She, in the words of one Caracas newspaper, was wearing a ”revolutionary and exquisite white dress from the prestigious Fendi fashion house”. He was wearing a baggy red shirt.
But the sartorial inequality did not stop the leader of the pink tide sweeping Latin America from giving the catwalk deity a big hug.
The meeting of the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and British model Naomi Campbell late on Tuesday takes Hugo Chávez’s courting of the celebrity elites to new highs.
Previous visitors to the Miraflores palace in Caracas have included predictable celebrity activists such as Sean Penn and Danny Glover. But the arrival of Campbell brought an altogether more glamorous tone to the ongoing revolution.
Campbell, known for throwing tantrums at airports, launching telephones at assistants and mopping the floors of New York City’s sanitation department after admitting reckless assault, allied herself with Chávez during a trip she made to Brazil last week.
At an appearance before local business leaders in São Paulo she reportedly said: ”I hate Bush.” Shortly afterwards, an invitation to Venezuela was secured.
However, if Chávez was expecting a leftist firebrand he will have been disappointed by the model’s comments to reporters on arriving at the presidential palace. ”I’m not here to be political,” she said, before revealing that this was not her first visit to Venezuela. It was, it emerged, her second. ”You have a huge country,” she purred, ”very beautiful, with big waterfalls”.
Earlier in the day Campbell had visited a children’s hospital in Caracas. ”This is why I am here,” she declared, ”to see these children, because I am one of their ambassadors.”
Campbell and Chávez have more than an interest in flamboyant clothing in common. She holds a position with the Fund for Cuban Children, a charity set up by Chávez’s best friend, Cuban leader Fidel Castro. – Guardian Unlimited