Posts Tagged ‘Supermodelfragilisticexpialidocious’
Linda Evangelista
You know that a model has something special when you remember the exact moment when you first saw her. I remember seeing Cindy Crawford on her first “Vogue” cover. I remember seeing Christy Turlington in her first “Vogue” spread. And I remember seeing Linda Evangelista in a Valentino campaign within the pages of “Vogue.”
In each case, I was a little challenged by the new face I was looking at. Cindy Crawford was dark and exotic. Christy Turlington had large features that nearly overwhelmed her sixteen-year-old face. And Linda Evangelista looked like a snob.
Not long after I saw her in those Valentino ads, I saw her on Oprah. My first thought again was “What a bitch!” I didn’t know anything about her, but I did know that I had never seen anyone who looked as haughty as Linda Evangelista.
Then something magical happened. Evangelista became the hottest model in the world, not just because of her look, but because of her skills. Everyone could see that there was no other model capable of being both a recognizable commodity and a brand new face every time she was photographed. Changing her hair cut and color on a regular basis, Evangelista quickly became the one girl in the business who was equated with fashion. She exemplified the mercurial nature of the business. Linda Evangelista was the muse of her generation.
Technically, she was born to model. The camera loves her catlike eyes and high cheekbones. She’s got a mouth so perfect that it looks as if someone painted it on. But the real charm of Evangelista’s face comes from that nose that always looks as if it’s turned up. It’s what gives her that air of superiority that makes her beauty seem so unattainable. Her face is so deliberately perfect, it’s as if her genes conspired to make her the most beautiful woman in the world. You can’t aspire to look like her, so you might as well just worship her perfection. I know I do.
Mariacarla Boscono
The perfect fashion model is a veritable “blank slate” upon which the designers, hairstylists, makeup artists and photographers apply their handiwork — or so they would have you believe. Sure, the visual team is an integral part of any photographic layout or advertising campaign, but sometimes they need to give credit where credit is due.
A great model has a face that is unforgettable. Over the past decade, I don’t believe that there has been a more unforgettable face than the gorgeous visage of Mariacarla Boscono. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.
The Italian model is undergoing her own renaissance at the moment, making the kind of comeback that is normally reserved for girls who become a household name from the moment they enter the business. Boscono’s early career, however, was overshadowed by that juggernaut known as a Gisele Bündchen. Even that era’s second most recognizable face, Carmen Kass, wasn’t able to become a Gisele, or a Linda, or a Kate. Understandably, Mariacarla didn’t stand a chance, either.
Or did she? At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, Boscono is booking campaigns for Ferragamo, Givenchy and Dolce & Gabbana. And not just fashions, but eyewear and fragrances, too — the sort of closeup work that tends to favor a girl in her teens. Unlike some models who ride the comeback train for a season or two before they retire from the business altogether, Mariacarla looks like she’s just getting started.
I hope she is. I could spend another decade or two looking at her face. Couldn’t you?
Amber Valletta
From the moment Amber Valletta first appeared on the cover of Elle US in January 1993, the business began to buzz with excitement. While she wasn’t exactly a throwback, her wide-eyed expression recalled the beauty of Twiggy or Jean Shrimpton. Yet there was something even more elegant about Valletta, and soon comparisons to Grace Kelly began to emerge.
Grace Kelly, on the other hand, was never as sulty as Valletta. It quickly became apparent that this girl from Oklahoma had a few more tricks in her bag. She could be an ingenue, an aristocrat, a punk princess or a blonde bombshell. In fact, she could be anything anyone wanted her to be, and in modeling that’s the gift that keeps on giving. Everyone wanted to work with the incredibly versatile Amber Valletta. Everyone did work with the incredibly versatile Amber Valletta. Her resume is a who’s who of the fashion business.
Her most memorable collaboration, however, was with Versace. Valletta was the first person to model the famous “double-sided tape” dress that made Jennifer Lopez into a household name when she wore it to the 2000 Grammy Awards. Although Lopez did indeed fill out that dress in a manner that the model couldn’t, no one could have filled Valletta’s shoes in her subsequent campaigns for the label. In fifty years, when future generations are looking for iconic fashion photos to mark the turn of the century, these are the pictures that are going to have them wishing they had been born fifty years earlier.
Brooke Shields
Anyone who is old enough to remember Brooke Shields the child actor and Brooke Shields the child model is probably old enough to get the creeps when they think about how this little girl was forced to grow up in the spotlight so quickly. Forget Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair: This was a far more controversial moment in history — and deservingly so. The hype didn’t end there! Sheilds’ subsequent campaign for Calvin Klein Jeans was just as controversial and just as exploitive.
But that’s a story for another post. This category of my blog is called Supermodelfragilisticexpialidocious for a reason, and Brooke Shields was a model’s model, regardless of her age.
Hot on the heels of the California blondes, Shields’ look was unexpected. Her prominent eyebrows and refined bone structure spoke of blue-blooded breeding, and there was something rather aloof and untouchable about such preternatural beauty on a kid – she was never the little girl next door. Yet what was more amazing was how easily a face so young could take on a ton of cosmetics. The era of the natural beauty was long gone when Shields began appearing on the covers of magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. With eyebrows like exclamation points, Shields had the perfect face to usher in a new age of over-the-top eye makeup, and that should always be recognized as her greatest contribution to the business of fashion.
Isabella Rossellini
The 80s probably didn’t produce a more recognizable model than Isabella Rossellini. In 1980, at the age of 28, Rossellini was photographed by the legendary Bruce Weber. Soon afterward, she became the face of Lancôme, which meant that you couldn’t open a fashion magazine or walk by a cosmetics counter without seeing her gorgeous face.
Rossellini was blessed with the best of her parents’ genes. The daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, she could be a cool Nordic aristocrat at one moment, and a hot-blooded Mediterranean vixen at the next. Lancôme brilliantly took advantage of her somewhat indeterminate ethnicity, and their campaigns of the 80s featured Rossellini as dozens of different characters with an appeal that crossed borders of not only nationality, but also age. Nevertheless, it was age that eventually caught up with Rossellini when the company replaced her in the mid-90s.
Since that time, Lancôme has failed to develop a campaign with a fraction of the iconic power that Rossellini leant to the brand. She was the perfect face to carry a company, and even with girls like Amber Valletta, Carolyn Murphy and Liya Kebede attempting to carry the big cosmetic campaigns since, no one has ever shouldered a brand quite like Isabella Rossellini.
Clotilde
Back in the early 80s you couldn’t open a fashion magazine without seeing a photo of Clotilde. Not only was she the face of Ralph Lauren, but she was also an editorial darling at Vogue. I just assumed that her uncommon beauty was a result of her European heritage — with a name like Clotilde, she had to be from some faraway place, right?
I was only partly correct. As I was digging around to find a photo of the model a few moments ago, I discovered that Clotilde is the middle name of Kristin Holby-Darnell from Larchmont, NY. She was born in Oslo, but brought up stateside!
When Clotilde was modeling, her claim to fame was definitely her big, beautiful lips. I had never seen lips like that on a model before. They were mesmerizing! Wikipedia lists her year of birth as 1951, although I’m skeptical of that claim. If it’s true, Clotilde would have been doing editorial work into her 30s. Now there’s something that doesn’t happen nowadays.
I should write her to find out a little more about her. It’s interesting how a girl who was as famous as she was in her heyday has sort of disappered from the collective consciousness. Maybe that’s the way she wants it. Not everyone needs a guest spot on America’s Next Top Model to feel culturally validated.
Carmen Dell’Orefice
In 1946, at the age of fifteen, Carmen Dell’Orefice signed a contract with Vogue. According to Wikipedia, she would rollerskate to jobs to save bus fare. She subsequently became Suzy Parker’s best friend, a bridesmaid at Dorian Leigh’s wedding, and Salvador Dali’s muse.
In 2008, she lost most of her life savings to Bernie Madoff.
Carmen may be the only seventy-something supermodel who could bounce back from a situation like that. She already holds the record for the longest career in the business, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see her dive headfirst into her work. I hope she does. Linda Evangelista needs something to aspire to over the next thirty years or so.
Dalma
Supermodel rivalries are mostly made up in the heads of the supermodels — take Naomi and Tyra, for example. If there ever was a genuine rivalry between two models, however, those models would have to be Dalma Callado and Iman.
There was probably nothing personal between the two beauties (they could have been best friends for all I know), but on the ’70s and ’80s runways of such luminaries as Valentino, Bill Blass and Yves Saint Laurent, there was always an unspoken competition to prove who could be the most fabulous. If you only knew the names of two runway models in 1979, you knew the names of Dalma and Iman.
In my opinion, Dalma was the winner of the catwalk contest. I’m sure some people will disagree with me, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone walk in heels with as much innate elegance as the original Brazilian bombshell did. There has never been anyone quite like her.
Morgane Dubled
No matter what look is fashionable in a particular era, there are always a few models who get work because they’ve got something that the others just don’t have. In Morgane Dubled’s case, she possesses a better body than almost any other girl in the business.
You can almost count on the designers putting Dubled in a swimsuit, a transparent dress, or even less. Her editorial bookings (like the Bazaar shoot in the photo above) tend to focus on her figure. She’s set the industry standard for the perfect proportions, working shows such as Christian Dior Couture and Victoria’s Secret in the same season. There aren’t a lot of girls who can bridge the gap between those two worlds, but Morgane Dubled makes it look like a piece of cake. Cheesecake, perhaps, but cake nonetheless.
Beverly Johnson
Beverly Johnson’s main claim to fame is her 1974 Vogue cover. As the first African-American woman to grace the face of the magazine, Johnson is considered to be a trailblazer in the industry. Five-hundred covers later, Johnson still can be seen acting, appearing on reality shows and hawking her successful wig collection.
In a recent interview, Johnson admitted that ”I was always amazed at the actual influence that models have on the market and the consumer.” It was this sort of self-awareness that separated Johnson from the pack and earned her the designation “the first black supermodel.” Intelligent, articulate and professional, she became a household name in many households that had never known what it was like to be included in the glamorous world of high fashion.
