Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
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Net-a-porter UK

Monday 21 April 2008

Darling, to die for


A journalist once said to me, apropos of a certain features editor on a paper that shall remain nalmeess, 'X's idea of a perfect story is, Elizabeth Hurley - has she had too much media attention?'

But with interviews like this, what can you do, what can you do?

Hurley herself is apparently looking forward to the moment she never has to pose in a bikini again (although one fashion editor reports, “She is very confident in her body – I turned around and suddenly she was naked”). “Shooting bikinis is now my life, which, as you can imagine, is unmitigated hell,” she says, in her golly-gosh diction, which is peppered with words like “unpleasant-making” and “jolly”. “I can’t think of anything worse in the world than another bikini shoot – and I’ve got two next month. It’s unbearable, and I bring it all on myself. I’ve got nobody else to blame. It’s literallah torture. If you get a photographer you don’t know, of course, you think, ‘Oh God.’ But if you signed on for the gig, sadly, you have to go and be jolly in a skimpy white bikini. So I now rely on nice photographers, and a bit of retouching.”

Ah, yes, digital retouching. “I like a certain amount of retouching, like anybody,” she admits cautiously. “We all like to get rid of spots and shadows under our eyes. I’ve always been quite particular – I don’t like my face to be retouched. Often, people will want to correct one’s face, and with me, they always want to change my nose” – she squishes it – “and I’m like, ‘No, no, no, I can’t look like that. I don’t mind if you want to make me a bit thinner and a bit younger, but you can’t give me a different jaw or eyebrows.’ But the vanity retouching – well, who wouldn’t?”

Hilariously, Hurley’s retouching habit extends to her holiday photos. “I don’t have professional Photoshop, just the one that comes with your camera,” she says. “Every time I download my holiday snaps” – she lowers her voice for effect – “I always go over them. Just the red eye and colour enhancement. I don’t do any slimming, because you need a silly programme, but the colour enhancing is heaven.”

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Frankly, this is what happens when you're obsessed w/ your looks and don't develop character at some point. You get to be 40 something w/ little to say except bikini talk, expensive clothes, and zapping away your imperfections? She doesn't look bad, but she's looking fake....which isn't a good thing to me.

This woman makes Posh seem a font of wisdom.

Anonymous said...

Read it and weep . . . ?

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with the above. I used to think Hurley would fill the shoes of Joan Collins in years to come, but no, it seems that is not to be, not with her level of self-obsession.

As with so many C list celebrities - moderately pretty girl, very little talent - massive ego to compensate. Has she ever heard of irony?

Frankly the woman is boring beyond belief.

Anonymous said...

Nobody can have a body like that in real life, surely! Not even an eighteen year old! Geri

Anonymous said...

Now there's a lady who's dress sense seems to include a fine cloak of denial.

Gi said...

You know, I work in middle management in the creative industry. I manage a trade publication. Our last issue, we featured a very prominent Caucasian female CEO on our cover. We did not retouch her photos (although her skin was a bit rosier than I'd like the shots to be, and there was a slight sheen to her skin, I felt she had enough confidence and grace in her pose, her trademark blond curls and immaculate blue eyes speak for themselves). The CEO approved the shots herself.

A week after publication, we received an e-mail from a lady in Singapore who complained to us we "disgraced" the CEO, and the CEO "appears greasy and unfinished" and she went on to doubt our "professionalism".

Linda Grant said...

That's an interesting comment, Gi. When I featured a video of Hilary Alexander, someone commented that they thought her clothes, hair and make-up were 'poor'.

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:34 - you read my mind!

Anonymous said...

Geri, my father used to say to me that I could have anything in the world if I really wanted it enough. Hurley has that body because she works at it 24 hours a day - to the detriment of her charisma!

Anonymous said...

Let's look at this as two separate issues: First, Elizabeth Hurley as someone who seems really entirely dependent on her looks for any income, and who is now, at the age of 43, in the rather unenviable position of only being able to get jobs because she is willing to take off her clothes. Considering her other options, she might just want to concentrate on other areas. Second, Elizabeth Hurley as an example of what modern culture does to women. The expectation probably for the last thirty years, if not longer, is that if you are extremely attractive and female, you don't have to develop your brains -- that your beauty is what you have "to sell". Additionally, if you want to rise in business and you are female, you'd better be very attractive because brains and skills are not enough. For all of the "women's movement" for the past fifty years, it seems that women really have not come all that far, that no matter how smart, how skilled, how clever, etc. a woman is...what matters in the end(and, to have a 43 year old woman, who has other business interests, continue to have her picture taken in bikinis..I think is an illustration of this fact)is how youthful she looks, how attractive she looks.

Anonymous said...

Toby, if Ms Hurley is really entirely dependant on her looks for an income she should get herself a better financial adviser!

I refer to my comment at 11.34.

Anonymous said...

Complain, complain, complain ... now I know what the C in C list stands for. Liz, Posh, Jordan, they're all the same - everything is a nightmare, they suffer so the poor dears! Of course, we all know that if they stopped complaining they would slip back into the oblivion they came from and actually have to start working for a living! And we are talking about the Liz Hurley who called non-celebs 'civilians'!

Anonymous said...

The thing is they are all rich, which is the point for them. Whether this is ethical, moral or polically correct is neither here no there. The main aim of most celebs seems to be that they make money. Frankly they have all done well in this respect. It's true that for some of us Guardian reading women this is lowering and doesn't quite match with anything we feel to be morally right. But we live in a capitalist society.....

Anonymous said...

If I had Liz Hurley's money, I'd probably look more like her and less like me. I don't believe, for one nanosecond, her inane comments about exercise and so on. How much work she's had done, we'll probably never find out. And really, life is short; I couldn't care any longer than it takes to write this comment.

Yes, today I am bitchy. It's because I'm wearing my leather jacket. No apologies.

Badaude said...

I believe I've heard that Elizabeth Hurley is currently a fairly prominent movie producer (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000167/). She also seems to treat her looks with a measure of honesty and self-deprecating humour. Now where have I heard that one of the effects of misogyny is to make women bitch more about each other's looks and ignore each other's achievements?

Anonymous said...

In response to bedaude, if Ms Hurley's talents as a movie producer are anything like those of her acting, I think we can all breath a sigh of relief! As I said yesterday at 11.34, moderately pretty girl + massive ego. On that she cannot be faulted!

Thomas said...

I've re-read her comments several times, but still can't see what is so wrong with what she has said. Her comments, at the very least, seem honest.

Anonymous said...

I don't see what the big fuss is either. I wouldn't want to live her life, but I'm not going to fault her for it either. At least she's got a sense of humour.

Anonymous said...

She is absolutely beautiful!!!! Hugh Grant WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING !!!!!!