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Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2003 in
The Miami Herald.
Once-hopping Havana no longer hot scene for modeling
On the cover of June's Cigar Aficionado: The Supermodels of Cuba. The way
the magazine tells it, they're not only lookers, they're also low-maintenance.
No Linda-Naomi-Kate attitude to contend with in the land of the Cohiba, the
conga and the ration card.
''It's all fresh and easy here in Havana,'' Dean Bornstein, whose agency
represents 75 Cuban models, says in the magazine. But as much as Cigar
Aficionado raves about the modeling scene, Cuba's no picture-perfect paradise.
A few years ago, the fashion industry descended. Now, the same players point
to endless red tape, a lack of infrastructure (which makes it difficult to
process film and rent equipment) and the U.S. embargo as the reasons behind its
disenchantment with the island.
''In order to be fashion-oriented, you need a certain amount of freedom. But
everything in Cuba is state-controlled,'' said Jean-Luc Brunel, owner of
Paris-based Karin Models, which has offices in New York and South Beach. "There
are hundreds of other beautiful places . . . where you're not stopped by the
police every five minutes.
"If Cuba got it together, Miami would not exist.''
Back in the mid-1990s, the fashion world, forever seeking the latest in
Decay Chic (these are the same people who fell all over themselves to capture
the quaintness of a down-and-out South Beach), jousted for elbow room in front
of every unspoiled seashore, crumbling cathedral and trudging tail-fin jalopy.
But the very same people who not long ago declared Havana was happening are now
calling it a has-been.
''Cuba was very popular five or seven years ago. But now it's overexposed,''
Italian fashion photographer Fabio Fasolini said from Milan. "And in the
last two to three years, it's become too expensive. The [Hotel] Nacional was $40
a night when I started going. Now it's $300. I liked the spirit of Cuba, but now
it's like Miami. Very commercial. They don't even dress like before. They dress
like they're in Miami Beach.''
Four years ago, Fasolini shot a Lancme campaign in Cuba. He also shot there
for Italian Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire. Now the work has pretty much dried up,
he said.
''There are beautiful beaches in Cancún, too. And it's less expensive
than Cuba. And everything works. Phones, electricity, water'' Fasolini said.
But, some say, eventually all that will change. ''The day Castro comes down
and Cuba opens up, there will be a big boom. It just has to be easier to work
there,'' said Christophe Nouet, a French photographer who has been shooting in
Cuba since the early 1990s. In 1999, he shot a campaign for Romeo y Julieta
cigars with famed Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, whose credits include that
ubiquitous image of Ché Guevara.
There are no readily available numbers on the fashion production business in
Cuba, but many speculate that if it weren't for restrictions -- from Cuba and
the United States -- the scene would explode.
''Cuba today is somewhere near where the U.S.S.R. was in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, when the fashion industry was discovered,'' said John S. Kavulich,
president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York. In 1996,
Miami-Dade County collected $120 million in fees for still photography,
according to Jeff Peel, director of the Miami-Dade Mayor's Office of Film and
Entertainment. The numbers steadily declined to $85 million last year, because
of a prohibitive exchange rate on the dollar, steep permitting fees and hotel
rates and a backdrop that simply got overused.
CHALLENGES
Cuba could have been more of a contender, but too often, projects get
aborted at the last minute because it takes so long to get permits and work
through the system.
''I remember the bureaucracy could be terrible,'' said Ivelin Giro Robins,
who in the late 1980s became the first big name in modeling to come out of Cuba
since a beauty named Norka graced international magazine covers in the 1960s.
''There were some catalog shoots I was ready to do and never did because the
teams had to leave. In fashion, everything is money. You can't just wait and
wait,'' said Ivelin, who now lives in Miami and is married to local developer
Craig Robins.
Says Brunel: "I was traveling through the island with one of Cuba's
most important architects. And when we got to a hotel on this beautiful beach,
he was told he couldn't stay there. He had to sleep in the lighthouse next door
because only tourists are allowed.''
For all of Cigar Aficionado's frothing about the models in Cuba, the fact is
that it's only a few who find steady work, and fewer who get to travel outside
the island for fashion shows and shoots.
''There are 20 to 30 decent models, and that's it,'' said Christian Bengsch,
who owns Take Me to Cuba, a German production company. "The very good
models, they either find an agency in Europe to sponsor them or they find a man
somewhere to marry them. But they never come back.''
Models, like others who represent Cuban culture abroad, are not free to
travel without getting permission from the government, often a circuitous task
that can take months.
They may be desirable, but the rules make them unreliable. In the
jet-setting fashion world, it's key to be able to pick up and go to the next
job.
LOOKING BACK
Castro daughter Alina Fernandez Revuelta, who now lives in Miami, did some
modeling in the early 1980s, before models on the island were allowed to travel
and before they had access to dollars.
''Things may be tough for Cuban models today, but they're much better than
they used to be,'' Fernandez said. "Before 1994, . . . if you were caught
with one dollar, you could go to jail. Foreign photographers came to shoot you,
but they paid you in pesos. . . . I was paid something like 25 or 50 pesos for
the day, which is like one or two dollars.''
For all of the limitations, those who believe it's only a matter of time
before the Cuban scene skyrockets already are plotting for the future.
''If Cuba were to be liberated, there would be a growth there that would be
phenomenal,'' said modeling agent Irene Marie, one of the first to get in on the
South Beach scene. "There would have to be an infrastructure built first,
but I'm very familiar with building infrastructure. There wasn't much of one
when I opened on the Beach in 1989.''
Cuban singer seeks start in Miami
By Jordan Levin. Levin@herald.com
''I decided to leave Cuba because I felt like my career was totally reined
in and I wasn't in agreement with a hypocritical system,'' singer Carlos Manuel
said at a news conference at Miami International Airport on Wednesday, just four
days after dodging Cuban officials in Mexico City.
The 30-year-old, whose full name is Carlos Manuel Pruneda Macías,
said he was motivated by the lack of opportunities and freedom on the island.
''Even having fame, I still missed many things,'' he said.
Manuel said he was not directly affected by the recent repression in Cuba
but that it, along with restrictions that kept him from touring and pursuing his
music freely, contributed to his decision to leave.
''It's like one more drop of water in a cup that's already overflowing,'' he
said.
Manuel and his group, Carlos Manuel y Su Clan, rose to fame in Cuba in 2000
with the song Malo Cantidad (Bad Enough). Their mix of hardcore Cuban salsa with
soca and dancehall, and a sexy platoon of young male singer-dancers, made them
popular among Cuban youth. He is the most prominent Cuban musician to defect
since Manolín, the ''Salsa Doctor,'' who left in 2001 and just released
an album on BMG U.S. Latin.
In 2001, Manuel released an album on U.S. label Palm Pictures and produced a
second album for Manuel it that was never released. A Palm Pictures
representative would not comment on whether the singer still had a relationship
with the label.
Hugo Cancio, head of Miami label Ciocan music, which recently released
Manuel album Enamora'o (In Love) here, accompanied Manuel on tour to Mexico. He
described a last-minute rush to reach the United States after pressure from
Cuban officials. Manuel was already considering defecting when he arrived in
Mexico last week with his band. Cancio said a Cuban official confronted the
musicians Friday night before their show in Mexico City.
According to press reports, over the weekend, Manuel, his mother, his sister
and her boyfriend, a musician from the group and a sound technician crossed into
Brownsville, Texas. They were released by authorities Tuesday.
The singer performed in Miami last November, when two of his musicians and
two sound technicians also defected. He said he did not stay then because of
concerns about his family.
Manuel hopes to pursue his music in a way that he could not in Cuba.
Dodd's request for memo hinders Latin envoy's job
By Tim Johnson. Tjohnson@Herald.Com
WASHINGTON - Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., is demanding that the State
Department release a classified ''end of tour'' cable that the top U.S. diplomat
in Cuba, Vicki Huddleston, sent to the department before her departure nearly a
year ago.
Dodd has set the cable's release as a condition for moving ahead with a vote
in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the nomination of Roger F. Noriega
to become the senior U.S. diplomat to Latin America.
Such cables traditionally offer candid assessments of U.S. policy, and State
Department officials say that if the cables are routinely divulged, U.S.
ambassadors will clam up.
The department has offered to show the classified cable to three ranking
senators on the committee, including Dodd -- but not staff aides. Dodd wrote a
letter Wednesday saying that's not good enough.
After Noriega's nomination first came up before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Dodd submitted three written questions -- one about the role of an
International Republican Institute employee working in Haiti, and two dealing
with Cuba.
Dodd asked the State Department to explain the stated goal of the current
senior U.S. diplomat in Havana, James Cason, in carrying out a ''more
confrontational approach'' toward the Fidel Castro regime. He asked for an
outline of instructions on any such policy that Cason might have received.
Dodd also asked for the final lengthy ''end of tour'' cable sent by
Huddleston before her departure from Havana about 10 months ago. She was Cason's
predecessor.
While Dodd appears satisfied by lengthy responses delivered by the State
Department to Capitol Hill June 4 on the Haiti matter and Cason's role, his
office has insisted on seeing the Huddleston cable.
Just what is in her cable is not publicly known.
Some congressional staffers say Dodd believes the cable contains warnings
that the Bush administration policy of intense engagement with political
dissidents in Cuba would lead to a crackdown.
A severe crackdown in March and April left 75 pro-democracy activists with
lengthy jail terms.
Others say the cable contains no such criticism.
Huddleston is now U.S. ambassador to Mali.
A State Department official, speaking on anonymity, said the department
wants to keep a candid and classified channel for departing U.S. ambassadors to
air their opinions. He said it opposes routine release of such ''end of tour''
cables.
If such cables are made public, he said, departing ambassadors "are
going to stop writing anything worth reading. They'll send pablum.''
Noriega, a third-generation Mexican American from Kansas and a veteran staff
member on Capitol Hill, is currently U.S. ambassador to the Organization of
American States.
He faced no strong opposition in his May 1 Senate committee hearing. But
since then, his nomination has become entangled in a battle over U.S. policy
toward Cuba.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., later put a ''hold'' on his nomination to pressure
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to allow an up-or-down vote on the full Senate
floor for his proposal to relax U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba.
Such internecine battles between Capitol Hill and the State Department have
blocked the State Department post from being filled by a Senate-approved nominee
for nearly five years. The delays have sunk initial expectations that Noriega's
nomination might clear the Senate by mid-June. Some supporters wonder whether he
will even obtain a vote by August, when Congress goes into recess. | 
