Raquel Zimmerman: V: Inez and Vinoodh Sasha Pivovora: Vogue Italia: Meisel

There's an interesting showdown brewing over at MDC. General agreement among the clients and contacts feeding us info at the day job is Gemma Ward has pretty much transcended her No 1 slot on the Top 50 since she now behaves in that iconic way of working at her leisure. For that, you can't blame a girl who's been treading the mills from age 15 ! The big Q is who inherits her spot as No 1? My phones are lighting up with advocates for two frontrunners, IMG's artistic Russian Sasha Pivovora and the eternal Brazilian must-have, Raquel Zimmerman. Right now it is a deadlock so it would be fun to get some feedback from the commited modelwatchers out there. Here are the relative pros and cons of our two contenders.

ARGUMENTS FOR RAQUEL:
1. The girl, after working tirelessly for the last 7 years deserves No 1 by merit of her track record , her proven longevity and her body of work. In other words Raquel's 7 years beats Sasha's 3.
2.As a physical presence in both runway shows and in photo-shoots, Raquel looms as the better model in terms of emotional range, body type and editorial versatility.
3.Raquel connects to the entire idea of fashion, is a great backstage politician and by stint of her warm and charismatic personality has kept a wide range of clients , from Vogue to Fendi to Chloe to Valentino (SS08 if she's in the final edit) in the past 5 years

ARGUMENTS AGAINST RAQUEL:

Gemma Ward : In the Days When She Walked Shows

At Haru while having lunch with the nicest model manager you could imagine, the following happened. As usual, the talk had turned to agency gossip. Not malicious, or particularly competitive but just...idle. " Yeah and Gemma Ward's been looking particularly happy these days". he said in a fairly loud voice, "Cause as we all know she's not always the happiest camper" I sat facing the door, so I could see, literally as he spoke the approaching figure of...Gemma Ward, in these little denim hot pants and a totally non-descript tank top with that model staple, an army coat thrown over it. She looked great, tall and slimmer than the last time we glimpsed her with long tousled blonde hair, looking very much like a beautiful teenaged tourist. She was with her IMG agent. I completely blanched and my lunch companion followed my eyeline to its conclusion. At that point we burst out laughing.If this were a scene in a movie, the audience would go..."Yeah Right!" Poor Gemma probably felt over scrutinized at this point and whether under the weight of our gaze or by pure chance, Maja and Gemma soon elected to take an outside table. I waved hello as they went by and left it at that.