Banksable

Tyra Banks has 275 smiles. Like a star athlete who has perfected a jump shot or a curveball, Banks has studied, honed and mastered the smile. In her arsenal are the “surprise smile,” the “angry but still smiling” smile, the “flirting with boyfriend” smile and the “commercial” smile, which, like the rest of Tyra’s smiles, was designed and perfected when Banks, who is now 34, began modeling at 15. From the start of her career, when she was virtually plucked from an all-girl Catholic high school in Los Angeles and whisked off to Paris, to her days as a mass-market first-name-only supermodel strutting the catwalk in her underwear for Victoria’s Secret, Banks always treated modeling as a kind of beautiful science. Then, and now, the smiles were her secret weapons: they could compel, manipulate, seduce. Banks did not become a model to be a muse to designers or because she loved fashion. Modeling — and smiling — was a skill that could, if engineered and managed carefully, change the course of your life. “Smiles come naturally to me, but I started thinking of them as an art form at my command,” Banks told me. “I studied all the time. I looked at magazines, I’d practice in front of the mirror and I’d ask photographers about the best angles. I can now pull out a smile at will.” Banks, who was wearing wide-leg jeans and a belted khaki trench coat that accentuated her height and her curves, demonstrated her most famous smile, the “smile with eyes.” Her catlike green eyes narrowed and began to sparkle and her lips slowly parted to reveal a row of perfect teeth. The smile was a little masklike and yet accessible. “Do you see?” she said, while still smiling. “You can try it, too.” It was around 2 p.m. on a clear, crisp day in April and Banks was standing near a subway entrance at Union Square in Manhattan, about to shoot a special out-of-the-studio segment for the 500th episode of her talk show, to be broadcast later that month. In the fall, Banks will have three shows on the air, two of which she created and all of which she produced. Her talk show, “The Tyra Banks Show,” which had its premiere in 2005, is on every weekday (it is shown twice a day in many markets, including Los Angeles and New York) and her nighttime reality competition, “America’s Next Top Model,” the most successful show on the CW network, is entering its 11th 13-week cycle. “Top Model,” which pits would-be models against one another, is syndicated in more than 100 countries and has given birth to Banks’s newest venture, “Stylista,” the first show in which she will not appear and which features 11 aspirants competing to become a fashion editor at Elle magazine. Like her hero, Martha Stewart, Banks wants, most of all, for her name to immediately suggest a distinct point of view. Her brand, like her trademark “tough but still smiling” smile, is consistent in all her shows: serious about the frivolous; empathetic and empowering; and always, always aimed at young women, across all races. It’s girly TV with a punch. Banks asked Hillary Clinton about her body image (“Does Senator Hillary Clinton look in the mirror and go, ‘I want it to be better’?”), her first date with Bill and her ambition to change the world. She played basketball with Barack Obama but also asked him to gaze into a crystal ball and tell her what he saw in his future (he said “the White House”). And while the contestants on “Top Model” may only long to be famous, Banks chides and lectures them (while wearing a low-cut dress) about having a strong work ethic and the vagaries of the fashion business. Banks understands that her audience — which is young and therefore coveted by advertisers — wants both to identify with her and to be inspired, and she has cast herself as their role model/teacher/fun friend. Continue Reading......