The Red Flame

A chameleon is defined as a person who often changes his or her beliefs or behavior in order to please others or to succeed.

“Where would I be without the photographers, editors, designers, hairstylists and makeup artists that have helped me metamorphose so many times in my career?”  —Karen Elson

The above definition and quote are the ingredients that separate just well-known models from an all-time superstar models. With The Red Flame, Karen Elson has laid bare the business of fashion, modeling, and many of its contiguous facets in a way that is rarely ever written about for fear of reprisal. As a devoted fashionphile, fashion participant, and worker, it can simply be said that the business of fashion is not a business of ladies and gentlemen.

The Red Flame is a most refreshing surprise in its candor as well as in its raw personal history about Karen as well as the machinations of this business. She literally flung open the door and exposed not only herself, but also the uglier side of those involved, as well as what it took to become a superstar model and the tribulation once arriving at that station. Then she covers the fall from grace and return to the top rung. Elson truly holds nothing back, and the book will be highly enlightening to many who have only read about or recognize the names Hadid, Kardashian, or Gerber and the like since their climb has been nothing like what Karen Elson has endured and experienced.

If you are looking for the dish and the names and the gossip, this is not a book for you. If the reader wants the naked truth about a so-called glamorous business, then this is a must-read book.

Karen Elson unequivocally proves that grit and determination in addition to self-awareness are key in the advancement of one’s career in fashion. The only other chameleon she might be compared to is Linda Evangelista, who has an endless playlist of looks that have garnered her great renown.