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Model Heidi Klum knows she can't live by her looks forever. So she's developed quite the business sense.
Written By: FORBES.COM
Posted On: July 24, 2008 @ 11:28 AM PST
Category: Celebrity Gossip
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They took out the cleft from my chin and the shadows under my cheeks," pouts Heidi Klum. She's eyeing a heavily retouched image of herself on a laptop, part of a shoot for a new Jordache campaign. "They plumped up my lips. They look like silicone lips! Do I look too skinny?" Now Klum is on her cell to her publicist's office. "I prefer it rough and real," she says, firm but sweet.
With her megawatt smile, sandy blonde hair (dyed) and hourglass figure, Klum fiercely guards her image: Her looks are the foundation of a modeling, media and retail operation--two hit television shows and a slew of branded merchandise. Last year it all brought her $14 million.
Still, a career built on beauty can last only so long. So Klum is banking on a new generation of lovelies. In April five candidates for that next gen gathered at an L.A. soundstage to film an episode for the third season of Germany's Next Topmodel, a version of the U.S. smash conceived and hosted by fellow model and friend Tyra Banks. Klum's show has all the hallmarks that made America's Next Top Model a hit.
As you'd expect, the would-be models are subjected to often humiliating photo shoots. Today the girls are draped in stinky fish--octopus, snail shells and crab legs--and being critiqued by the model host and industry insiders. "Don't be so beauty pageant," Klum advises one girl. While Banks' winners have had little aftershow modeling success, Klum's have snagged contracts with the likes of Pantene, Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) and Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people )Ericsson (nasdaq: ERIC - news - people ). Klum says she picks her pretties for their modeling potential, not their drama queen tendencies. "They want to be models, not TV stars. I want them to work afterwards."
That's because she owns a piece of their future. In addition to earning $2.5 million a year for hosting the show, Klum gets a slice--she won't say how much, but 20% is a standard agency cut--of any deals the girls subsequently make. (Banks holds a share of America's Next Top Model; Klum owns a sliver of Project Runway.)
Gliding around the soundstage, Klum keeps one eye on the models, another on what they're wearing. She herself has on a pair of light gray Jordache skinny jeans (her line) and a clover-shaped Mouawad pendant (her line) around her neck. "Can you see my Victoria's Secret bra?" the lingerie vendor's most famous model asks a photographer snapping her for a celebrity weekly. "I like that you're wearing Birkenstocks," she tells him, "but they should be my line." Under Klum's tutelage the girls might one day be walking billboards for their own and their clients' brands. When she didn't want to renew with candymaker Katjes, Klum got the job for the winner of the show's first season. All of the girls are encouraged to call her for career advice. "I'm going to make sure they don't do stupid things. They could meet some manager they think is great. …" She trails off, looking dark.
Klum knows dead ends. At 19 she won a TV modeling contest in Munich. That landed her low-profile jobs like posing for a knitting magazine. In Paris and Milan she was dismissed as too wholesome and American-looking.
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