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Michele
Paradise started her modelling career in Washington DC in September
1978. She was booked to model for a French promotion of designers
to celebrate the opening of Bloomingdales in Washington. One of the
designers, Thierry Mugler, asked her to come to Paris to become
part of his cabine and to model in his press shows. She did this for
several years and, during that time, Thierry introduced her to several
other designers. Michele joined an agency and started an illustrious
catwalk career which took her to Milan, Rome, New York, London and,
of course, Paris. She modelled in many prêt a porter shows as
well as couture shows throughout Europe and America. |
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in 1978 in Washington, Michele met British designer Zandra Rhodes,
who invited her to London to become one of her fitting models and
to model in her catwalk shows, which Michele still occasionally takes
part in to this day. This working relationship has lasted for over
20 years. Michele also worked for all the major and minor British
designers, including college degree shows. While based in London,
Michele continued to move successfully between the very different
European and US markets. |
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1986, Adele Rootstein asked Michele to become one of her mannequins.
The mannequin was produced that year along with Billy Blair and Pat
Cleveland. During these years, Michele appeared in many television
programmes and was the main model for a programme called 'In At
The Deep End' which followed a journalist with no designing experience
throughout his design apprenticeship and to his final show. She was
also the model coach for the last episode of 'Model Behaviour'.
She has also appeared in several commercials and magazines. |
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1990, Michele was asked to meet a young designer named Philip Treacy
and to appear in his degree show at the Royal College of Art. This
was the start of a long and very successful working relationship and
friendship and to this day, Michele still models for Philip, most
recently at his Moet Chandon award show in April 2002. |
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been described by Iain R Webb as one of the best catwalk models
in years, Michele was approached to train models for the catwalk.
This included teaching models about castings and an in-depth look
at the world of modelling. Mainly working with models with little
or no experience, agencies that have worked with Michele have continued
to book her every season as they fully believe that this kind of training
helps to fast-track new models in a very difficult industry. Michele
has also advised and judged several modelling competitions both in
catwalk and photographic modelling. |
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