It was the era of the Supermodel — you know, when they all went by their first and last names but certainly didn't need to — think Naomi, Christy, Linda — and claimed they didn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.

New York Fashion Week shows were more glamorous (read: they weren't sponsored by Olympus or Mercedes Benz and were held in lofts, clubs, and restaurants instead of tents). And Sam Fine was behind the scenes — at Geoffrey Bean, Fernando Sanchez, Tracy Reese, Todd Oldham, Isaac Mizrahi, etc. — giving the models faces to match their designer looks or rushing from show to show with Naomi and Tyra.

It was the first half of the '90s when Sam Fine both assisted the late Kevyn Aucoin and worked the shows on his own. Those were the good ol' days… that he doesn't really want to go back to.

"It's a fun gig, but I leave it to the young at heart and the ones that really love fashion," he told Stereohyped.

And it's not like being a celebrity makeup artist, which is the the job Sam Fine graduated to when he left the fashion show world, is any less glamorous. Or that much different.

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Because she's infinitely cooler than me (actually, I just let her think that), Debbie, editor extraordinaire at our sister site, Jossip, crashed "snagged an invite" to Alek Wek's party for her new book, Alek, which no one there actually read.

Or so Debbie says.

I actually did read it, and will be sharing my thoughts with you on it a bit later.

After the jump, peruse her astute party observations, which cover everything from Kimora Lee Simmons formidable height, to gift bags, to Nigel Barker, noted fashion photographer.

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How many performers examine their earlier work and think about how they may have compromised themselves, by playing up black stereotypes or doing work they weren't comfortable with, in order to move their careers forward? Black models in particular seem to have tons of stories like these, and Alek Wek is no different. In her new book, Alek, she writes about a calendar she did for LaVazza coffee ten years ago that still bothers her.

Wek writes how she posed nude inside a "gigantic white espresso cup bigger than a car . . . My skin was to be the espresso." While she calls the images "beautiful," Wek adds: "I can't help but compare them to all the images of black people that have been used in marketing over the decades. There was the big-lipped jungle-dweller on the blackamoor ceramic mugs sold in the '40s; the golliwog badges given away with jam; Little Black Sambo, who decorated the walls of an American restaurant chain in the 1960s; and Uncle Ben, whose apparently benign image still sells rice."

Good news for Alek Wek: I used all of my google image search skills and couldn't find the shot. She needn't worry about it going down in history like Uncle Ben. I mean, Chairman Ben.

[NYP]

Tyra Banks, Iman, Kimora Lee Simmons, and Alek Wek grace the cover of September's Ebony, which focuses on blacks in fashion over the last 50 years and is on newstands today. Naomi Campbell is framing this and putting it on her wall.