Dream Maker
El Museo del Barrio Honors Mario Testino
Normally, when you're the evening's honoree, people in the room take pictures of you, not the other way around. Leave it to Mario Testino to turn the tables. The Peruvian-born photographer's closing statement from the dais at last night's El Museo del Barrio gala was to whip out a camera and take a snapshot. It earned him a huge round of applause. As the many Testino fans and collaborators in the room—including Carine Roitfeld, Donatella Versace, and Narciso Rodriguez—would attest, that's the way it often works.
"He has a way with things, to do whatever he wants," Versace told Style.com, recalling the occasion Testino (who was meeting her for the first time) shot her at her house in Milan and, upon entering, immediately went about rearranging the curtains. "We know that he will talk us into doing absolutely anything for him," Kate Winslet said in her introduction. "When Mario turns to you and says, 'It's beautiful, but I think it would be better naked, no?'—I wonder, how can one refuse?"
In addition to the gala's usual cadre of Spanish-speaking notables, this year's edition drew an extra contingent of models, including Joan Smalls, who owes her first feature in American Vogue to Testino, and Candice Swanepoel, who shot a Versace fragrance campaign with him a couple of weeks ago.
What's his secret? During his acceptance speech, Testino gamely shared one of them. "People think it's funny that I do castings for assistants," he said. "But I think it's very important to have good-looking people, because then the girls feel they are beautiful. And I feel that way, too, when they're carrying everything behind me." Including, of course, the latest piece of congratulatory hardware. But why shouldn't Testino be handing off awards to his attractive adjuncts? As Crystal Renn put it, "He makes you believe the dream."
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