Supermodel
[23] During an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Dickinson stated that her agent, Monique Pilar of Elite Model Management, asked her, "Janice, who do you think you are, Superman?"
[40] In February 1968, an article in Glamour described 19 models as "supermodels": Cheryl Tiegs, Veruschka, Lisa Palmer, Peggy Moffitt, Sue Murray, Twiggy, Sunny Harnett, Marisa Berenson, Gretchen Harris, Heide Wiedeck, Irish Bianchi, Hiroko Matsumoto, Anne de Zogheb, Kathy Carpenter, Jean Shrimpton, Jean Patchett, Benedetta Barzini, Claudia Duxbury and Agneta Frieberg.
[20][41] In the 1970s is when many consider the origination of the supermodel, some models becoming more prominent as their names became more recognizable to the general public by commercial endorsements, magazine covers,posters, securing large sums of money for cosmetic contracts, TV appearances and movie roles.
Sports Illustrated editor Jule Campbell abandoned then-current modeling trends for its fledgling Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue by photographing "bigger and healthier" California models,[42] and captioning the photographs with their names, turning many of them into household names and establishing the swimsuit issue as a cornerstone of supermodel status.
[46] In 1975, Margaux Hemingway landed a then-unprecedented million-dollar contract as the face of Fabergé's Babe perfume and the same year, appeared on the cover of Time magazine, labelled as one of the "New Beauties", giving further name recognition to fashion models.
[52] Pat Cleveland, another prominent African-American model, has also been described as one of the first black supermodels, in particular by former editor-at-large for American Vogue André Leon Talley, in an article for the June 1980 issue of Ebony magazine,[53] and again in his 2003 memoir.
[54] In October 1981, Life cited Shelley Hack, Lauren Hutton, and Iman for Revlon, Margaux Hemingway for Fabergé, Karen Graham for Estée Lauder, Cristina Ferrare for Max Factor, and Cheryl Tiegs for CoverGirl by proclaiming them the "million dollar faces" of the beauty industry.
These supermodels negotiated previously unheard of lucrative and exclusive deals with the giant cosmetics companies, were instantly recognizable, and their names became well known to the general public.
Catwalk regulars like Gia Carangi,[57] Tiegs,[57] Christie Brinkley,[6][58] Kim Alexis,[57] Paulina Porizkova, Yasmin Le Bon, Kathy Ireland,[59] Brooke Shields, and Elle Macpherson began to endorse products with their names, as well as their faces, through the marketing of brands, such as Diet Pepsi and Ford trucks.
[66] Supermodels did talk shows, were cited in gossip columns, partied at the trendiest nightspots,[64] landed movie roles, inspired franchises, dated or married film stars, and earned themselves millions.
The new era began in 1990, with the era-defining British Vogue cover[67][68] of Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and Tatjana Patitz,[69] photographed by Peter Lindbergh, which created such an impression on the fashion world that they came to embody the term "supermodel".
[72] The other photograph that captured this new generation of fashion models is the black and white nude of Crawford, Patitz, Campbell and Stephanie Seymour taken by Herb Ritts that originally ran in the May 1989 issue of Rolling Stone, until a variation of this image which included Turlington was released in the 1990s, only after a contract exclusively binding her to Calvin Klein expired - thereby publicly revealing the now iconic image "Stephanie, Cindy, Christy, Tatjana, Naomi, Hollywood 1989.
"[73] Lindbergh's and Ritts' group images helped each model attain worldwide fame by sharing covers of all the international editions of Vogue, walking the catwalks for the world's top designers, and becoming known by their first names alone.
The editors name famous models from previous decades, but explain that, "None of them attained the fame and worldwide renown bestowed on Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, Stephanie Seymour, Claudia Schiffer, Yasmeen Ghauri, and Karen Mulder, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Many became the faces of cosmetics brands and perfumes, had their own television programs and physical-fitness videos, and their own lines of lingerie ... Their lives, activities, influences, and images were the subjects of all types of sociological and historical analysis."
By the late 1990s, actresses, pop singers, and other entertainment celebrities began gradually replacing models on fashion magazine covers and ad campaigns.
A popular "conspiracy theory" explaining the supermodel's disappearance is that designers and fashion editors grew weary of the "I won't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day" attitude and made sure no small group of models would ever again have the power of the Big Six.
[96] However, the term continued to be applied to notable models such as Kristen McMenamy, Stella Tennant,[97] Laetitia Casta,[98][99] Eva Herzigová,[100] Carla Bruni,[101] Tatiana Sorokko,[102][103] Yasmin Le Bon,[104] Amber Valletta,[105] Shalom Harlow,[106] Nadja Auermann,[107] Helena Christensen,[108] Patricia Velásquez,[109] Adriana Karembeu,[110][111] Valeria Mazza[112] and later, Milla Jovovich.
[113] Following in her footsteps by signing contracts with Victoria's Secret, fellow Brazilians Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio rose to prominence; however, they were unable to cross over into the world of TV, movies and talk shows as easily as their predecessors, due to their foreign accents.
Not to mention other big stars of 00s era such as Carmen Kass, Karolína Kurková, Hana Soukupová, Isabeli Fontana, Natalia Vodianova and Natasha Poly, which also dominated the runways and ad campaigns along with Bündchen et al.[6] Several seasons later, they were followed by Eastern Europeans, barely into their teens, pale, and "bordering on anorexic.
They were too young to become movie stars or date celebrities; too skeletal to bag Victoria's Secret contracts; and a lack of English didn't bode well for a broad media career".
[6] Contrary to the fashion industry's celebrity trend of the previous decade, lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret continues to groom and launch young talents into supermodel status, awarding their high-profile "Angels" multi-year, multimillion-dollar contracts.
[6] American Vogue dubbed ten models (Doutzen Kroes, Agyness Deyn, Hilary Rhoda, Raquel Zimmermann, Coco Rocha, Lily Donaldson, Chanel Iman, Sasha Pivovarova, Caroline Trentini and Jessica Stam) as the new crop of supermodels in their May 2007 cover story,[114] while the likes of Christie Brinkley, Christy Turlington, and Linda Evangelista returned to reclaim prominent contracts from celebrities and younger models.
Even though women are predominantly known in the modeling industry, men also appear in advertisements for clothing, cologne, sports wear and other such accessories.
[131] Studies have shown that this can be attributed to more men being found to begin to care more about fashion and beauty and the social media savvy male models / celebrities, like Lucky Blue Smith, Jason Morgan, and David Gandy.
[140] In 1976, St. Jacques told Sepia magazine: "I think it’s a mistake that many black male models have felt the need to put forward a macho image like that because the fashion market is too limited to have much success using it.
[145] In October 2022, Steven Green, the Kansas City born fashion photographer, starred in Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty’s men underwear campaign as a plus-size model.
"[157] Vogue.com ranked the "Top 10 Male Models of All Time" in September 2014; the list included Tyson Beckford, David Gandy, Brad Kroenig, Sean O'Pry, Jon Kortajarena, Marcus Schenkenberg, Mathias Lauridsen, Mark Vanderloo, Noah Mills, and Evandro Soldati.
[160][161][162][163][164] The female models, include: Vittoria Ceretti, Imaan Hammam, Cong He, Felice Noordhoff, Blanca Padilla, Anja Rubik, Mika Schneider, FeiFei Sun, Mona Tougaard, and Rianne Van Rompaey.
In the 1970s in North America, black, heavier and "ethnic" models dominated the runways but social changes in the 1980s to the early 2000s persuaded the power players in the fashion industry to shun suggestions of "otherness".
