Magazine

Photos: The Models

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    Photographed by Gianni Penati, Vogue, 1970
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    For years nobody knew their names. They were ethereal goddesses, staring out from these pages or gracing covers in wasp-waisted finery, sometimes pouting, sometimes aloof, otherworldly Truman Capote–esque swans who drifted into sight and then disappeared, to be replaced by other sylphlike creatures. But we wanted to know more about these women who looked like our imaginary best selves. We wanted to experience them in three dimensions, not just as vagaries staring out from a glossy backdrop. So, infused with the spirit of openness that defined late-twentieth-century culture, we began to learn their stories, their histories and ambitions, and how their struggles and triumphs mirrored our own. But then a funny thing happened—as we got to know them better, they, in a sense, got to know us, too. Instead of disappearing after a brief career, models remained in the public consciousness for decades—not just segueing into acting (a traditional career path, starting at least with Lauren Bacall in 1943) but also building real businesses (Dorian Leigh started her own agency and a restaurant), heading up charities, or collaborating with fashion labels. Because models often started so young, we could watch them as they developed into strong, interesting women with more to offer beyond surface appearance. It might seem unlikely, but it may have been the nascent feminist movement, the idea that “sisters are doing it for themselves,” that emboldened the first models to make the leap from nameless beauties to full-fledged businesswomen. In 1973, when Lauren Hutton demanded real money for an exclusive cosmetics contract, her six-figure annual deal with Revlon became the shot heard round the modeling world. Now countless confident young models follow her example. And oddly enough, as their career trajectories have expanded, their tenures as models have lengthened as well. Instead of a brief burst in the limelight, the very best models today—the ones who haunt our dreams and captivate us at a glance—continue working in front of the camera far beyond their 20s. Which is just fine with us: Who doesn’t like catching up with old friends?

    Lauren Hutton in 1970
    Started modeling in 1964 (age 20).

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    Photographed by Peter Lindbergh, Vogue, 1988
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    Linda Evangelista in 1988
    Started modeling in 1984 (age 19).

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    Photographed by David Sims, Vogue, 2010
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    Kristen McMenamy in 2010
    Started modeling in 1984 (age 19).

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    Photographed by Mario Testino, Vogue, 2000
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    Kate Moss in 2000
    Started modeling in 1989 (age 15).

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    Photographed by Sheila Metzner, Vogue, 1992
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    Cindy Crawford

    Everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite,” Edith Wharton wrote in The House of Mirth, describings one of her quintessentially modern characters in 1905. More than a century later, she could be talking about what makes American models so special—physical perfection, of course, but wed to a vitality, a liveliness that we like to think is part of our national birthright. The old cliché “melting pot” sounds so lumpy, and “gorgeous mosaic” so pompous, but it is in fact our ethnic multiplicity, the panorama of diversity, that makes American beauty so distinctive. Our lack of pretention and our go-getter sensibility have produced a stunning array of cheerful pulchritude, from supers like Christy Turlington, who is half El Salvadoran and was raised in California and Florida, to rising stars like Chanel Iman, born in Atlanta and of Korean and African-American parentage. From the plains of the Midwest come the very unplain Cindy Crawford and 20-year-old Karlie Kloss, whose success is delaying, not replacing, her other career goal—to be a doctor. Beverly Johnson, the first black model to grace the cover of American Vogue, in August 1974, is a product of upstate New York; Amber Valletta is from Tulsa; Joan Smalls, whose roots are African, Spanish, Taino Indian, Irish, and Hindu, hails from Puerto Rico. And in one case, a model’s very name seems to sum up what is best about her homeland: The great Southwest has lately brought forth Arizona Muse, two words that evoke big skies and deep canyons.

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    Lisa Taylor

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    Patti Hansen

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    Carolyn Murphy

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    Christy Turlington

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    Photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Vogue, 2011
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    Daria Werbowy

    When Linda Evangelista made her now notorious quip in these pages, in 1990, that she didn’t toss off the covers for less than $10,000 a day, was she talking about American or Canadian dollars? Evangelista, whose career began when she was spotted in 1981 by a scout at the Miss Teen Niagara contest, is just one of the Northern lights illuminating the modeling galaxy. The step-dancing Coco Rocha was raised in British Columbia (no one who saw it will soon forget the jig she executed on the Gaultier runway in 2007); Ontario gave us Shalom Harlow, Jessica Stam, and the impossibly, effortlessly elegant Ukrainian-Canadian Daria Werbowy, who, to hear her tell it, feels just as much at home helming a sailboat as she does in front of a camera.

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    Shalom Harlow

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    Coco Rocha

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    Linda Evangelista

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    Photographed by Steven Meisel, Vogue, 2010
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    From left: Du Juan, Tao Okamoto, Hyun Yi Lee, Yyoni Kang, Liu Wen, Bonnie Chen, So Young Kang, and Lily Zhi.

    Liu Wen, who was born in Yongzhou, Hunan, China, and is the first Asian face of Estée Lauder, says it used to be a challenge locating someone to speak Mandarin with her backstage. No more: “Now I usually have no trouble finding someone at any show.” There have been notable Asian models before—the half-Japanese Marie Helvin, the legendary Tina Chow—but they were the stunning exceptions to the rule. Now a welcome plethora of Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean models has hit a happy critical mass, reflecting the burgeoning international interest. Prada showed its spring 2011 collectsion on a mirrored runway in Beijing, Fendi mounted a fashion show on the Great Wall, and everyone from Alexander Wang to Michael Kors is rushing to open stores in Asia. But how swiftly do the winds of history blow: Angelica Cheung, editor in chief of Vogue China, likes to joke that in her lifetime China has gone from Karl Marx to Karl Lagerfeld and recalls that “when I was growing up in the seventies, everyone wore a blue, gray, or green Mao suit—there was no chance for women to be glamorous or different.” Alber Elbaz, who has a gift for boiling complex notions down to their essence, explains the casting of his Lanvin shows with wonderful simplicity: “I use blonde, brunette, redhead, black, and Asian models—I never do it to be politically correct. . . . As soon as the dress disappears and you see the woman, I know it’s the right one. There are beautiful girls everywhere.”

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    Photographed by Daniel Jackson, Vogue, 2011
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    Caroline Trentini

    The girl from Ipanema, that elusive beauty from the 1964 song, drifting down the beach, unknowingly presaged what would become an international preoccupation with bodacious Brazilian allure. If Gisele Bündchen is the most storied standard-bearer, women like Caroline Trentini, Isabeli Fontana, and Raquel Zimmermann (who had the distinction of starring in Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” video) literally round out the category. As for their famously tanned, athletic physiques, the delightfully frank Gisele sums it up: “If you’re not healthy, how can you take care of your family?”

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    Raquel Zimmermann

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    Gisele Bündchen

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    Photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Vogue, 2010
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    Lara Stone

    I never fit the sample. I probably fit it once, when I was eleven,” Doutzen Kroes once confessed. Lara Stone can recall more than one occasion when she was made to feel chubby by stylists whispering in a corner that she was about to be canceled. These struggles are eye-opening and frankly hard to believe—take a glance at these models, and the other voluptuous women who emerged after the underfed waif, her era in the spotlight over, drifted into near oblivion—and you will have no doubt as to the appeal of their (relatively) fleshy glory. And who can blame the fashion public for embracing this most-welcome shift from disturbingsly frail to gloriously healthy? (Do let’s remember that in the upside-down, topsy-turvy world of fashion, these so-called bigger girls rarely require anything larger than a size 4.) Perhaps Nicolas Ghesquière, who cast Miranda Kerr in his last two Balenciaga shows, put it best when he observed, “In real life, great clothes, in any size, look great on any kind of woman: skinny or curvy. It’s more about personal style and elegance.”

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    Nadja Auermann

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    Doutzen Kroes

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    Photographed by Mario Testino, Vogue, 2005
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    Stella Tennant

    In 1965, a pale teenaged pixie named Lesley Hornby was working at a hair salon when she was discovered by a guy called Justin de Villeneuve (himself born Nigel John Davies) and rechristened Twiggy for her seeming fragility. She joined her compatriot Jean Shrimpton, who looked as if her soft hands never touched a plebeian shampoo bottle, as exemplars of what at the time was referred to winkingly as Cool Britannia. If the Shrimp was a classic English rose (though hardly a conservative one—she starred in the 1967 rock drama Privilege and had high-profile relationships with David Bailey and Terence Stamp), Twiggy was the wide-eyed face of Carnaby Street and Mod rebellion. In the ensuing 50 years, British girls continued to enthrall, evincing a combination of the aristocratic (Stella Tennant) and the bohemian (Karen Elson) with a side trip to accommodate, among others, a pair of vixen-schoolgirls named Kate and Naomi. It may be true, as George Bernard Shaw once purportedly quipped, that the United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language, but in the realm of fashion, we understand each other perfectly.

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    Karen Elson

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    Jean Shrimpton

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    Twiggy

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    Photographed by Herb Ritts, Vogue, 1989
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    What is it that makes the most beautiful women in the world fall hard for a skinny knock-kneed guy in jeans and a tee, a fellow with funny teeth and a bad reputation? The introduction of a guitar or a set of drums, more often than not. Models have been seduced by rockers—and the other way around—at least since Pattie Boyd made her dramatic switch from Harrison to Clapton. Sometimes the liaisons are far-fetched (Stephanie Seymour and Axl Rose), sometimes seemingly heaven-sent but impermanent (John Mellencamp and Elaine Irwin; Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley; Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, et al). In the sunniest cases, the unions have resulted in decades of domestic bliss—Bowie and Iman have been together for 20 years; Ric Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova married in 1989. And who would have imagined that the wildest character of them all, the louche Keith Richards, would fall head over heels for a girl from Staten Island and end up rearing two daughters (now both occasional models) in the bourgeois paradise of Weston, Connecticut? When he first got together with Patti Hansen in 1980, Richards wrote rapturously in his journal: “ . . . I’ve met a woman! Unbelievably she is the most beautiful (physically) specimen in the WORLD. But that ain’t it! It certainly helps but it’s her mind, her joy of life and (wonders) she thinks this battered junkie is the guy she loves.”

    Stephanie Seymour
    Fell For: Axl Rose

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    Photographed by Sheila Metzner, Vogue, 1991
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    Elaine Irwin

    Fell for: John Mellencamp

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    Photographed by Stan Malinowski, Vogue, 1977
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    Jerry Hall

    Fell for: Mick Jagger