By Olivia Barker, USA TODAY
That F-word favored by fashionistas ? you know, fierce? is getting a fresh forum.
When women log on to Tyra Banks' TypeF website, they're greeted by name. Content is tailored to their physical characteristics.
When women log on to Tyra Banks' TypeF website, they're greeted by name. Content is tailored to their physical characteristics.
Tyra Banks is taking her message of multicultural beauty to the Web with TypeF.com, a personalized style resource launching Tuesday for women who aren't necessarily out to become America's next top model.
And if, for Banks, F stands for fierce, she's encouraging her users to break out their dictionaries and dig up their own F-words. "We decided to keep a blank slate for women to fill in what that F means to them," says the model turned media mogul.
Women input their stats into the site ? 5-foot-2, olive-skinned, black-haired with almond-shaped hazel eyes, for instance ? and every time they log on, they're greeted by name and with content tailored to their physical characteristics. There's also a weekly Web series, Fa-Fa-Fa-Fashion, starring Banks and America's Next Top Model judge Andr� Leon Talley, in which the pair offer how-to-wear tips on seven items of clothing.
"It's done with humor and fun," says Banks, 37.
She doesn't see TypeF as something that competes with or even complements fashion magazines such as Vogue, where Talley is a contributing editor.
"It's a very specific voice," she says. "TypeF is saying, 'No, you are good enough. You deserve to wear that trend, too.' "
Tyra Banks: "It's a very specific voice. TypeF is saying, 'No, you are good enough. You deserve to wear that trend, too.' "
Contrary to some reports, Banks has not returned to the runway. Although she did re-sign with her former agency IMG last year, it wasn't to model, but as a way to connect her company, Bankable Productions, with sponsors. "This is not me coming out of retirement," she says.
Business is on Banks' brain these days: She's in the midst of a three-term executive education program at Harvard Business School. (She graduates in 2012.) It's "very, very intense," she says. "It is true immersion." For each three-week term, she bunks in a dorm ? "which I was very terrified about " ? and rises every Monday to Saturday at 4:45 a.m. so that she's ready to meet her study group at 7:30 a.m.
"I have to work out and eat breakfast beforehand and get ready and be a female," she says. But "in the end, I never would have had it any other way." She has made "life-long friends" among her class, which started with 180 students ? only 18 of whom were women. "We still have a lot of work to do" when it comes to gender equity.
Banks doesn't seem heartbroken that another project, The Tyra Banks Show, was canceled last year. "As amazing as it was, there was just so much time dedicated to it," she says. "It started to not be healthy for me, actually." Between hosting and producing Tyra and Top Model, as well as creating TypeF, she was "so stressed and stretched so thin," she says. "I could see that over time" her multi-hyphenate life would hurt the show itself.
Eight years and nearly 17 cycles into Top Model, however, and Banks swears she's not tired of the phenomenon that put her on the pop-cultural map.
"We will have Top Model for as long as people want to watch it," she says.
Still, she's not slouching down the reality TV runway: "I'm very hard on my team, and my team is very hard on me."
Take the recent episode that featured contestants getting cozy with bees. "I was looking at it like, 'Gosh, is this new enough? Is this so five years ago?' " The bees, apparently, weren't reacting, well, fierce enough. "They were flying everywhere except on the girls. I wasn't super-happy."
Rachel Perry Daniella Alonso Michelle Malkin Sara Spraker Joanne Montanez
No comments:
Post a Comment