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Jewish World Review Jan. 31, 2003/ 28 Shevat 5763
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
LONDON
Havi Mond's journey to work would defeat most
veterans of Connex or the M25. She wakes up in
Tzefas (Safed), northern Israel, travels for two hours to Tel
Aviv, waits for three hours to go through security,
flies to London, takes the train down to Brighton,
where her grandparents live, and then goes to work
as a model.
"Sometimes, when there is a red alert, it takes even
longer, as security has to go through every bag, but
I am used to it," she says.
She started making these epic journeys last August,
imagining that, as a little-known model, she would
not be much in demand. Within a week, she had
landed her first shoot for Vogue -- earning only £50,
their standard fee -- and she was launched. Already,
she is widely talked of as the girl most likely to
revive the supermodel phenomenon, and the
nightmarish trip has turned into a fortnightly,
sometimes weekly, routine.
By now, most girls would have thrown in their El Al
boarding pass and settled in London, but Havi is in
no rush. "I am a very home child," she says,
sounding deceptively young for her 19 years. "I love
living with my mummy and daddy, I love cooking and
cleaning. So I am happy to travel, though sometimes
it is a little boring."
Havi is a classic beauty with perfect skin and an
other-worldly tranquility. A host of magazines have
already used her and, next month, she will begin
advertising the French Connection summer
collection. Calvin Klein wants to see her, as do
scores of other top names.
She's young, she's fresh --- and she is an Israeli
whose Orthodox Judaism makes her refuse work on
Fridays and Saturdays, avoid non-kosher catering
and turn down jobs that require her to wear
anything that she, or her parents Peter and Pamela,
consider "provocative." Cramping for a model's style,
one might think, but apparently not. "It all adds to
the intrigue," says Alisa Marks, French Connection's
creative director.
We meet in the decadently ornate surroundings of
Sketch, the latest wildly expensive London salon de
the. Havi is not one of those models whose good
looks you could miss if she were not dolled up and
painted. She is dressed in combat trousers and a
parka, but even the outer garb of a brussel sprout
doesn't mask her beauty. Kate Winslet's recent
photographic touch-up and slim-down made it seem
as if anyone could be a model now, but Havi -- 5 feet
9 inches, eight stone and perfectly proportioned -- has a
considerable head start.
Some say she looks like Cindy Crawford, others say
Claudia Schiffer; there's a touch, too, of Julia Roberts
when she gives one of her wide smiles. Throw in
some olive skin and Shakira/Jennifer Lopez-style
long, streaked hair and Havi's name alone may soon
be enough to sell clothes or perfume.
PROUDLY PATRIOTIC AND RELIGIOUS
"Oh, but it is the fashion here, you could look at it as
just the color green," she says. Then she turns on
her charm, opens her pale eyes wide, gives an
enormous smile and adds: "Or you could look at it as
the good stuff of the army --- and be proud."
Havi may dress like a British teenager but in spirit
she is a world away, the product of an upbringing on
the front line. Cynicism and worldly cool are not for
her; patriotism is. Although she can resist the fancy
"blue/green tea" and minute but pricey chocolate
cake on offer, she cannot pass up an opportunity to
act as an ambassador for her nation.
"People get a funny impression of Israel from the
television," she says. "They think you don't go out,
you don't even walk in the street because people
can just blow themselves up. It is not really like that.
You have to keep going. We don't sit around not
doing things, just crying."
Havi's English is charmingly accented with guttural
"h"s and elongated vowels. Her parents, who
emigrated to Israel from Britain in their youth, have
always spoken English to their four children, but
Hebrew is Havi's first language and her home is in
the old, Orthodox sector of a town that was
threatened by Scud missiles during the Gulf war.
"When I was a child, we often had to go to a room
and put on a gas mask," she says. "But it is not so
bad now. Or it was not so bad but, a month ago, a
bus was bombed near my home. Most of those killed
were soldiers but I knew one of the women who
died. In Israel, we are like a big family, so you try to
be sensitive, to help as much as you can and be
there for people. Their pain is your pain.
"I don't lie awake at night worrying, but each time
something happens, each time there is a threat, it
does something to you. Everyone in Israel is very
aware of security. Each time you get on a bus, you
look around, you check, you have to be aware."
London must be delightfully relaxing for her by
comparison? Apparently not. "We don't have
muggers in Israel," she notes. "And what I find very
strange is that in my country, there are security and
army people everywhere, but here, the only time I
see guards is inside fashion shops. Sometimes they
have them outside, too."
Havi sees a lot of fashion shops. For all her quiet
spirituality, she is a girly girl who could shop until
she drops. "Sometimes, I think it is almost a
sickness," she says, with a giggle. In Israel, she
haunts the boutiques of Netanya with her
grandmother; in London, she traipses around with
her aunt, who is in the fashion business.
How did she cope with national service? "I am a
religious girl," she explains, "and, until a year ago,
religious girls did not do military service - there were
problems with the clothes, the boys. So I taught
hyperactive children and those from poor
neighborhoods and I helped Ethiopians who had
just arrived in Israel to learn Hebrew."
Many young people of other nationalities do all they
can to wriggle their way out of national service, but
Havi earnestly defends her soft option. "I cannot
see myself living in tents and doing all that running
around," she admits. "But national service is just as
important to the government." Naturally, her brother
and her boyfriend both served their country in the
army for three years and she expresses no
resentment at having had to put a potentially
lucrative modeling career on hold.
This unswerving loyalty to her country leads her to
avoid political discussions, but she must have met
people in Britain who have expressed sympathy for
the Palestinians. "No, never," she says, bewildered
at the thought.
Havi was spotted, aged 16, by Sarah Leon, a booker
for the model agency Select. But there was no
question of her starting a career immediately, even
though her walls were plastered with pictures of
Cindy Crawford, her role model. She had had
modeling offers in Israel and turned them down -
"there, the industry has the image of using the
girls", she says.
Her parents, a social worker and a drama therapist,
were not tempted by Select's talk of the
international big time, either. They wanted their
daughter to finish school, where she got marks in
the nineties for her final exams, and do her national
service before thinking about a career.
"I didn't keep mentioning it to my mummy and my
daddy because I knew they did not like the idea,"
says Havi. It was only when Select flew her and her
mother to London, showed them what a
family-minded agency they were, and promised
never to ask her to do work that went against her
principles, that the Monds agreed.
So far, Havi has had a chaperone on most jobs but
soon, she will have to manage on her own. Her
childhood, so sheltered in some ways, so tough in
others, might not seem to equip her for the bitching,
the rejections, the transitoriness of many modeling
careers, but she is not worried.
"I like the idea of being a supermodel," she says. "It
would be fun to be famous, so long as I didn't lose
my private life. And I like modeling: the clothes, the
make-up and having my hair done. There are many
places I want to see -- Switzerland, France, Brazil --
and I would like to save some money and buy a flat
so that, when I am a student, I don't have to work.
But I won't be disappointed if it doesn't work out.
"I used to want to be a lawyer but now, I want to
study marketing. I would like to be a publicity girl.
Many models work only in the holidays and I could
do that, too. Or, if I am working all the time, I could
get a flat in London. My parents would let me if I
really wanted to. With my boyfriend? Now, that
might be more difficult."
In the meantime, she will carry on living at home,
buy a book on marketing to pass the endless hours
in airports, and continue to demonstrate to the
outside world that Israelis can be beautiful and
resilient, without being aggressive.
As she says: "Every person deals with the situation
in a different way, but we cannot stop living our
lives."
Is the world ready for the first Sabbath-observant supermodel?
By Cassandra Jardine
But, to me, the
most amazing thing about her appearance is that
she is dressed like a soldier --- right down to an
ammunition bag. Surely a girl who has just
completed her national service, who commutes
between London and the intifada, whose every
lipstick is searched when she leaves home, must
have had enough of military khaki?
Cassandra Jardine is a columnist for The Telegraph of London. Comment by clicking here.
