La Jolla — IT was October 2002 in Paris, a Chanel runway show like any other with $3,000 boucle suits and $1,000 quilted handbags -- until the finale, when a model tottered out in spectator stilettos and a knit swim dress, carrying a logo surfboard under one arm.
At that moment, high fashion officially caught the wave of surfer style, and it hasn't let go since.
You'd think the person who identified this look and exported it to the world would have a corner office on Madison Avenue. But Cindy Kauanui works above a surf shop in La Jolla, where her modeling agency has grown from a West Coast pipsqueak into a national trendsetter.
Jet Set is the source for the clean-faced, sun-kissed and surf-toned ocean goddesses who work with elite photographers such as Bruce Weber and Dewey Nicks, appear in ad campaigns for high fashion designers such as Roberto Cavalli and Versace, and popular brands including Roxy and Guess. Jet Set is about as far away from the New York fashion establishment as it gets, and so are its models. No chain-smoking waifs from powerhouse agencies such as Ford, Elite and IMG. Jet Set's models are muscled and weathered by sun and sea.
Kauanui knows the look when she sees it -- at the beach, the mall, even the local Denny's. When she finds it, she signs the person on the spot. There was the blond tornado running circles around her mother at Pottery Barn who became the cotton-top toddler in a straw hat in the Ralph Lauren Kids ads. The unknown blond surfer girl with bow lips who followed in the footsteps of Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton, becoming the sultry Guess model. And the surfer from Kauai with an unusual combination of Hawaiian, Japanese and English heritage, who went on to star in the film "Blue Crush."
For 13 years Kauanui's vision of Southern California beauty has been smiling back from billboards, glossy magazine pages, TV and movie screens, selling everything from bikinis to Barbie dolls around the world.
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'A great eye for people'
WITH big wave murals and a surfboard for a conference table, Jet Set feels more like a beach clubhouse than an international player in the image-making game. Sure, there are hundreds of toothy head shots on the walls, but there are also plenty of surf stickers. There's a waiting room where Kauanui takes Polaroids of prospective models, but it's designed to look like the hull of a ship, with a life preserver.
