PFor those who were there it is an unmissable return to the future, for those who arrived later, The Super Models – but differently from Apple tv+ Google conflates the terms as anyone would normally – it’s a tasty history lesson. Of fashion, customs, publishing, of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. Mixed propaganda (the four are also producers), damage control out of time, reality show and lovely printed and scanned photos. And experts of the industry and pop culture that also include the poor Vivienne Westwood (perhaps in one of his last appearances).
All united in telling that moment between 1989 and the mid-90s when Naomi, Cindy, Linda and Christy they became the first models to become more important than the clothes they paid to wear them. Even the first to free themselves from their surname (professionally, Iman and Twiggy have never had one). To be highly paid, to dictate conditions, to help make RuPaul stand out with Supermodel (You Better Work), to form a court of friendship, support and revelry with make up and hair stylist 30 years before the queer Murgia family. To still be here defending the Supermodel title.
The Super Models we don’t go around much in saying why such a concentration of beauty and fanaticism occurred. And that is, everyone was in the right place at the right time. Gianni Versace was there ready to create the most effective synergy ever. There was George Michael who, fighting with Sony for control of his image, entrusted them with the video of Freedom ’90there were haircuts that changed destinies and photographers who were magicians of black and white (Peter Lindbergh) who gave depth to the surface.
«They defined us as strong women, and in the end we believed them», says Cindy Crawford. Yes, but they needed someone to tell them, to underline this difference to the point of labeling them as “too demanding”. Like stuff from the past, incongruent with grunge and with the new recruits following Kate Moss. Before the end never came though, what a time! What an extension of the domain of wrestling without ever treading on each other. Without surname but with their slogans: The black Venus Naomi, the chameleonic Linda, the all American girl Cindy and the classy woman Christy. Repudiated? Far from it. Produced for income, sometimes framing them to cross over into news and gossip, into mass information. One minute before the Spice Girls’ desk managers, by Project Runaway And America’s Next Top Model.
Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista in 1992. (Getty Images)
The Super Models: memories of Naomi, Linda, Cindy and Christy
The Look, The Fame, The Power, The Legacy. Four episodes of about an hour for a sharp reconstruction that neglects little, perhaps only the lovers of each (so a fifth episode would have been needed just for Naomi). It then turns out that the only one who hasn’t been stopped by an agent, or by someone who recommended an agency, is Linda, the most obsessed with fashion and with the strictest parents. While for Naomi, Cindy and Christy – the impact with the photographic studio around the age of 16 was only that of a job.
Cindy remembers Giasays the photographer Francesco Scavullo, an unlucky model of the 70s (Angelina Jolie played her on TV winning a Golden Globe); she becomes the star of Chicago and then moves on to New York. Linda remembers Joan Severence, she is told, struggling for three years and then starts again with the famous haircut suggested by Lindberghfor which it ends up in Vogue Italia. Naomi goes from South London to Azzedine Alaïa’s house, who goes to fish her out in the clubs of Paris when she escapes out the window. Christy becomes Arthur Elgort’s favorite.
Linda Evangelista in 1991. (Getty Images)
But it is Steven Meisel who teaches them modeling work, the person responsible for their growth, of a precise identity. The fame then consolidates on the catwalks, Naomi’s menacing stride, with the black and white cover of British Vogue January 1990 (Lindbergh again), George’s video (“we gave him a discount as a group”, says Cindy), the nights chased by the paparazzi.
According to attitudes and in accordance with the market still far from concepts such as diversity, contracts are pouring in with make-up brands but not only. The series makes no mystery: Cindy collects more, diversifying from Revlon to Pepsiand then doing everything: VHS of aerobics, presenter of MTV House of Stylea make-up line still on sale.
Christy and Linda follow. Last Naomi, whose extra fashion campaign is not shown, and of which the comparison between the girl model and today’s model raises the greatest suspicions regarding surgical interventions. The way we talk about her is also different, the assertiveness of his positions and the story of his sins. In this sense, it makes you smile a lot that under the heading “abuses” you never say “alcohol” or “drugs”, but let old fading newspaper headlines do the talking. Who knows, perhaps it is an Ayurvedic technique of internal defense, or perhaps specific orders to the directors Roger Ross Williams (Oscar winner) and Larissa Bliss.
This also resolves Linda’s controversy over the infamous phrase «I won’t get out of bed for less than 10 thousand dollars». That is, with an excerpt from Models: The Film (documentary by Lindbergh – again him – filmed in 1991), where he says that his compensation is a minimum percentage compared to what he charges the brands. Incredible, however, how almost 35 years later it is still the rock of scandal; and how everyone – in the meantime – has become a gigantic economy of the self that doesn’t even get out of bed, invoices directly with a self-timer between the sheets.
On this point, Evangelista’s colleagues do not add details. Because as François Nars, make-up artist and photographer, summarizes the period well: «The Super Models it was a dream”. The miniseries touches on criticisms of perfect beauty, the dictatorship of heels, the model as an object and the four of them acting against noose contracts and stolen backstage photos, but what is interesting is to see again the little Athens of professionals and personalities that was created. And that every month made us sigh at the miracle on a cover, at yet another reinvention.
And finally the miracle of permanence. Like the cast of a series called to reunite, to lengthen the episodes, there have been mini revivals of Naomi, Linda, Cindy and Christy since the end of the 90s. In the absence of real substitutes, every now and then we wondered where they had ended up. But even without asking, here are reports on the post-peak period, with faces still tense, beautiful children and charitable and industrial enterprises.
No overlap. Cindy’s fight against leukemia (his brother died when he was little), Christy’s fight against lung cancer (her father died of it and she was a heavy smoker) and the organization Every Woman Counts (on the right to give birth anywhere without risking death), as well as volumes (and shirts) on Yoga. Naomi has been the savior of Africa since Mandela he made her an ambassador for his Children’s Found, and the feat of a local Fashion Week. Finally, Linda has to fight breast cancer, from which she has suffered twice. And unfortunately not only that.
Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista at the recent Vogue World event. (Getty Images)
Linda: Cancer, CoolSculpting and Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome
Indeed, apart from Cindy and Christy, the most resolved and joyfully in the system and just outside the systemand Naomi, a sphinx proudly clinging to her identity with all the strength of her jaws and body, it is Linda who is the voyeuristic center of the narrative.
She, the most complete model, the most elusive and least commercial, who remains disfigured due to a “magic” treatment, a sort of divine punishment for having promoted the idea of Sleeping Beauty to be woken up with money. To which she arrives she is diagnosed with cancer and, we learn in The Super Modelswho suffers from Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome – characterized by skin lesions, kidney tumors and lung cysts (therefore continuous operations).
His is a tragedy and a very sad ironyfor a thousand human reasons and also – since it is a documentary on the physical and photogenic exceptionality of four women – for what was wasted.
«Naomi, Christy, Cindy, they will work forever. I don’t see anyone who would want to dress me», he says of the fat deposits created by the unexpected effects of CoolSculpting. After the photos on People, the world of fashion has come together. She modeled for Fendi in 2022, had a cover on the English Vogue, and has just presented a book of photos: Linda Evangelista photographed by Steven Meisel. Without a doubt the most profitable collaboration ever between model and photographer. Better than Grace Kelly with Hitchcock, DiCaprio with Scorsese, Sophia Loren with De Sica.
Yes, dear François, it was truly a dream. And thank goodness we have the documents and not just the Instagram stories.
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