Top model  turns model maker

The self-proclaimed world’s first supermodel is now cashing in on her celebrity mileage on America’s Next Top Model as the over-the-top judge and parlaying that into a brand-new show, now in its second season, called The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. YStyle got to speak to Janice Dickinson — in what must’ve been a 10-way phone interview with press from all over the world — and got the lowdown on the self-described fashion dinosaur’s current mindset. The fearless model-turned-reality-star doesn’t bother to mince words. “Absolutely horrible,” she says, when asked about Victoria Beckham’s fashion sense. “I think she should gain a little bit of weight. With all due respect, if you want a fashion icon, give me Vivian Westwood or Lady Diana. I don’t get it. Please, she doesn’t even smile.”

Dubbing herself a “fashion dinosaur,” Janice wasn’t afraid to dish on the latest winner of America’s Next Top Model (who looks so much like Janice, she could be her doppelganger) and why she wouldn’t want her daughter to enter the modeling world.

YSTYLE: The casting call on your website says you welcome models of all shapes and sizes. But you had to reject some models for being too fat. What’s your take on the whole skinny model issue?

JANICE DICKINSON: That’s the best question that I’ve heard to date. Honestly, just now, the industry wants to see plus-size models. My partners and advertisers say, “Please provide for us some larger-sized big-frame girls.” The agencies are advertising for it but still I say that’s not what the designers want. The designers that are courtiers, Coco Channel, Balenciaga, Issey Miyake, Oscar de la Renta, design for a very thin, flat-chested model with a size  zero frame. This is where fashion begins. It doesn’t begin in the department store. It begins with a sketch, with a design.  I am trying to subscribe to full-sized figures. For television purposes, I’m going to do my very best but I don’t think I’m going to be able to entertain that. I’m going to have to take out the full size. I don’t think I can subscribe to that. I’m sorry if there are any full- sized people listening.

You’re very direct and aware of what you want. Why do some people seem to resent those qualities in women, especially in the fashion industry?

Because it’s a male-driven world that we live in. It’s a masculine world driven by homosexual men, where I strived to be recognized and was taught at a very young age by homosexual men and women that, “Honey, you better stand up for yourself.”

It’s a dog-eat-dog world that we’re living in, and only the strong survive, like the alpha female dog. If people refer to The Devil Wears Prada and say, “Janice Dickinson, oh, she’s a diva” or “She’s a bitch,” then they’re not looking at the perspective of what drives fashion. Fashion is fierce, fashion is ferocious, fashion is an angry dog. One minute it’s in, the next minute it’s out, and only the strong survive.

Truly, I’m not a bitch. I’m just a very dominant force and whether you like it or not, I’m going to tell the truth; my truth. So 40 years later I’m still saying it, people are reading about it and watching it. I’m still getting hired as a model, I’m being hired on television, I’m being hired as a writer, just because I try to come from a truthful place and sometimes we don’t like to see or hear certain things. I say what people think so a lot of the times other people don’t like it.

What’s been the single biggest challenge in establishing Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (JDMA)? How do you see yourself as being different from the other crop of reality modeling shows out there?

Did you say crap? I believe you said crap. To truly answer in the most positive honest way: this is not a reality show, it’s a docu-drama. When I approached Oxygen with the concept along with my partner Stuart Krasnow, we were trying to decide what to do. How to encompass a true documentation of what was going on in my life. A single mom trying to do a start-up business, in some capacity that was hanging on to what I love the best: the fashion industry. And voila, it was either going to be the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency or a magazine. Something to still tie me into the arena of fashion.

So, the other ”crap” of reality shows that’s out there doesn’t hold a candle to what truly goes on throughout the JDMA, which is a true depiction of what’s taking place in my life.

That’s the difference; the most meaningful force in back of the whole thing is to give back to the industry which has provided me so much enjoyment and fascination. To this day I still long for the magazines that come out each month to see what’s going on in trends and fashion so I suppose I really love staying in the picture, which is why I’m still in it.

What’s the biggest difference between the Janice Dickinson we see on TV and Janice Dickinson the single mom who stays at home?

It’s a constant battle even with my 20-year-old son because there are a lot of things that he doesn’t like about me. And what I’m going through right now, he says that he doesn’t see any change in me being on TV and in real life. But I say that’s not true. But maybe children aren’t really that far from the truth. I believe that 100 percent of what I do is coming from a passionate heart and I try very much to get across my opinion and my direction, and 99.9 percent of the time, I’m not understood, and my vision is not understood. So it comes out in a screaming fashion like “RAH RAH RAH.” I’m screaming all the time and people think, “Oh, she’s an angry bitch.” In fact, it’s not that at all. I’m just trying to be understood because I am so 100 percent passionately committed to my children and being in the fashion industry, that it sometimes comes out in an angry manner.

Do you feel that you scream more at work or at home?

Oh, God, at home! I scream so much that the birds fly away.

I think I feel a bit sorry for your son now.

No. You know what, here’s the deal, because I do it in a way that it’s not a form of hate. It’s like the loud bird in the forest, sometimes you have the squawking crow (impersonates squawking crow). That doesn’t mean it’s a bad bird.

How is the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency different from America’s Next Top Model?

Good grief! For one thing, America’s Next Top Model is a contest. My show, my life, and my agency are not a contest. Rather then eliminating, I am accumulating. There are no eliminations. I groom, strive, develop, share and give back to my models all the strength, courage and hope that has taken me over 30 years to earn.

In America’s Next Top Model, they finally picked someone who looked like me as their latest winner. But she ain’t that Janice Dickenson, honey! Sorry, Tyra! In an industry like this, people always need people like me because I am still around, and you can’t keep a fashion force down like Kate Moss, Gisele and Naomi Campbell. You can’t just keep down the ones that pop through, we never go down.

You’ve been very open about the plastic surgery. Does the criticism about your surgeries affect you?

What do they say? Do they think my tits are too big?

Dr. Phil said that you were trying to hide the emptiness inside you.

Well, I was debating with Dr. Phil because he had me come on the show and he re-edited what really was going on because he took out a very important debate. Dr. Phil was saying, “I think the reason you have so much surgery is because you try to cover the emptiness inside.” I said, “I’m not empty.” My face is on television. I’ve done all of this surgery, which was first of all Botox and Restylane, and then I had my eyes done, because I’m 53 as we speak. To be on television and to have my face on the cover of a magazine, it’s my work. Phil was never a beauty queen, so I told him to go get some hair plugs and lipo, then maybe he could be on the cover of Men’s Vogue. They took out a very important part of the debate and I was challenging him right back. I mean, I’m not empty inside. I asked the women in the audience if anyone ever suffered from bad feet. He wanted me to talk about surgery, so I started talking about my bunionectomy. I guess he didn’t really like me talking about my bunionectomy because I had an opinion.

Are you planning on getting more work done?

Well the penile implant is next. (Laughs) I’m kidding. I’ve finally hit a state of grace. I think people like me on television, for whatever reason — I tell the truth, I’m entertaining. Yes, I had my breasts done but that was 20 years ago. I was really flat-chested. I didn’t have any breasts, so I was a supermodel with two little raisins. So when I hit 32 and became a mother, and realized that my breast swelled and lactated with milk, I decided that I really liked the way they looked.

So I went and got some breast inserts stuck in so I didn’t have to stuff my bra for the rest of my life. If you call that surgery — and I was the first woman to talk about it — I don’t care. I don’t advocate it though. I wrote my second book, Everything About Me is Fake…And I’m Perfect, because I was doing a talk show with Ricki Lake and I saw 18-year old girls in the front row holding Victoria Secret catalogues and wanting to get breast implants. I said to all of them, “Wait a minute! This is not about getting breasts. This is about trying to fulfill your true body form and shape. Go off and have babies and then if you want to enhance your breasts, then go and do that.”

What would you do if your daughter turned around and said that she wanted to be a model?

Thank God she doesn’t! My daughter wants to be an actress, but we’re all influenced by fashion magazines. It’s unfortunate because young girls today look at the magazines and they just see the sensationalism with the Lindseys and the Britneys and the Paris.

My daughter goes to a girls’ school and I’m constantly giving lectures like “Please, everything you see is not entirely reality.” Cindy Crawford walks around with a team of hair artists, makeup artists, and stylists and she knows when to come out in the best light to be photographed with her husband. Trust me, I know that she hires these people because I try to get them myself.

It’s magic because every cover that you see of Julia Robert, Kate Moss, Lindsey Lohan, and Paris Hilton is all retouched. Fake lashes and 13 pounds of makeup. That’s not what people look like. I’m sorry that the industry is going in this direction. I really long for the days of film and I really miss seeing natural photography with film which is different from digital technology. It’s horrible.

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The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency airs Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on Channel V.