NEW STANDARD
In 1971, the Association of Fashion and Advertising Photographers (A.F.A.P.) called Peter Marlowe and Sebastian Sed to a formal meeting of their Association.
They proceeded to explain that they considered themselves the real 'clients' of the composite publishers, and that they wanted to enforce a new standard of sizes for promotion material, easier to file than the paper A4 versions which were piled waist high in most studios. They proceeded to show them the C.I.D. filing system, which was a single A5 horizontal sheet on card stock with boxes along the top edge for coding. This was so that 500 models could all be stored in a small box where the photographers could with ease find, for example, all the red-heads with good legs that could ride a horse.
Initially Sebastian Sed agreed with Peter Marlowe that only printing single black and white cards would ruin their business, and that they would not accept this new dictatorship. Within a few weeks, however, Sebastian had launched his 'Sed-Cards."
The name has been corrupted over the years to 'Set'or 'Z' cards, but the standard size was changed over the next two years and by1974 Marlowe's had persuaded the whole of Europe to use a single A5 card system. The cards were initially launched too cheaply at £12 per hundred, and so Sebastian Sed was soon out of business. Marlowe's had moved to 124 Knightsbridge in 1967, and most of the models from the 60's will remember their huge 12 roomed offices next to the Knightsbridge Barracks. By the mid-70's Marlowe's were supplying over a million composites a year and were providing many agents with Ring Binders for their cards. Studios often had a ring binder for each agency, and that worked efficiently for many as a filing system.
ELITE LOGO
By 1975 Peter Marlowe was living in and running the Paris office. It was there in Paris, whilst delivering some composites to a sick model, Jeanette Christiansen, that he met her future husband. This chance meeting with John Casablancas quickly turned into a strong friendship. The two young men were both professionals at marketing, and were to change the history of the model world dramatically in the next few years. The Art Director of Marlowe Press designed the Elite logo, and after John had established the Paris agency the two men set about attacking the New York market.
New York was almost impregnable and was controlled by three Giants - Fords, Wilhelmina and Zoli. John asked Peter to go away and think of something original for Elite's New York launch, which he did. "To my utter astonishment it took me just minutes to convince John that he should persuade all his models to order a composite simultaneously," remembers Peter. This created the possibility to print a book which Peter had designed specifically to be capable of being re-printed with ease as a single black and white card for each model from their page. "Lesser agents would have faced a riot at such a suggestion, because in 1977, models, especially top models, were not used to being told when they should have to order and pay for a new composite.
