Sylk considered the meeting fortuitous and it was. Over the next several months, Feldman would act as his
mentor - freely sharing his dated Rolodex, making introductions, advising his new protégé every step of the way. Par for this investigation Richard Renda took a 4 hour meeting with Feldman. Jason would become so dependent on Feldman he wouldn't make a move without consulting him. According to former Vogue Style Editor Laurie Schechter, the two men became extremely close: "Jason always called Ed Feldman his best friend. And Ed was truly fond of him too. He called him kid. He said he had a special fondness for this kid." |
He began by hanging out at Cipriani Downtown. He was told by real models he met at clubs that it was
a restaurant where fashion insiders met to dine and talk business. It was at this expensive downtown
eatery Sylk met Sheri Pearson. A 40 year old former crack addict from Wayne, New Jersey, Pearson's
claim to fame was that she was friends with Ed Feldman, a figure of dubious integrity existing on the
outer fringe of the fashion community. Ironically, Feldman was a "factor" who in the 70s and early 80s
underwrote loans for second and third tier modeling agencies desperate for cash. Feldman was regarded
by gentile fashion people as a gangster of sorts. Instead of a gun he used to carry around a heavy wooden
mallet in a leather valise. In an infamous 1981 incident, he used the mallet to take a swing at model agent Jeremy Foster-Fell, breaking three of his ribs. Occasionally Feldman needed something more persuasive than a mallet. In 1983, a gunman acting on Feldman's orders accosted a model agent named Omar on 57th Street and pushed a pistol against his chest, threatening his life. "There were a lot of rumors about Ed being part of the Jewish mafia, " says one former L'Image employee. "A lot of shady characters used to come into the office. He used to lock them in his office. Sometimes you'd hear screams. Big screams. Ed has a temper like a Tony Mantana." In addition to his violent streak, Feldman had a notorious reputation as an incorrigible model hound. When he foreclosed on a small agency called L'Image in the early 80s, he took
full advantage of his new position as agency president. His modus operandi was to tell models to visit
his apartment in the evening to collect their checks and meet important clients who never materialized
("Barbara from Catalina Swimwear" was a favorite). Once the girl arrived and discovered Barbara had "cancelled," Feldman would feign a back spasm in the bedroom and request a massage. More than a
few models made hasty departures. Feldman also used secretarial work ($10 an hour) as bait to lure
unsuspecting models in financial straits up to his Park Avenue lair. |
Someone once asked me to name the three most rotten bastards in the whole industry," recounts one
grizzled fashion veteran. "I said, 'That's an easy list: Ed Feldman, Ed Feldman, Ed Feldman.' Nobody else
comes close. There's some people who have misbehaved over the years. Interantional playboys and the
like, but that was on a jet-set scale – decent games. Ed is the bête noire." Sylk told Feldman he was about
to launch a new model agency. By way of introduction, Feldman mentioned that he was listed in the index
of the fashion world's definitive Who's Who, Michael Gross' Model: The Ugly World of Beautiful Women:
p. 241. An industry outsider, Sylk assumed he was meeting a real icon. What he didn't know was that page
241 of Gross' book chronicled Feldman's reprehensible mallet attack on Foster-Fell. Grossly distorting his importance within the Fashion Community, Feldman bragged that he factored two-thirds of the model agencies in New York. In truth, Feldman's factoring business was nonexistent. The 73-year-old Feldman was about as prominent in the factoring business as Sylk was in the modeling business. "Ed always claims he's doing factoring for other agencies," snipes one friend. "But when you ask him which ones -- he won't
tell you." Like everyone else in New York who met Sylk, Feldman was intrigued. The idea of a kid
blowing into town from Miami with a fortune to spend opening up a new modeling agency (Page Six
reported $110 million) was almost too good to be true. Sensing an opportunity down the road to perhaps reprise his Barbara-from-Catalina-Swimwear-schtick, Feldman graciously placed himself at Sylk's disposal. |
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written by Rene Chun
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Model
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