Contact Admin. Three years after the prostitution scandal began, Zahia Dehar appeared at the end of her own elaborate couture show in Paris in January. Dehar above, with Christian Louboutin is already cozy with the haute fashion world. Strolling into the chic Paul Bocuse brasserie in Lyon for a recent business lunch, former call girl-turned-lingerie designer Zahia Dehar swivels heads and drops jaws as she is whisked into the VIP section with her entourage of publicists, makeup people and stylists.
That celebrity will soon cross the Atlantic with the stateside launch of her sumptuous undergarments line. New York fashionistas are eagerly awaiting the fall arrival of the ultra-sexy, uber-expensive designs. She may be reinventing herself as the creator of haute couture, but Dehar remains at the center of a salacious court case involving two French national soccer players who supposedly paid for her favors when she worked as a teenage prostitute. Meanwhile, Christian Louboutin, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix have backed her label, which she has famously showcased on her own enviable, wasp-shaped figure on the Paris runways.
And what a collection it is. She was 16 and 17 when the alleged encounters took place. In France, where the age of consent is 15 and prostitution is legal for women age 18 and above, paying for sex with minors is a crime. The trial of the two sportsmen opened in Paris last month amid much brouhaha, but was adjourned until January because of legal technicalities.
In a recent interview with Liberation Next magazine, Dehar, who immigrated to France from Algeria at the age of 10, said she was horrified by her then unwanted infamy. It was a particular shock for her Islamic mother, who lived in a run-down neighborhood of Paris. But go out she did. Her baby-face looks and Brigitte Bardot physique immediately enraptured the fashion glitterati.
A stylist came onboard, and Dehar posed for a series of artsy pictures by a swimming pool for the Italian edition of Vanity Fair. In the same interview, she added: These days, however, Dehar prefers not to talk about her past, claiming she has put the brief episode behind her.
