

1

Brush up on your music knowledge

Scodelario’s music taste is as impressive as her looks. She counts herself as an “old soul” in her preferences. She says, “I always listen to The Rolling Stones when travelling or in a hotel in the middle of nowhere.” Also partial to Bob Marley, The Who and Arctic Monkeys.

2

Move to America

Scodelario has recently upped sticks for a home in New York’s hipster capital Williamsburg, where she hangs out at local dive bar Pete’s Candy Store. In London, you might be lucky to catch her in Camden or Kentish Town where, she says, “I love a pint in a beer garden.”

3

Buy her jewellery

Cartier bracelets are “pretty amazing” she says. Unfortunately, her fiancé, American actor Benjamin Walker already surprised her with one.

4

Appreciate feminist films

Scodelario reckons she’s watched Thelma And Louise close to 100 times, so you’d best at least pretend to appreciate Brad Pitt in his prime and the eternal bond of female friendship.

5

Give her space

Scodelario moved into her own flat in North London in her teens and declares, “It’s important for women to be independent and strong.”

6

Learn Portuguese

Scodelario’s mother is Brazilian and she spends most of her holidays in Brazil. There, she enjoys picanha (barbecued beef) and hanging around with her family while speaking as much Portuguese as possible. So get bilingual.

how to satisfy… kaya scodelario

Her rags to riches story is repeated like folklore each month in men’s mags.

She got naked for Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines video, then got an acting gig in Gone Girl which involved her getting naked. Then she got a job as eye-candy in the DJ film We Are Your Friends.

Now the 24-year-old says she’s misunderstood.

The model insists she has more depth than everyone thinks and says she keeps being cheated out of “deep” roles because Hollywood bosses typecast her only as the “hot girl” who is required to… yes, get naked a lot.

Ratajkowski has also declared she wants to find something “meaningful” to do with her life beyond the “superficiality” of modelling and acting.

Her existential crisis clearly hasn’t yet involved reading Aristotle yet. The Macedonian wrote in his Ethics the wise take ‘delight in privacy’.

In celebration of Ratajkowski’s rejection of the sage’s advice, we’ve compiled the 25 best moments from her @emrata Instagram account.

1

Every woman looks like this at the gym

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Sep 14, 2015 at 5:05am PDT

2

And this

Um yes, it's a little warm in LA @oliviamalone @marissajoye

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Sep 16, 2014 at 11:47am PDT

3

Shopping for trousers

Weekend going ⬆️

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Sep 4, 2015 at 10:59pm PDT

4

Notice anything new?

Wiggin' out

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Sep 11, 2015 at 2:12pm PDT

5

Watch her dirty dancing

Now that I can dance!

A video posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Aug 23, 2015 at 10:40am PDT

6

All fur, no knickers

@britishGQ ON STANDS NOW! ❤️ @mariotestino @kegrand @ctilburymakeup @hairbychristiaan

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Aug 7, 2015 at 8:38am PDT

7

She knows all the angles

@piaarrobio #ppandemeatpasta2015

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jul 12, 2015 at 12:06pm PDT

8

Nice view

#belmondpostcards #ppandemeatpasta2015 #ravello

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jul 10, 2015 at 11:51am PDT

9

If DFS had a bigger ad budget

By @mertalas and @macpiggott for @wmag styled by @edward_enninful @jimmypaulhair #kittens #ThePopIssue

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jun 29, 2015 at 7:33am PDT

10

Another expert selfie

FYI snapchat @emrata

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jun 28, 2015 at 5:48pm PDT

11

Watch her give you free birth control advice

Hey guys this interview and PSA for @plannedparenthood and @refinery29 is very near and dear to my heart. Please check out the full video and interview! Link in bio

A video posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jun 17, 2015 at 1:02pm PDT

12

Sud off

Bath time in London

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on May 30, 2015 at 1:03pm PDT

13

Bathtime again

Saturday night in a bathtub at the Chateau with @nickygiraffe

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on May 23, 2015 at 3:46am PDT

14

Hardwood

Williamsburg 2014

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Apr 14, 2015 at 11:38am PDT

15

Need loo roll?

Happy Easter

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Apr 5, 2015 at 11:05am PDT

16

Southpaw?

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Apr 4, 2015 at 12:25pm PDT

17

125,900 likes and counting

❤️

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Mar 28, 2015 at 4:22pm PDT

18

Nice plumbing

Outdoor showers in heaven

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Mar 23, 2015 at 11:11am PDT

19

186,000 likes… and counting

#tbt ✨

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Feb 19, 2015 at 7:04pm PST

20

More outdoor ablutions

Greenhouse getaway

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jan 21, 2015 at 3:23pm PST

21

Making your day

Repost from @el_mustachios #labandita

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jul 23, 2013 at 1:26pm PDT

22

Paintstripping

Getting pretty silly on set today with Adam Levine

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jan 16, 2013 at 4:18pm PST

23

Her ‘typical morning’

Do work naked/typical morning

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Sep 14, 2012 at 9:01am PDT

24

Taken before she was famous, but all the signs were there she’d get noticed

Thanks Recycled swimwear by rose! Hit her up on Facebook to get some amazing bottoms

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jul 9, 2011 at 1:37pm PDT

25

It had to happen… Ratajkowski shares a picture of her favourite style of bush

Home away from home #Bantry

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Sep 15, 2015 at 5:05am PDT

And it wouldn’t be a listicle without a video to keep you on the page

instagratification

Instagram was dubbed Instaporn a few years ago when users bypassed its nudity rules and posted naughty snaps with the use of pornography hashtags.

It created an Insta-underbelly where tens of thousands of amateur porn pics festered under tags such as ‘sextagram’ or ‘Instasex’.

But why search for amateur bedroom porn on Instagram? Go elsewhere for greasy genitals. If it’s well-produced, safe-for-work titillation you’re after, you’re better off using Instagram to ogle its celebrity accounts.

The softcore accounts of the likes of Rihanna have turned into Instagram’s biggest asset. The galleries of the world’s most beautiful women are presented on as grand, glossy and airbrushed scale as the pages of pricey Mario Testino photography books.

We gave media coach and body language expert Alan Stevens the arduous task of analysing the Insta(soft)porn accounts of its seven finest celebrity manipulators.

1

Emily Ratajkowski

LA

A photo posted by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) on Jul 20, 2015 at 12:42pm PDT

With more than three million followers and pictures that average 200,000 shares each, it could be argued Ratajkowksi would be a shadow of herself sans Instagram. Asked why she poses nearly-nude so much she has said, “Some of it is when I’m promoting a film, the more the merrier. People love to see what I’m wearing and get a sense of my life.”

Alan Stevens says, “This is a perfect ‘posed casual’ shot by the hotel pool, with the hair tousled, strong eye contact and soft drink in hand. There’s no suggestion she’s about to dive in for a swim. It’s essentially an old-fashioned glamour shot with a couple of conflicting messages – ‘Look, I relax by a pool just like you’, and, ‘Look at me, I’m not like you at all’.”

2

Rihanna

A photo posted by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Aug 4, 2015 at 6:23am PDT

With almost 27 million Instafans, the snaps on Rihanna’s ‘badgirlriri’ account have become ubiquitous – reprinted daily online and in papers and magazines. Here’s the badgirl Bajan catching up with her ironing… wearing a carnival head-dress.

Stevens says, “Apparently, Rihanna’s in her dressing room before a show, making sure there are no creases in her outfit. But she looks as though she’s never handled an iron in her life. It’s another, ‘I’m just like you – but not really’ snap.”

3

Aubrey O’Day

morning. cereal and…

A photo posted by Aubrey O'Day (@aubreyoday) on Mar 3, 2014 at 9:55am PST

No-one gave much of a stuff about singer Aubrey O’Day’s band Dumblonde until she decided to share breakfast outfits like this. What a rum place to put one’s Cheerios. Snaps such as these have helped the 31-year-old American gain an army of followers. But the comments beside this snap aren’t very complimentary. One reads, ‘She’s a blatant fuck monkey with no pride. That’s not milk; it’s jizz from her flute.’

Stevens says, “Aubrey is no stranger to the spicy Instagram shot. This is absolutely par for the course for her. It’s not particularly shocking, but contains a lot of suggestion. She wants to be sexy without being too controversial. It’s not exactly a picture for the parents’ sideboard, but it’s safe enough for her band’s potential young fans to see.”

4

Kim Kardashian

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Aug 28, 2015 at 1:52pm PDT

First they said I'm too skinny so I have to be faking it…Now they say I'm too big so I have to be faking it…SMH! Some days I'm photographed before I eat & look smaller, some days I've just eaten & I look bigger. It's all a part of the process. I think you all know me well enough to know I would document the process if I got a surrogate. Everyone's body is different, every pregnancy is very different! I've learned to love my body at every stage! I'm going to get even bigger & that's beautiful too! I'm blessed to even be pregnant & even luckier to not have preeclampsia as far as I know, so I don't have the swelling issue this time! They also say your body carries a boy different than a girl! Whatever the case may be I'm grateful to God for this miracle & no matter what rumors or comments you throw my way this time they truly don't affect me! #NoFilter #NoPhotoShop #GoodLighting

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Aug 11, 2015 at 7:59am PDT

Kim Kardashian’s entire life has obviously been spent in front of cameras. The second shot here is designed to prove she was pregnant, in the tradition of Demi Moore’s 1991 Vanity Fair cover.

Stevens says, “Kim is one of the most experienced self-publicists in the world. Everything is part of her masterplan. She reveals only what she wants to reveal, and is never off guard. Her fans love her for it, although she is a brilliant manipulator of image.”

5

Miley Cyrus

When you're trying to hump Jared Leto but he is just innocently telling you a secret

A photo posted by Miley Cyrus (@mileycyrus) on Aug 30, 2015 at 10:49pm PDT

She said cheerio to clothes some years back and here, Cyrus dresses in a plastic bag covered in giant Smarties.

Stevens says, “In 10 years’ time, I suspect Miley will look back at her Instagram feed with acute embarrassment. There seem to be few limits to Ms Cyrus’ activities, though she’s still promoting a bad girl image without really being that bad, at least in her pictures. I feel sorry for her designers when she says, ‘I want to look like a Japanese tourist in a plastic mac who’s been attacked by giant Smarties’.”

6

Kendall Jenner

weekend vibes #KyliesTurning18ImScared

A photo posted by Kendall Jenner (@kendalljenner) on Aug 7, 2015 at 8:53am PDT

Jenner is the youngster with more than 37 million followers on Instagram whose pictures regularly get shared more than 1 million times. Here she displays a typical hazard: losing something under the front seat of the car.

Stevens says, “This is an artfully posed and edited shot which is perhaps best described as ‘elegant soft porn’. Kendall’s entire Instagram feed is carefully planned and controlled. None of it is accidental. It’s a fascinating paradox of appearing to reveal her true nature, while hiding it behind a carefully constructed façade. This shot, as ‘dark side’ as it first appears, is typical of Kendall’s page and the pages of many of the girls her age.”

7

Amber Rose

Loving my new swimsuit from @nakedwardrobe #Milfin

A photo posted by Amber Rose (@amberrose) on Jul 11, 2015 at 5:00pm PDT

Here, Amber Rose gamely ponders how to squeeze her biggest asset into a swimming pool.

Stevens says, “This is pure, artfully crafted PR. Not only that, Amber is probably using it to boost sales of the swimsuit she’s wearing. This is as far from a snapshot as it gets. I detect the strong hand of an art director hard at work – even the chairs beside the pool are carefully lined up.”

Alan Stevens can be found at mediacoach.co.uk.

instaporn

She continues to appear in adverts but Gisele Bündchen’s recent retirement from the catwalks at the age of 35 sent her legions of fans into mourning.

Born in the Brazilian countryside, Bündchen was almost six foot tall when she was 14 and made her modelling debut for Alexander McQueen in 1998, aged 18.

The late fashion icon said he initially chose Bündchen for her ability to walk a runway in high heels, but she took things a lot further. She’s credited for pioneering the ‘horse walk’ – the now typical peacocking, knees-up stomp of the supermodel.

Bündchen would have been a huge hit in the ’80s thanks to her thick-haired old-school glamazon image, but she didn’t find it hard to succeed in the late-’90s.

Her bronzed limbs, blue eyes and Amazonian perfection (only added to by her wholesome freckles) marked the end of the ’80s’ addiction to grungy heroin chic. In 1999 Vogue used a black and white shot of Bündchen to front an article about the change called The Return Of The Curve.

Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell have gushed Bündchen is the only remaining true supermodel. Along with being a UN goodwill ambassador, actress (her credits include Taxi and The Devil Wears Prada) and mum of two, Bündchen was named by Forbes as the world’s highest-paid model – she’s worth around £240million.

Bündchen has overachieved on such an irritatingly high scale no-one can argue she deserves to retire at 35 from her main job of stalking catwalks.

It’s not only that men want to be with Bündchen – her beauty gets under the skin of almost every woman. In 2007, a media shitstorm met her remarks that upbringing and not factors such as the fashion industry were responsible for causing eating disorders. She has also defended her beauty by saying, “Excuse me – there are people born with the right genes for this profession.”

To mark quitting catwalks, Bündchen is releasing a limited edition collector’s book full of images that define the highlights of her career. It contains 300 pictures hand-picked by Bündchen, including personal snaps, nude shoots and rare bondage poses.

We’ve gathered a sample here, but to glimpse more of the images will cost you – the book is £450.

Bündchen’s American football player husband Tom Brady says despite the price tag it’s “a bargain”.

Judge for yourself.

No buts

Here’s how to make an entrance. This is Bündchen’s first cover shoot for Vogue from 1998, and the cover of her new tome. The shot shows her posing naked for photographer Steven Meisel, who specialised in capturing the endless beauty of Bündchen’s legs, among her other assets. It remains possibly the most iconic photo of ‘the supermodel’s supermodel’.

Laughing all the way to the bank

Despite her era-defining Vogue debut, Bündchen initially struggled to make the transformation from mere model to supermodel. Mario Testino is credited with helping her make the step up. Testino used her in shoots at every opportunity, until fashion brands accepted the obvious: Bündchen was uniquely gorgeous. Testino said, “Nobody liked Gisele. Nobody wanted her. I had to fight to get her into my stories. Everyone said she was too this or too that, and nobody thought she was right.”

Leonardo DiCaprio was among those who thought she was right. If gossip rags are to be believed, Bündchen’s relationship with the actor from 2000 to 2005 was stormy. The tabloids had her both engaged and pregnant with DiCaprio’s baby at one point. There were tales Bündchen was unable to marry DiCaprio as her Victoria’s Secret contract was said to forbid marriage. Apparently the couple also once had an emergency consultation in the rainforest with a “sexual healer” to sort out their rumoured bedroom issues.

Floorplay

Juergen Teller’s 2005 photo of Bündchen for W magazine shows the Brazilian swooning with a bunch of roses next to her lady garden. Bündchen started dating now-husband Tom Brady the year the shot was taken. She said when she first saw a photo of the New England Patriots quarterback, she told a pal he was “none too shabby”.

Leather bound

Six years after her first Vogue cover shoot, Bündchen said she would never do another nude picture set. She was wrong. This image is part of a Fifty Shades-esque photoshoot from one of Bündchen’s most recent naked sessions in front of the lens. It was for the Turkish/Welsh duo Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, aka Mert & Marcus, and appeared in last year’s French fashion mag Lui.

The first time Bündchen worked with Mert & Marcus was for the 2006 Pirelli calendar, in an unusually hardcore shoot for Bündchen that showed her in leather lingerie. Alas has said he and Piggot stand out among photographers because they care about their subjects’ make-up and appearance (though there is little of either displayed in this shot.)

Each copy of Gisele, published on November 16, is signed by the goddess herself and is available from taschen.com priced £450.

the gisele bündchen pictures that will depress you

What does it take for your girlfriend to impress you?

Her taste in music and films? Being an even better cook than you? Embodying the Madonna/whore complex?

How about winning Miss England – and having a chance to be crowned Miss World?

When Natasha Hemmings was crowned Miss England in front of a sizeable crowd at Coventry City’s Ricoh Arena stadium, the student might have expected to be treated like the most special woman in the country by her boyfriend.

Regal on the runway

Instead, the 19-year-old’s boyfriend Charlie Jordan, Hemmings’ partner for 19 months, remains wholly unimpressed by her title.

As part of her Miss England prize, the couple recently went to Sri Lanka for a three-week holiday. But Hemmings insists Jordan, account manager for an energy supplier, mainly uses her title against her.

“Charlie’s always saying, ‘You can’t get away with that just because you’re Miss England,’” says Hemmings. “He still definitely treats me the same way he always has. Charlie has been really supportive since I entered the contest, so he’s had some time to think, ‘Ooh, what would it be like to be dating Miss England?’ But there’s absolutely no special treatment from him since I won.”

“My boyfriend is always saying, ‘You can’t get away with that just because you’re Miss England’” 

An English Literature student at Nottingham University, Hemmings inevitably insists the Miss England contest isn’t sexist and is a world away from the old-fashioned pageants shown on TV in the 1970s, when entrants were judged solely on looks.

There are now 11 rounds in Miss England, with contests in raising money for charity and designing eco-friendly clothes counting as much as the bikini round.

Hemmings, whose parents run a property development firm in Nantwich, Cheshire, beat 20,000 women aged 17 to 25 to win the Miss England final in August. She had won the regional Miss Cheshire title two months earlier.

A proper Charlie

“Any feminists who think Miss England is degrading are just wrong,” says Hemmings, who will represent England at the Miss World final in China on December 19.

“It’s now a contest that shows what women can do, and that we can do so many different things. If people tell me I represent something sexist, I point out that there’s a Mr. England contest too. Some of them say, ‘Don’t you have to win the bikini contest to have a chance of winning in the title?’, and I point out that I wasn’t even shortlisted in that round. People do have outdated opinions, but if they talk to me, I’ll always win them round.”

A promising opera singer, Hemmings had never modelled before entering Miss Cheshire. She was nervous before her first shoot as part of the regional contest.

She says, “I wasn’t confident with getting my bikini body out. I was dead nervous. But I’ve always tried to keep my body in a healthy shape. I don’t want to promote being too large, or to be so thin that you don’t have any boobs or bum.”

Of her own diet, Hemmings – whose twin brother Brendan is considering entering Mr. England – adds, “My eating goes in cycles. I eat anything, I love Domino’s and Chinese. But if I see my body is changing, I’ll cut back and go hard in the gym until I feel confident again. At the end of the day, your body should just be what you feel comfortable with.”

Sparks fly

Miss England began in 1928, and Hemmings will be a long shot at Miss World.

The closest any Miss England has come to winning the world final was when Carolyn Seaward finished runner-up in 1979.

“I’ve no idea where I’d place myself at Miss World,” says Hemmings, who states all her fan mail and social media interactions have been “totally” positive.

“I haven’t had a chance to look through all the other Miss World contestants. All I can do is embrace what’s British and take that to China.”

miss england: ‘my boyfriend isn’t impressed by my title’

You don’t get supermodels like Cindy Crawford anymore.

It’s not that Crawford is sexier than Cara Delevingne, Natalia Vodianova or Adriana Lima. But she has the all-American wholesomeness not in vogue on the waif-packed runways.

Crawford recently described her current image as “MILF next door”, so she’s aware time has crept up.

Before modelling, Crawford famously worked as a babysitter and in the cornfields near her home in Illinois – regular, homely, all-American girl jobs. It’s hard to imagine a current supermodel who looks like an alien – Molly Blair, say – babysitting kids for her parents’ friends.

Crawford retired from modelling in 2000 at the age of 34 – a year younger than Gisele Bündchen gave up catwalks. By then, there was a whiff of illicit scandal about her.

During her four-year marriage to Richard Gere from 1991 to ’95 there were rumours they were both bisexual. Even that (seemingly unfounded) gossip has long since disappeared since she married former model Rande Gerber, a pal of George Clooney, in 1998.

“I know people will buy the book for the pictures but hopefully they’ll read the essays too”

Crawford’s life has come full circle and, after her years with Gere, seems as clean-cut and homely as the jobs she had growing up.

She turns 50 in February and in the 15 years since she left the catwalk, the rise of free porn has also shaped the modelling industry. Models now seem to need an extra ‘edge’ to give them some bonus allure – whether it’s shoots showing them as junkies, lesbians or into S&M.

Even in her topless portraits, Crawford always looked as if she’d be happier heading off to a bar to get the first round in before heading home to watch Friends and maybe a filthy footrub if you were lucky. She was a classic studio-run Hollywood-style beauty from a lineage of women such as Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Charlie’s Angels – glamorous, not XXX. And she became one of those recognisable faces someone could draw a vague sketch of flowing blonde hair and a mole above her lip and they would know who was on the page.

Yet, as Crawford’s new book Becoming demonstrates, she defined the polish of Nineties glamour. But then again: Crawford has a mischievous look as she hugs her breasts in the iconic Playboy shot that plays a central part in the new coffee table tome.

Becoming compiles Crawford’s most famous pictures, the ones which helped her sell millions of calendars and become the highest-paid model on the planet by 1995. She’s now worth £65million.

The book also includes life lessons the former model hopes inspire her 14-year-old daughter Kaia, herself an aspiring model. “I know people will buy the book for the pictures,” Crawford said. “But hopefully they’ll read the essays too.”

If you want to buy it for the articles, go ahead. But here are some of Becoming’s finest pictures to tide you over.

1

Getting out her Ritts

Ritts crackers

Crawford said of working with photographer Herb Ritts who took this portrait, “You knew you were going to look gorgeous. Herb photographed you the way you wanted the world to see you.”

Ritts undoubtedly captured Crawford at her best in what has become her most famous photo. Showing her all-American glam at its peak, the portrait was taken for Playboy in 1988, when Crawford was 22. By then, Crawford had already been modelling for five years. She was runner-up at leading modelling agency Elite’s amateur Look Of The Year contest, after which they snapped her up.

But Crawford’s early life wasn’t entirely trouble free. When she was eight her two-year-old brother Jeff died from leukaemia. She said, “That fuelled me. I learned at a young age not to take life for granted.”

2

Cindy doll

She’s Cin the bed

Party-animal photographer Sante D’Orazio took Crawford to bed for this 1990 masterpiece. She began dating Richard Gere around this time, marrying him in 1991.

Crawford’s parents divorced when she was six and her own marriage to Gere only lasted until 1995. “We all want to believe in the movie version of love,” Crawford has said about the relationship. “What happened with Richard was crushing. It made me look at relationships more realistically.”

Rumours of Crawford’s bisexuality began after she snogged fellow supermodel Christy Turlington outside New York club Roxy in 1991. It led to her and Gere taking out a £20,000 full-page ad in The Times denying rumours of affairs. Tabloid gossip linked Gere with Uma Thurman and Crawford with soap actor John Enos. The advert stated, ‘We are heterosexual and monogamous and take our commitment to each other seriously.’

3

Veiled threat

Cinsational

Celebrity photographer Helmut Newton took this stunning photo for Vogue in 1991. Even though Crawford was then at the height of her career, she claimed she lacked confidence. Crawford said, “When I was 25, I thought I’d last another five years at most.”

Although Crawford diversified into successful cosmetic and furniture ranges her attempts to make it into acting didn’t come off.

Having starred in videos for George Michael and Bon Jovi, Crawford’s film debut was as an attorney in 1995 cop drama Fair Game with William Baldwin. It cost £33million to make, but made just £7million. The New York Times bitched, ‘As an attorney, Crawford makes a pretty jogger’.

That was pretty much it for Crawford’s big-screen ambitions. But she returned to acting in the video for Taylor Swift’s hit Bad Blood this year. She played a headmistress to a ‘school’ of a new generation of supermodels including Cara Delevingne and Karlie Kloss.

4

Hay there

She’s Cin the hay

Another scorching Herb Ritts photo, this time from 1993. Ritts also photographed Michael Jackson, Madonna and Tom Cruise before he died from Aids in 2002 aged 50.

While Ritts and Crawford had a successful relationship, she fell out with fellow celebrity photographer Bruce Weber. He said of a photoshoot for Revlon in the late 1990s, “Cindy was the only model I ever sent away.” He accused her of being rude to extras on the shoot and demanding Weber ignore them and focus solely on her when she announced, “I’m ready now.” Weber said Crawford was in tears as she left on his orders.

5

The ‘MILF next door’ days

Just Cin time

Crawford still looks sensational now. Any on-set diva behaviour seems years behind her and she appears to be happy running the business of being brand Cindy since she married Rande Gerber. As well as daughter Kaia, the couple have 16-year-old son Presley.

The former supermodel admitted she doubted she and Gerber would last when they met, saying, “I loved Rande, but I kept wondering when the drama would start. But my relationship therapist helped me appreciate the solidity and foundations I felt with Rande. Now he’s my soulmate.”

It’s what’s Cinside that counts

6

She was also on this cover

Cin city

Crawford graced the cover of Loaded in March 1997 in an issue Bob Mortimer reckoned was worth “at least an hour’s read”. Plus there was a chat with indie band Spacehog.

Cindy Crawford’s book Becoming is £22.75 from Rizzoli.

what a half cintury

Innocently-named photographer Christian Saint is serious about body art.

For him, tattoos are not drunken mistakes. To plagiarise Keats, for Saint they are things of beauty and a joy forever.

“Live in the moment” seems to be Saint’s motto and his new book Tattoo Super Models draws you in, with a spin on that subversive SuicideGirls pin-up look that’s rich with light and life.  

While Saint lives in Brooklyn and has more than 20 years’ experience in advertising and fine art, his dedication to the tattoo community has helped drag alternative imagery to the international modelling mainstream.

Seek him out online and you’ll find an amusing internet persona.

“My name is Christian Saint”, he says. “I am the son of a drunk, womanizing, self-improving Belgian baker, with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old web-footed French prostitute named Chloe. I was raised by Belgians in the town of Bruges. There, at the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Wilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. I spent my summers in Rangoon, took luge lessons, attended the British Intelligence Academy and spent six years in ‘evil’ photography school. Thank you for stopping by.”

Here are the most vivid images of his Tattoo Super Models.

1

Code Red

2

Jung at heart

3

Spine-tingling

4

Lake placid

5 

El of a tat

Judge it by its cover

no angels

She’s made sure adults won’t look at Paddington Bear the same way.

For the uninitiated, Jessica Barth plays trailer-trash Tami-Lynn McCafferty in Seth McFarlane’s two Ted films. The part has seen her simulate interspecies sex and discuss having a family with the stoned bear. In the first Ted film, the bear got a promotion at work because his boss was in awe of the fact that he had eaten potato salad off her bare backside.

But going naked for Playboy was a step too far for Barth.

The 37-year-old opted to wear a bikini for her spread for the men’s magazine. Appearing in Playboy clothed may sound like a contradiction in terms, but the publication claims it is now far more about the articles.

In a Philadelphia accent a lot softer than the snarl she puts on in the Teds, Barth told Loaded, “I have nothing against people who do nudity and the images can be really beautiful, but that just wasn’t for me.”

Her first look at Playboy wasn’t as classy in her book.

“My first encounter with Playboy was actually a previous boyfriend that I had,” Barth said. “He used to keep a stack of Playboy by his bed. We would be together and there was Jenny McCarthy naked. I was like, ‘These need to move’. But I have to say that with Playboy, I felt really comfortable. At first I was nervous but it was a non-nude shoot in a very comfortable atmosphere. It’s pretty far removed from me right now, running to pick up my kids.”

Bear faced

Talking from her LA home, Barth stresses she looks nothing like her Playboy photos, repeating she’s always running around after her young daughter and son.

She’s keen on stressing she is ‘normal’, as the unrealistic portrayal of women in photoshoots and movies is something close to Barth’s heart. So close, she’s making a documentary about the subject.

“The pictures that you see are just so far from the truth and that’s the point behind my documentary,” she says.“It’s a machine that’s making you look this way. Every picture that you see is retouched. You can make your arms longer – whatever you want to do.”

It’s not surprising an actress who is credited as ‘Pretty Blonde’ and ‘Attractive Woman’ in two of her films is keen to tear apart unrealistic expectations in the movie industry and distorted perceptions of beauty.

“I just want to break that down for people so that they know that women don’t go around looking like that,” Barth continues. “There is an army behind every photoshoot working on people. It’s art and that’s what it should be called. It’s not reality and young girls shouldn’t think that way.”

“There are these intimate scenes with something that is invisible like an imaginary sex friend. You are basically doing it by yourself”

Barth took bit parts in TV shows in LA while holding down three waitressing jobs in the early days of her career. A stint on How I Met Your Mother led to her catching the eye and ear of Ted writer and director Seth MacFarlane, who cast her in three episodes of Family Guy doing a voiceover of Kate Hudson.

Still, the actress admits she had her work cut out trying to convince MacFarlane to cast her in Ted.

“At first I don’t think he thought of me as Tami-Lynn,” she says. “I had to convince him. It was a process for me getting this part. I had to work with him just to make sure. He said, ‘Your acting is perfect. We just need you to work on the dialect and make sure you are 100 per cent’. So I worked my ass off! And I got it!”

Another task Barth found challenging and unrealistic was simulating sex scenes with a non-existent bear for Ted 2. For the second instalment of the popular comedy, a besotted Ted and Tami-Lynn get married and are thinking about having children. Clearly, that was a challenge, as Barth effectively found herself humping fresh air.

“During filming, I had to rehearse with a stuffed animal just to have something in my eyeline,” she recalls. “But when we were recording, there’s just nothing there. It’s a challenge to develop this relationship between you and the character because there are no eyes and no facial reactions to feed off. The physical part of things was probably the hardest part of all. There are these intimate scenes with something that is invisible like an imaginary sex friend. You are basically doing it by yourself and imagining that you are with this teddy bear. I said to Seth, ‘Do I just lay and be spread-eagle on the table?’ and he said, ‘No, do it on the floor’.”

Ted 2 is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

jessica barth: ‘why i didn’t bare all for playboy’

“I love the flesh – I am the photographer of the skin”, the acclaimed French photographer Bettina Rheims has said.

The female body has always been her favourite muse. Her career took off in the late 70s when she shot a group of Pigalle strip-tease artists and acrobats, leading to her first exhibition. Now often working with the world’s biggest stars including Monica Bellucci and Madonna, she examines gender, surrealism and sexual impulses.

“I still find myself having to justify being a woman taking pictures of naked women,” she’s said. “It never occurred to me that there was something bizarre about it. It always felt very natural.”

Mentored by Helmut Newton (“I learned rigour, he taught me to be uncompromising,” says Rheims) and inspired by Diane Arbus (“She was a genius”) she’s framed huge campaigns for Chanel and Lancome, and her camera has captured – in unconventional fashion – everyone from Madonna to Catherine Deneuve, from Claudia Schiffer to Kate Moss, from Kylie Minogue to Asia Argento.

“When I photograph women I’m a photographer, but when I photograph men I’m a woman”, she told Another Magazine. “And if a man is attractive, then I don’t want to be a photographer. And if he’s not attractive, why would I want to photograph him?”

The Paris-born artist’s teasing, eroticised photographs of women have pushed the boundaries of beauty for almost 35 years. Once a model, and married briefly to a fashion photographer, her body of work is now globally admired. Her daring divas defy expectations.

The new book, called simply Bettina Rheims, is a sumptuous selection of over 500 images from her remarkable archives. It arrives in a limited edition of 800 signed and numbered copies ahead of major retrospectives of her work opening in January in Stockholm and Paris.

Here is a preview of her most arresting images. 

1

Wallpaper stripper

2

Exposed

3

Showgirls

4

Nikon icon

5

Wigging out

6

Reims and unreason

monica bellucci gets saucy

Forget Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore. This year’s hottest Oscar winners are Anikka Albrite and Mick Blue.

They’re the first husband and wife couple to win the Best Performer gongs at the Adult Video Awards, the Las Vegas ceremony dubbed the Porn Oscars.

Austrian star Blue, 38, has acted in porn for over 14 years, but his wife is a relative newcomer, having left her job as a lab technician to get into adult films in 2011.

Albrite, famed in porn circles for her Beyoncé-style booty, is tipped to follow Jenna Jameson in crossing over from XXX to Hollywood.

At 5ft 6ins, Albrite certainly has the Hollywood spiel down to a T when she talks to Loaded from the LA home she shares with Blue, claiming she “totally didn’t expect” to win her Porn Oscar.

“Mick has been acting for so long, if I had to choose, I would rather he won than me,” says 26-year-old Albrite. “But Mick’s really sweet and he says he’d rather I won.”

XXX

Albrite and Blue married last year, having fallen in love when co-starring in Albrite’s first on-screen anal sex scene.

“We’re like any couple – we want each other to have a good day at work,” laughs Albrite. “It’s just that, for us, that means having sex with other people all day. I know from the outside that sounds odd, but there isn’t any jealousy – we tell each other the kind of sex our day at work involves.”

Albrite is far from the stereotype of the porn actress, having majored in molecular biology at college in Arizona.

“I got into porn because I love watching it,” she declares. “I masturbated to it every day when I was a teenager – I had to clear my internet search history all the time.”

Now Albrite has ambitions outside porn – she says she’d love to get into mainstream films, and has already landed her first ‘proper’ role, playing the grim reaper in Austrian horror movie Chimney Or Pit. Albrite also talks longingly of wanting a role in a sci-fi series such as Doctor Who.

But how long will she star in porn if she doesn’t get her break? “As long as they’ll have me,” she concludes.

and the porn oscar goes to…

Fashion’s sexiest calendar has taken a steep turn into the world of the non-airbrushed and natural female form with its 2016 edition.

The Pirelli calendar has previously featured models such as Gisele, Gigi Hadid and Isabeli Fontana. Now, it’s cast 13 women which Pirelli says are of “outstanding professional, social, cultural, sporting and artistic accomplishment”.

The sharp U-turn sees legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz focus on a series of 13 “distinguished” women including Amy Schumer, Serena Williams, Yoko Ono and Patti Smith. Which certainly makes for a challenging wank.

However, unlike previous incarnations of the calender, this edition is not onsale and will be distributed only to a select number undisclosed recipients. Car mechanics’ walls will be bereft.

The calender also features Style Rookie blogger Tavi Gevinson; Iranian artist Shirin Neshat; actress Yao Chen, the first Chinese UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador; and supermodel Natalia Vodianova for her work as founder of the Naked Heart Russia charity.

This year’s models were advised to keep their clothes on, with Leibovitz joking that Schumer “didn’t get the memo” as she posed in her underwear while sipping on a cup of coffee.

Leibovitz added: “The 2000 Calendar was an exercise in photographing nudes. It was a simple concept. For 2016, we did something completely different, but it is still simple. It is a classic set of black-and-white portraits made in the studio.

“When Pirelli approached me, they said they wanted to make a departure from the past. They suggested the idea of photographing distinguished women. After we agreed on that, the goal was to be very straightforward. I wanted the pictures to show the women exactly as they are, with no pretence.”

Here are some of the women, pretence not included.

1

Amy Schumer

Make mine an Americano

2

Serena Williams

Moving heaven and earth

3

Patti Smith

Because the night belongs to Patti

4

Yao Chen

Acting up

5

Yoko Ono

Octogenarian wonder

pirelli opts for ‘mostly clothed’ calendar

Ever since Instagram banned women from showing their nipples in photos, the hashtag #FreeTheNipple has trended. Women have been posting pictures of their nipples on the site – and promptly been banned by prudish Insta-moderators.

For photographer Mike Dowson, it’s important that women are allowed to display their flesh. Manchester-born Dowson’s new book Naked Fashion Girls shows a number of first-time models posing as naturally as they can in everyday surroundings.

1

Fenced in

Dowson, who now lives in Paris, says: “Women who display their sexual presence openly are much more erotic than those who come over as aloof and distant.”

Whether it’s women posing by chainlink fences or standing among the roses in their garden, Dowson believes his book captures casual sexuality “packed with joie de vivre”. And a lot of freed nipples.

2

Gathering Moss

“Some people call these models tarts,” Dowson admits. “But that’s because their shamelessly sexy poses polarise attitudes. These are women who can’t be categorised.”

Refusing to be po-faced about his work, Dowson admits his photos aren’t art. “Art is a lie in search of the truth,” he philosophises. “Photography is merely a fascinating pastime in which everyone can indulge. It’s not to be taken seriously.”

3

Blonde ambition

His other work includes Girls On Film – videos of Parisian models to be sent to prospective agencies. “The typical model portfolio of stills photos is too static,” he notes. As for his love of working with models? “Sex sells! That is a very true statement, and beautiful women sell products. Although I’m not sure why that is – I love all women. I never restrict myself in what I find beautiful.”

4

In the shadows

Dowson says he hates photos that take ages to set up and prefers “intimate, spontaneous moments.” There’s certainly plenty of those in his book, as Loaded reveals. Just don’t take these photos too seriously. 

5

Flower power

Naked Fashion Girls is published by Goliath at £22.99

Cover up

#freethenipple with naked fashion models

She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, so it’s little wonder that the youngest sister of Kim Kardashian didn’t foresee the implications for placing herself in a wheelchair for a new photoshoot.

For Kylie Jenner, whose occupation no-one is entirely sure of, it was just another day at whatever her office is. An office that at least must have good disabled access.

Having posted a snippet of her new shoot for Interview Magazine on her Instagram page, Jenner faced a backlash from some of her 43.8 million followers who questioned why an able-bodied woman would be spinning around in a wheelchair in the name of fashion.

Twitter user Sarah Willow spoke of her upset at the fact that Jenner was using a wheelchair as “a fucking prop”, adding: “Ableism is not a joke”.

It wasn’t long before disability advocates attacked the shoot. Emily Smith Beitiks of the Paul K. Longmore Institute On Disability in San Francisco said: “People with disabilities are already seen as powerless, and this just reinforces that.”

Jenner soon removed the wheelchair image and replaced it with ones of her bare arse surrounded by latex and another of her suggestively eating a cone. The world at large seemed to have less of an issue with that.

She stands!

Interview defended the placement of the wheelchair, commenting: “At Interview, we are proud of our tradition of working with great artists and empowering them to realize their distinct and often bold visions. The Kylie Jenner cover by Steven Klein, which references the British artist Allen Jones, is a part of this tradition, placing Kylie in a variety of positions of power and control and exploring her image as an object of vast media scrutiny.”

Jenner herself has remained silent on the controversy, probably because she has absolutely no clue of what’s going on and has yet to reach her daily selfie upload quota.

As you were, Kylie.

Anyone for a peach bellini?

kylie jenner: not wheely acceptable?

From DJs to stylists, photographers, make-up artists and Instagram queens, these are the #PrettyToughGirls, a group of trending power breakers responsible for the Pretty Tough zine, available from all Baby G and Casio stores.

But who are they, and why should we listen to them?

Lily Mercer

Mercernary

Self-professed “hair like a mermaid, mouth like a sailor,” Mercer is the pottymouthed Londoner who somehow finds time to DJ for Beats1 and Rinse FM as well as edit Viper. A hip hop encyclopedia, Mercer has championed Darq E Freaker and Schoolboy Q. She explains: “I tend to describe my favourite as alternative or underground, which I feel sometimes makes it seem weirder than it is.”

Danielle and Nicola Kahlani

Seeing double

The Kahlani twins are the duo bossing hair and make-up, working with brands including Topshop, Browns and Nasty Gal. They’ve also worked with Haim, will.i.am, Florence Welch and MIA. Question is, who will style them when they become huge too?

Phoebe-Lettice Thompson

Cool as an iceberg

Thompson started out on Made in Chelsea in 2013. But don’t let that put you off.

She has since followed in the footsteps of every other MiC star by launching a fashion line. However, she had already cut her cloth in fashion, working full-time whilst shooting the show. Which makes MiC seem even more amateurish. Thompson explained: “I think I’m one of the only cast members that had a full-time, contractual job while filming.” Figures.

Having worked for Tatler, Wonderland and American Vogue, she launched her Illustrated People collection last year. Also working as a photographer, she cast, styled and shot the lines campaign images. Which makes her more together than Spencer Matthews.

Kylie Griffiths

A different Kylie

Griffiths is a stylist that freelances for Nike, Converse, H&M and Uniqlo as well as artists as varied as Seth Troxler, current toast of the underground, Tinashe, and, er, 5 Seconds of Summer. She’s somehow retained her cool despite that last name featuring on her CV.

Siobhan Bell

Bell tolls

Having worked in PR at record labels including Warner, Atlantic and the ultra-hip Cash Money, Bell turned to making music and DJing instead. She’s plays rising rappers like Yung Lean, Future Brown and Lil Ugly Mane.

Joanna Kutcha

Joanna Kutcha helpfully directing the photographer to where her lips are

Kutcha is a 19-year-old Polish model. Clocking up well over 700,000 Instagram disciples, she told i-D: “Social media can be art. It can be comedy. It can be political. Then there are people who think everything I post is complete nonsense.”

Nonsense or not, Kutcha’s rise to fame looks set to break her out of the internet and onto the catwalk with Cara and co.

who are the #prettytoughgirls?

Groupies. Mostly thought of now as sad wannabes desperate to cop off with the bassist from a band you’ve barely heard of, in the ’70s they were as famous as the rock stars they bedded.

Pamela Des Barrres, The Sanchez Twins, the gloriously named Trixie Merkin – you just weren’t a famous rocker until you slept with an original groupie.

Capturing their seedy glamour all the way was photographer Baron Wolman.

A group of groupies

Having started in photography after being discharged from the military, Wolman went back home to San Francisco after serving in Berlin. A chance meeting ensued with Jann Wenner and Ralph Gleason, two unknowns who were planning to start a rock mag. That turned out to be Rolling Stone, and Wolman’s photos helped form the look of both the magazine and the culture it was reporting, and helped define Wolman’s career.

As well as capturing the likes of Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, The Who, Iggy Pop, Hendrix, Dylan and anyone else you care to name from that era, Wolman’s reputation was secured when Rolling Stone dedicated an issue to the rise of the groupie. The February 1969 issue showcased the characters who made themselves into part of the allure and sleaze of rock and roll lore.

Entitled THE GROUPIES And Other Girls, Rolling Stone’s special single-handedly made its subjects famous. As well as Des Barres and co, there were The GTOs – who Frank Zappa turned into a band.

Tricky Trixie

Wolman’s style saw him reject studios and preferred a more natural set-up, which was more sympathetic to his subjects, and this style certainly suited his groupies.

The groupies are celebrated in Wolman’s new book, and Loaded spoke to the photographer about trying to encapsulate such a mythical time in music history.

Loaded: Your photography helped shape the look of Rolling Stone. Was that a conscious decision on your part?

Baron Wolman: The decision was made by the editorial team, of which I was a part, and in particular by the art director who made my photos a centrepiece of the new publication.

L: How did you decide which women you wanted to feature in the groupies issue of the magazine?

BW: Together, the editorial team located the most well-known groupies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York; I photographed as many of them as possible. Some appeared in the issue, some did not. The ones who were featured were those who looked the best and/or had the most interesting stories to tell…the Plaster Casters and Pamela Des Barres, for example.

Sticky plasters

L: Were the ladies known to you from the rock scene?

BW: Some were, some were not…

L: Do you think the magazine helped to legitimise the idea of the groupie?

BW: No, I think the magazine simply called attention to a fascinating sub-culture of the rock and roll scene of the late sixties and early seventies.

L: Have you kept in touch with any of the groupies you featured?

BW: I have indeed. One lives here in Santa Fe where I am, others still live in Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco Bay. I’m in touch with several of them.

Racy Lacy

What is your opinion of the groupie in the 21st century? Is it a subject matter you would return to for a future piece?

BW: From time immemorial there have always been groupies, and there always will be groupies. However, they may not necessarily be identified by the name “groupie” as such. What made our collection of groupies special was their emphasis on personal style and presentation; they were eye candy, endless photo ops. I’m not part of the current music scene, but I sincerely believe the groupies of today are of a different ilk than the ones I photographed. Not as far as intention is concerned but rather in their look. Yet who knows, if I were to research the subject again I might be surprised…

Groupies And Other Electric Ladies is published by ACC.

when groupies were as famous as the bands

For the final nude edition of Playboy, there was only one woman Hugh Hefner had in mind – step forward 48-year-old Pamela Anderson.

And in case you didn’t get the theme of the shoot from the cover’s shot of her most famous assets, Pammy is wearing a massive gold choker that spells SEX.

The cover marks the 14^th front page for Anderson. Inside, Heff gets acting whack-job, sorry, top investigative journalist James Franco to interview her. Which is good news for people who buy Playboy on its literary merit…

Bye bye

The mother-of-two showed some initial reservations about stripping off for the iconic magazine in her forties, but son Brandon urged her to go for it.

Anderson told Brandon: “Hef just called, he wants me to do the last cover of Playboy.” To which a seemingly very open-minded teenager Brandon replied: “Mom, you’ve got to do it. We’re older, we’re not embarrassed of you anymore. You know, we think you’re great.”

Safe in the knowledge her teenage offspring were no longer ashamed of her, the original Baywatch babe got back to doing what she does best.

It’s little wonder her kids felt so at home with their mother appearing in the magazine, as Anderson said of the Playboy Mansion: “I don’t want to get too detailed, but I’m sure one of my sons was conceived there.”

The romance…

Oi Oi Captain

Although she’s now obviously very much at home with Playboy, Anderson told Franco that her first cover shoot wasn’t so glamorous.

She recalled of the 1989 cover: “The photographer shot me in one roll of film because I was nervous and throwing up. But then I saw the pictures, and from there it was hard to keep my clothes on. I was painfully shy before, but then it clicked in my head that nobody cares what you look like naked except you. People are more concerned about themselves and their own flaws.”

And she admitted that although she doesn’t see herself as beautiful, Anderson thinks people are attracted the by the aura she gives off. Indeed.

“I don’t think of myself as beautiful, but I know I have a deep, sensual drive,” she said. “People respond to that more than physicality because your spirit never ages. I’m a bit of an exhibitionist, and I like being playful and having fun.”

Vintage dress code

Playboy’s January/February 2016 double issue is out on December 11.

playboy’s last hurrah with pamela anderson