Everybody Say ‘Cheesecake’

Joan Lunden let German super model Claudia Schiffer promote her 1994 cheesecake calendar on “Good Morning America” for several minutes this week. Then the whip-cracking journalist went for the throat.

What about romance, Claudia? Is it David Copperfield? Or Prince Albert of Monaco?

“I haff no boyfriends,” Schiffer answered sulkily.

Unless, of course, you count the 250,000 fans who’d like to be her boyfriend but, faced with reality, settle for a shrink-wrapped facsimile. For $14.99, the hormonally challenged can gaze at Claudia with wet hair, Claudia with dry hair, Claudia looking stern, Claudia pouting and--always--Claudia wearing a bathing suit.

“Claudia’s fans like to see her looking lots of different ways,” says Linda Jorgensen of Novato, Calif.-based Landmark Calendars.

As long as she doesn’t look too sexy. That makes retailers nervous.

Imagine the vigilance it takes to keep Schiffer, Elle Macpherson, Kathy Ireland and Niki Taylor from going over the line. Take the case of Macpherson’s inappropriate overexposure.

“Seeing the nipple through the bathing suit is OK in the calendars sold at bookstores,” explains Mary Sapletal, licensing manager for Indianapolis-based Day Dream Publishing. It’s not OK in versions sold at Wal-Mart. When Elle’s turned up in a photo, “we Cytexed it out,” she says, referring to the computer version of air-brushing.

Day Dream’s other sensuous calendar girl, Cindy Crawford, is sitting out the 1994 season. “Stock photos will be used to create a Cindy calendar overseas, but she’s not domestic anymore,” laments Sapletal.

If the rumors are true--that hubby Richard Gere didn’t want her to do the calendar--then maybe Cindy’s more domestic than we imagined.

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Up in Sinewy Arms: Last week’s Paris collections were grueling enough for our model friends. But Friday night, when they should have been celebrating at fashion hangout Les Bains Douches, it seems Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer and a dozen others holed up in a room at the Ritz. The world’s most glamorous slumber party? No. Our French connection says the women were steamed over the alarming drop in runway fees and the proliferation this season of photographers at the wrong end of the catwalk--getting indecent shots of girls undressing. Next season, the models say, they’ll boycott designers without backstage security. Is there a labor organizer in the house?

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Your Secret’s Safe With Us: Rumor has it that former free-lance writer and editor John Howell will edit Lauren, the fashion and features magazine to be published by Hearst under the direction of Ralph. But when we tried to confirm, the following terse statement was faxed our way: “Within Hearst’s Magazine Development Group, there are, at all times, multiple ongoing projects, one of which currently involves Ralph Lauren. We will not comment further on this project or any other project until and unless a product is scheduled for newsstand testing.” Got that??!!

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Victoria’s Secret, the Movie: Applause, please, for TV movies about stylish heroines in the fashion business. (As opposed to ugged-out, insane, abused and addicted women in the victim business.) “Model by Day” ran last week. And shooting recently wrapped on ABC’s “French Silk,” starring teeny-tiny soap star Susan Lucci as the doyenne of a New Orleans lingerie catalogue empire. Model-turned-actress Shari Belafonte plays Lucci’s business partner and the catalogue’s No. 1 model--requiring, we assume, lots of steamy photo sessions for verisimilitude.

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Draw, He Said: Let’s see, Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Anouk Aimee and Marcello Mastroianni have been cast. And now, Gladys Perint Palmer. The San Raphael-based fashion illustrator will be among the off-screen talents to work with director Robert Altman on his fashion movie, “Pret-a-Porter.” Altman told Palmer she made the cut last week, at the Paris shows. She’s not sure what she’ll be drawing. All she knows is, “He told me he thought I’d be pleased.” And she is.

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Creep Wear: We had our heart set on greeting trick-or-treaters dressed like Marge Simpson. But at a Westwood tchotchke store, a full-on rubber Beavis head mask, a rack of Beavis and Butt-head boxer shorts and smirking Beavis and Butt-head T-shirts caused us to waver. It all looked so right, so now. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if the B&B; line has a better quarter than Liz Claiborne. But, in the end, it just wasn’t us.

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Around Town: A woman shopping at Robinsons-May in Beverly Hills the other day closed the door to the dressing rooms to try on clothes. Bad move. The store’s dressing rooms have a kind of lock that must be deprogrammed with a code and the woman found herself locked in. Cries for help went unheard, so being a modern gal, she pulled out her cellular phone and called store security.