Can Baptiste Giabiconi ride that privileged Karl Lagerfeld platform all the way to icon-hood

"The lifeblood of any model, male or female is the customer coming back. We can be the best possible agent and make that opportunity of the booking... that one time. We can get you in to see that customer who ordinarily would not have requested you...that one time. But the only one who can make that into a repeat booking is you when you get on set"

Sean Patterson , President of Wilhelmina Management.

TI is obsessed with the June/July 2006 issue of L'Uomo Vogue

I was in LA the day the issue dropped in the US. I was just leaving Mauro's at Fred Segal's when my phone blurbled an incoming email from Jason Kanner at Major.

Mr Nate Gill at Major Models is fresh faced and glossy

Oraine by Gregory Vaughn

TI has certain set of fixtures and photographer Gregory Vaughn is becoming one of them. We love these pictures he snapped of Jamaica's finest Oraine .The clean clarity and the consistency of Greg's work is really well developed for someone who only recently took up the camera. These are outtakes from an upcoming John Bartlett spot but we can totally see them becoming posters. I remain a Bartlett fan because through the years he's managed to remain so grounded and unaffected. I love too that this Major Model Mgmt. MVP is rocking it out both editorially (everything from Arena Homme + to ID and Vogue Italia w Meisel) and commercially (his Lord's and Taylor's is everywhere!) . His ease and athletic grace on camera is not a common thing. Which means he'll definitely be a fixture on these pages in the future.

Major's mesmerizing Mr Vigilant (very movie star, that name) is back for a second spin on TI, this time via these world premiere snaps by photographer Joe Lally, the newest contributer to answer our call for work from new talent. We're very pleased to have Joe lensing for us, so stay tuned for our exclusive Q+A where we'll get the full story on this rising young photographer. Don't you love the way Joe handles those colors (click on the small tiles for larger pics). Mr. Jason Kanner certainly knows who the stars are!

Ryan Vigilant: Major Models: PH: Gregory Vaughn

Now that the Money Girls list is locked and loaded, its time to swing the attention to the money-making men of modeling. Its a topic I'm sure the managers at Ford, Major, Public Image Worldwide, NY Models, Click, Red and Wilhelmina are bound to have a strong opinion about. MDC's Top 50 Men, for resaons of image, has always been very focused on those cutting edge, high fashion clients like the Calvins and Guccis and Pradas. But do the male models built on that platform cross-over to lucrative careers the way the women do?

Ryan Vigalant: Major: PH: Gregory Vaughn

It is certainly a very different playing field than with the women, as there are no big VS contracts or big pay day cosmetics deals to weigh. There are however, the fragrances and Ralph and Hugo and...I wonder how much a long-running underwear spot compensates the wearer of the underwear these days. That makes boys like Major's Ryan Vigalant worth their weight in booking gold. Ryan has been growing his hair out and positioning himself for that very money-market we'll spend all next week weighing. Here's Ryan looking as Jason Kanner, his manager describes, "fresh, manly and on!". Love the buzzwords Jason.

Major New Beauty: Shane gets the morning started right. PH: GREGORY VAUGHN

Packing to get on the plane back to NY but one hour into the Manhattan business day, already picked up these signals...Mr Kanner at Major Models kicks the day off right with these new snaps of another star :Shane Sather. How expressive is this kid's beauty....A certain highly touted new beauty was spotted in LA recently making TI suspect she may have just nabbed a magnificent blue chip cover moment...Brazilian newspapers and magazines are flooding the MDC offices with requests for interviews on the occasion of Raquel Z hitting No 1 on the Editorial Girls ranking...Speaking of Miss Z which other leading campaign queen is about to get a full-on Only Girl 40 page well in that other blue chip fashion bible? And word is Mert n Marcus have been offered a whopping, stunning, jawdropping contract to be exclusive to a certain major magazine publishing entity.So there IS money in them thar hills afterall. And while in LA this weekend, TI caught up with nightlife impresario Micheal Sutton on the subject of his new endeavor Goa, which opened this weekend. Does LA have a new starlet-studded hotspot? Stay tuned!

Oraine Barrett./Major Model Mgmt

Everytime someone says "the next Tyson Beckford" I'm apt to roll my eyes. Beckford was a very unique moment where a visionary agent, a smart client and a multi-cultural zeitgest brewed a perfect booking storm.But looking at the slow build of Oraine Barrett's bookings over the past three years, TI senses a pattern building for this Jamaican school boy athlethe-turned-model. From Abercrombie and Fitch to amazing edits in Arena Homme + and September's Vogue Italia with Meisel, this young model is evolving very audaciously. It's only instinct but our model sixth sense is signalling an upcoming breaktrough moment for this male mannequin. Oraine is already looking very campaign ready in these new snaps Major's Jason Kanner sped over to us last night.

Major's Major New Boy Promo Poster

Jason Kanner made it a must-have in all the modeling corridors of Manhattan this morning. It's all over the blog-sphere right now, starting at MDC. Click on "original" to get your extra-large version of Major Men's super-cool "new boys" poster photographed by Joe Lally. Or as Betty Sze put it so wittly this morning, your "Majordomo Promo". True that!