Kim Peers is that rare model who renders every editorial situation she is placed in memorable. She was the epitome of decadent sophistication in her March Paris Vogue Vincent Peters story and cooler than cool in editorials for Mixte and ID magazines. Nothing that Kim Peers has shot  has looked weak. We cannot start now.
"Kim. I know its been a long week I know you're exhausted. But there's one thing missing from these pictures. The idea is to create this final portrait that is you.  Just you. No set. No fashion. Just your face. Clear, Bold. Strong.!"
Kim looks at me sadly. "You see me as strong?" she asks with her evocative Belgian accent.
"Yes. Very"
"It's so funny that people see me as being this super-strong person because I like to look feminine and soft. That's how I see myself. The first photographer to see me as really feminine was Steven"
"In the YSL campaign ?"
"Yes but also for Italian Vogue. I think he's a great guy!"

And Meisel clearly thinks Peers is a great model shooting her  for  three consecutive covers of Italian Vogue.
Then there is  Kim's amazing YSL campaign which among fashion pundits won the unofficial billing as the single best Spring 2001 campaign.

"One roll in the hallway and that's it Kim. And then its over!"
Kim gets her purse which looks like those signature Dior "Cadillac" clutches from the Spring runway."
"Killer bag. Dior?"
Kim looks at me and laughs.
"No its from a  flea market"
She's feeling better now and summons that  piercing star that is her signature as the shutter clicks away.
"So tell me about your band Kim?"
" Monkey Pussy ?"
"Uhmm.  Yeah. Monkey P...P...P...P... Uhm. Interesting name. What was the inspiration behind that?"
"My boyfriend was just trying to come up with the most obscene combination possible!"

"He succeeded. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. How many people have you got in it?
Its a duo. Just me and my boyfriend.
What kind of music? Post-punk, pop?
More electro but not retro-electro like 80's electro. Its just different.
You're the lead singer?
 "Oh no. We share vocals . I play keyboards."
"Sort of like a Eurythmics for The Zeroes huh!"
Kim laughs
"Do you have a demo? It'd be cool to put,  like a bit of your music on the site!"
"No not yet", she says in that low burr of a voice. "We're on the brink of signing a record deal. I mean a lot of people have been approaching us but we want to be really careful about who we sign with so when it comes out, it comes out just right!"
And who can blame her? The most interesting thing that I learn from Kim, is that is in a business where most models are taught at a very young age to play numb for the cameras, it is still  the emotional life of the girl that creates that inner light that informs the best pictures. Without that emotional connection, a model might as well be molded from plastic.
It's very obvious that Kim takes great pictures and that she inspires the best photographers in the business in a way that is almost compulsive.
Now I understand why.
Kim Peers is emotionally alive. She is there, she is real, she  is alive. She  imbues her pictures with feelings, stains her portraits with a soulfulness that is beyond fashion. Pride, frustration,  kindness, amusement. It is all on clear display in her eyes, in defiance of the cliche of the cold Belgian beauty .

 I'm intrigued  with this model because she has the audacity to be vulnerable in a business that insists on the myth of invulnerability.

The shoot is over and still, Kim's  last show of the NY Fall 2001 season beckons. She's putting on her own things. Skirt over tights, black leather jacket and scarf , the wicked Dior-esque vintage purse and then that last telling detail. A Power Ranger's backpack.
"Thank you for making me feel better", she says as she kisses us goodbye.

Kim Peers,she of the school Of Hard Looks, Butch Chic, stoic beauty personified is also a vulnerable child-woman, a naughty rock star, a loving girlfriend and right this minute in modeling, she is, in essence, peerless.