In 2010 Zahia Dehar was France’s most famous call girl. The underage prostitute was paid for sex by three Famous French footballers. Whilst the allegations have haunted the football players ever since, Zahia has benefited from the fame and used this to her advantage. The 19 year old has now launched a couture lingerie range in Paris Haute Couture fashion week. What’s more is that the look book cataloguing her latest designs has been shot by none other than fashion mogul, Karl Lagerfeld. The Chanel designer, who points out that he had “nothing to do with her collection” has photographed the 19-year-old in the style of Vargas pinups, and believes Zahia should be celebrated in the manner of traditional French escorts: “She is very French courtesan, like Liane de Pougy or the Belle Otéro”, he explains.
Lagerfeld is not the first fashionable figure to pick-up on Dehar either. She has also featured in Vanity Fair and V Magazine. The guests of Paris’s Haute Couture fashion week were greeted by real-life size moulds of her naked body, as well as mini white chocolate Zahias, and prints of her look book shot by Karl Lagerfeld all in a velvet, bubblegum-tinted boudoir.
The 19 year old designer has included some irony in naming her collection however. At age 17, she was reportedly bought for a night by a team member to be Franck Ribéry’s birthday present. As luck would have it the first theme of the show was ‘woman as present’.The models appeared wearing no underwear at all, but pink bows covering their lady parts ( In some cases revealing a little more than appropriate, but then this is fashion industry) all with pink present boxes on their heads. Every feminists dream! The following looks tapped into age-old stripper clichés: French maids in tiny aprons and thongs pouted away; jungle ladies ‘dressed’ in branches appeared against a projection of a tropical flower opening The names of the garments didn’t leave much to the imagination either. ‘My Apricot’, ‘Wild Stroke’ and ‘My Cherry’ to name a few.
The press release said that these were meant for a world where ‘frills match shoes and bags’. From infamous hooker to cult figure in the making Zahia has turned her life around. We expect to see the Zahia Barbie dolls on the shelves very soon.
