Elle Macpherson turns up the heat this week offering a trip to Barbados for those who pass the Revlon photo shoot challenge! Will Gore reveals all...
After nine episodes and seven previous blogs, I guess it's time I paid homage to the real star of Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model. I'm talking, of course, about Elle MacPherson, head judge and unchallenged leader of the BINTM gang.
A healthy diet, a little luck and, possibly, the hard work of a few medical practitioners, has ensured that this 133-year-old woman looks not a day older than 17. And nine weeks into the current series, she's still going strong.
On last night's show Elle first appeared wearing the fur of a dead Yeti on her back, as she welcomed the models to Lambeth's Garden Museum and told them they'd be taking part in a fashion show.
The fact that the catwalk event was a benefit for a breast cancer charity ensured the girls immediately cracked out their best 'sad faces'. This earnestness lasted all of about ten seconds though, because Elle was soon brandishing passports at them like a villain in an Eastender boozer and telling them that a trip to Barbados was in the offing.
The wannabes went mad. There was more hollering than at a Jay Z concert and it wasn't until the din died down that they realised Elle only had tickets six for the seven of them. It turned out that whoever got the boot at the end of the episode would be missing out on Barbados - Elle might have a smile permanently fixed to her face (superglue?), but she's got a Cowell-esque mean streak too.
So the models were pushed out onto a catwalk/long table by a fashion guru in a terrible tracksuit. Elle clapped along like she was witnessing the dawn of a new civilisation, rather than just a few girls stomp down a table in bikinis. To be fair it was all pretty exciting - at one point Emma hit the catwalk with one shoelace untied.
From there the models headed off to take part in an extended advert for Revlon – sorry, I meant, a photoshoot challenge for which Revlon was the client. Elle was given the afternoon off to do whatever it is supermodels do on a wet afternoon in Lambeth, and the shoot was overseen by Tyson and Revlon representative, Carly O'Connor.
So far Dannii and Elle have been having a competition to see which of them could be the Australian to speak the most inane nonsense in a single episode of BINTM. And fellow Aussie Carly certainly didn't let her compatriots down, with some staggeringly annoying chat while the girls were being snapped.
"She's very, very now" and "they came with such passion to nail the brand," were a couple of her choice emissions. My favourite, though, was when she asked the girls to "capture the essence of a modern yet classic glamourous red lip."
Once they had all made their best attempts to capture the essence of a modern yet classic glamourous red lip, they then headed back to HQ for another showdown with the judges.
Here, Elle grabbed the opportunity to prove once and for all that she is the Aussie queen of inanity. First she tackled Naomi with a Paxman-esque killer question: "How did you feel when you were walking?" Naomi crumbled under the pressure. "I really enjoyed it," was all she could muster, before bursting into tears and whining about her lack of confidence compared to the other girls.
Thankfully Elle had a few words of wisdom to comfort her. "Comparisons is like the plague," she said. Naomi was too distraught to question the bad grammar and simply took this sage bit of advice on board. And, luckily for her, she'll have a chance to put it into practice in Barbados next week, because it was Holly who who got her marching orders.
Holly, in case you missed one of the 77 times she told us, won Miss Ireland a couple of years ago. This didn't impress Elle too much though, neither did the "dent" in Holly's elbow. Despite Tyson and Dannii sticking up for her, Elle was not for turning and the Irish beauty queen was a goner. The permanently smiling assassin had struck once again.
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