On a recent afternoon, four women met at an Upper East Side restaurant to discuss what it's like to be an extremely beautiful young woman in New York City. About what it's like to be sought after, paid for, bothered, envied, misunderstood, and just plain gorgeous—all before the age of twenty-five.
Camilla was the first to arrive. Five feet ten, pale white skin, big lips, round cheekbones, tiny nose—Camilla is twenty-five but says she "feels old." She began modeling at sixteen. When I first met her, months ago downtown, she was doing her duty as a «date» to a well— known television producer, which meant she was smiling and speaking back when someone asked her a question. Other than that, she was making very little effort, except to occasionally light her own cigarettes.
Women hke Camilla don't need to make much effort, especially with men. While many women would have killed to have a date with Scotty, the TV producer, Camilla told me she had been bored. "He's not my type," she said. Too old
(early forties), not attractive enough, not rich enough. She said she'd recently returned from a trip to St. Moritz with a young, titled European—that, she said, was her idea of fun. The fact that Scotty is indisputably one of the most eligible bachelors in New York meant nothing to her. She was the prize, not Scotty.
The other three women were late, so Camilla kept talking. "I'm not a bitch," she said, looking around the restaurant, "but most of the girls in New York are just idiots. Airheads. They can't even carry on a conversation. They don't know which fork to use. They don't know how to tip the maid at someone's country house."
There are a handful of women like Camilla in New York. They are all part of a sort of secret club, an urban sorority, with just a few requirements for membership: extreme beauty, youth (age range seventeen to twenty-five, or at least not admitting to being over twenty-five), brains, and the ability to sit in new restaurants for hours.
The brains part, however, appears to be relative. As one of Camilla's friends, Alexis, said, "I'm literary. I read. I'll sit down and read a whole magazine from cover to cover."
Yes, these are the beautiful girls who throw off the whole man— woman curve thing in New York, because they get more than their fair share. Of attention, invitations, gifts, and offers of clothes, money, private airplane rides, and dinners on yachts in the South of France. These are the women who accompany the bachelors with the boldface names to the best parties and charity events. The women who get asked—instead of you. They have access. New York should be their oyster. But is it?