Max Capote
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I FOUND AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ABOUT "SUPERMODELS"
SOURCE: newmodels.blogspot.com
Does Fashion really want - or need - the "supermodel"?
A Wintour certainly does - that's why she is executing one of her infamous swings - like the time she resurrected Linda Evangelista, in late 2001.
Remember who was on the Sept 2001 US Vogue cover? Yep - Linda E, looking older than her real age. Today, she looks "10 years younger", as several media sources have noted (no need to believe me!) - which means she actually looks 7 years younger than she did in Sept 2001. In fact, she looks even younger than she did in September 1997, when she was again on the mag cover, a few months after Gianni Versace was killed !!
Joking aside, Linda E looked "mature" in September 2001 for a good reason - several months before 9/11, AW and Co abandoned the "It Girl" and turned their attention to the "older woman" once again. In fact, Donatella V asked Meisel to use someone who "appealed to older women" for her campaign - he in turn chose Amber Valletta, as usual. AW was still the "trendsetter" back then, so everyone put his ducks in line behind her - a few months later, with the expectation of an imminent recovery, things returned to business as usual (and Amber Valletta was chosen once again for the new campaign, this time to appeal to the younger women)
Why does AW need the "supermodel"? Because she can't compete with InStyle or Vanity Fair when it comes to celebrity covers, and rather than battle with Marie Claire, she has to come up with an alternative which can sell premium-priced advertising and impress her fans. Things get really sh*tty when H Bazaar or Elle can put Gisele, or whoever is IMG's No 1 model, on their cover - what can she offer in return?
The $66K question is - do the rest in the fashion world need the "supermodel"?
People remember vaguely that everyone was happy and smiling back in the 90s, the "supermodels" were hip during that time, so they probably had something to do with it - so if the "biz" can fabricate some sort of new "supermodel", and foist some old faces on the clueless alongside it, happy days will be here again!!
When the NYC types talk about "supermodels", they mean Linda E, Christy T and sometimes Naomi C. Some may want to throw in Tyra B - Heidi K couldn't even get an SI Swimsuit issue cover, so her "supermod" status is more IMG wishful thinking. Few "fashionable" types will mention Cindy C, since they don't regard her as a "true" fashion supermodel.
In short, the people who control fashion nowdays completely missed the real international supermodel phenomenon - they know little or nothing about the faces that filled the pages or European and international mags for years - Eva Herzigova, Adriana Sklenarikova, Karen Mulder, Tatjana Patitz, Leticia Casta, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, Nadja Auermann, Esther Canadas... THESE ARE THE FACES THAT SOLD PRODUCTS WORLDWIDE.
Christy T had little selling power internationally, and about zero today - Naomi C remains an exception, and seems to get stronger as other 90s models fade away (except in the UK and certainly the US, as evidenced by the (lack of) attention paid to her in the last VS show). Cindy C still does "special appearances" in Italy, Russia and many other places where her name sells - and her face still appears in magazine ads for "luxury" products.
If you want to draw an analogy, think Women's Tennis - up to the early 90s, women's tennis had a strong following in the AngloAmerican world, but few people on the outside cared about a game played by maturing, mostly lesbian players whom they never saw in action - except in the Paris Open maybe. The game exploded when a number of cute teenagers appeared - they brought new fans to the stadiums, the "tour" expanded to new markets, new television viewers helped advertising and player award money budgets to explode, and a new generation of girls got inspired and took up the sport. The result is that most players today are leggy teenagers from Eastern Europe, same as in fashion modelling. The "professionals" in NYC, London or the Oz still think of Navratilova and her galpals when "tennis greats" are mentioned, everybody else thinks of Capriati, Seles, Graf, etc as the tennis heroines of the 90s.
The NY Daily News featured some opinions on the "return of the supermodel". The person from US Elle proves to be the most clueless, as usual - suggesting that Gisele and K Kurkova are "household" names. Not in any household I know - but then again, I don't live in NYC. The fashion people quoted make the usual mistake - when someone mentions "supermodel", they think "high fashion supermodel", ie Linda E, Christy T and Naomi C. The question is - did these girls really help fashion - and will they help again now? Will the average buyer pay for the merch they (or similar famous mods from the past) advertise?
The evidence is in the Gross book, even though the story ends around 1995 - after the "Trinity" disbanded, fashion people got increasing irritated with Linda E and her pals - the people who fabricated the "supermodel" concept (J Casablancas, along with Gerald Marie, Gianni Versace and a few others) had all sorts of fights with them, the photographers and stylists were pissed, and by 94/95 there was a rebellion against the "high fashion" supermodel - the 1995 NYC shows did not feature any of them. Gianni V, who was instrumental in the plan, by offering more money to buy the exclusive rights for a model so that she would walk only for him - was so upset by the fact that his Paris/Milan competitors were outbidding him in his own game, that he decided to move his show to NYC (some may claim this was because NYC was becoming the new fashion capital - although A McQueen had a different opinion, after his show there he called US fashion "boring" and vowed never to return again).
The pro-quirky crowd btw tried a ersatz version of the Gianni trick with "exclusive" but quirky "Prada", "Gucci", etc girls and managed to swindle a few clueless types, but it didn't last for long - it made money for editrixes, photographers, model agents and whoever got kickbacks from model fees, but it certainly didn't help product sales, since nobody knew sh*t about who the "exclusive" mod was!
The bottom line - the fashion world (with the exception of the big modelling agencies and the editrixes) turned its back to the "fashion supermodel" after the mid-90s. One reason almost everybody happily went along with the quirky crowd and their plan to kill the "elegant" woman of the 90s was that they never wanted to see this type of model ever again - those mods were obviously more trouble than they were worth for them. Just look up what all the famous photographers were saying about the supermodels after 1996, and how eager they were to kill the concept - even J Casablancas had enough, and Elite had plans to replace the "old guard" with new faces by 1999-2000. Things went a different way though...
So what about these "aspirational" mods scheduled to appear this Fall?
This is going to be just another fashion swindle, but this time they are burning the bridges behind them, so it's going to be risky - the plan is to repackage the best-looking faces, tart them up beyond recognition (since cosmetics companies are the new money-generating opportunity for agents, photographers and pretty much everyone) give them a complex hairdo (good for getting salon advertising) and sell them as "the return of the supermodel".
To help the clueless make the necessary flashback, they throw in a grotesquely cosmetically altered Linda E, so that she brings back the mid-90s memories - Voila, the last and desperate effort by the hipsters to make a profit.
For the reasons explained above, they'll fail once again - and even if Dubya "arrests" Bin Laden just before the elections and the economy improves, they'll have very few options left by next summer.
SOURCE: newmodels.blogspot.com
Does Fashion really want - or need - the "supermodel"?
A Wintour certainly does - that's why she is executing one of her infamous swings - like the time she resurrected Linda Evangelista, in late 2001.
Remember who was on the Sept 2001 US Vogue cover? Yep - Linda E, looking older than her real age. Today, she looks "10 years younger", as several media sources have noted (no need to believe me!) - which means she actually looks 7 years younger than she did in Sept 2001. In fact, she looks even younger than she did in September 1997, when she was again on the mag cover, a few months after Gianni Versace was killed !!
Joking aside, Linda E looked "mature" in September 2001 for a good reason - several months before 9/11, AW and Co abandoned the "It Girl" and turned their attention to the "older woman" once again. In fact, Donatella V asked Meisel to use someone who "appealed to older women" for her campaign - he in turn chose Amber Valletta, as usual. AW was still the "trendsetter" back then, so everyone put his ducks in line behind her - a few months later, with the expectation of an imminent recovery, things returned to business as usual (and Amber Valletta was chosen once again for the new campaign, this time to appeal to the younger women)
Why does AW need the "supermodel"? Because she can't compete with InStyle or Vanity Fair when it comes to celebrity covers, and rather than battle with Marie Claire, she has to come up with an alternative which can sell premium-priced advertising and impress her fans. Things get really sh*tty when H Bazaar or Elle can put Gisele, or whoever is IMG's No 1 model, on their cover - what can she offer in return?
The $66K question is - do the rest in the fashion world need the "supermodel"?
People remember vaguely that everyone was happy and smiling back in the 90s, the "supermodels" were hip during that time, so they probably had something to do with it - so if the "biz" can fabricate some sort of new "supermodel", and foist some old faces on the clueless alongside it, happy days will be here again!!
When the NYC types talk about "supermodels", they mean Linda E, Christy T and sometimes Naomi C. Some may want to throw in Tyra B - Heidi K couldn't even get an SI Swimsuit issue cover, so her "supermod" status is more IMG wishful thinking. Few "fashionable" types will mention Cindy C, since they don't regard her as a "true" fashion supermodel.
In short, the people who control fashion nowdays completely missed the real international supermodel phenomenon - they know little or nothing about the faces that filled the pages or European and international mags for years - Eva Herzigova, Adriana Sklenarikova, Karen Mulder, Tatjana Patitz, Leticia Casta, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, Nadja Auermann, Esther Canadas... THESE ARE THE FACES THAT SOLD PRODUCTS WORLDWIDE.
Christy T had little selling power internationally, and about zero today - Naomi C remains an exception, and seems to get stronger as other 90s models fade away (except in the UK and certainly the US, as evidenced by the (lack of) attention paid to her in the last VS show). Cindy C still does "special appearances" in Italy, Russia and many other places where her name sells - and her face still appears in magazine ads for "luxury" products.
If you want to draw an analogy, think Women's Tennis - up to the early 90s, women's tennis had a strong following in the AngloAmerican world, but few people on the outside cared about a game played by maturing, mostly lesbian players whom they never saw in action - except in the Paris Open maybe. The game exploded when a number of cute teenagers appeared - they brought new fans to the stadiums, the "tour" expanded to new markets, new television viewers helped advertising and player award money budgets to explode, and a new generation of girls got inspired and took up the sport. The result is that most players today are leggy teenagers from Eastern Europe, same as in fashion modelling. The "professionals" in NYC, London or the Oz still think of Navratilova and her galpals when "tennis greats" are mentioned, everybody else thinks of Capriati, Seles, Graf, etc as the tennis heroines of the 90s.
The NY Daily News featured some opinions on the "return of the supermodel". The person from US Elle proves to be the most clueless, as usual - suggesting that Gisele and K Kurkova are "household" names. Not in any household I know - but then again, I don't live in NYC. The fashion people quoted make the usual mistake - when someone mentions "supermodel", they think "high fashion supermodel", ie Linda E, Christy T and Naomi C. The question is - did these girls really help fashion - and will they help again now? Will the average buyer pay for the merch they (or similar famous mods from the past) advertise?
The evidence is in the Gross book, even though the story ends around 1995 - after the "Trinity" disbanded, fashion people got increasing irritated with Linda E and her pals - the people who fabricated the "supermodel" concept (J Casablancas, along with Gerald Marie, Gianni Versace and a few others) had all sorts of fights with them, the photographers and stylists were pissed, and by 94/95 there was a rebellion against the "high fashion" supermodel - the 1995 NYC shows did not feature any of them. Gianni V, who was instrumental in the plan, by offering more money to buy the exclusive rights for a model so that she would walk only for him - was so upset by the fact that his Paris/Milan competitors were outbidding him in his own game, that he decided to move his show to NYC (some may claim this was because NYC was becoming the new fashion capital - although A McQueen had a different opinion, after his show there he called US fashion "boring" and vowed never to return again).
The pro-quirky crowd btw tried a ersatz version of the Gianni trick with "exclusive" but quirky "Prada", "Gucci", etc girls and managed to swindle a few clueless types, but it didn't last for long - it made money for editrixes, photographers, model agents and whoever got kickbacks from model fees, but it certainly didn't help product sales, since nobody knew sh*t about who the "exclusive" mod was!
The bottom line - the fashion world (with the exception of the big modelling agencies and the editrixes) turned its back to the "fashion supermodel" after the mid-90s. One reason almost everybody happily went along with the quirky crowd and their plan to kill the "elegant" woman of the 90s was that they never wanted to see this type of model ever again - those mods were obviously more trouble than they were worth for them. Just look up what all the famous photographers were saying about the supermodels after 1996, and how eager they were to kill the concept - even J Casablancas had enough, and Elite had plans to replace the "old guard" with new faces by 1999-2000. Things went a different way though...
So what about these "aspirational" mods scheduled to appear this Fall?
This is going to be just another fashion swindle, but this time they are burning the bridges behind them, so it's going to be risky - the plan is to repackage the best-looking faces, tart them up beyond recognition (since cosmetics companies are the new money-generating opportunity for agents, photographers and pretty much everyone) give them a complex hairdo (good for getting salon advertising) and sell them as "the return of the supermodel".
To help the clueless make the necessary flashback, they throw in a grotesquely cosmetically altered Linda E, so that she brings back the mid-90s memories - Voila, the last and desperate effort by the hipsters to make a profit.
For the reasons explained above, they'll fail once again - and even if Dubya "arrests" Bin Laden just before the elections and the economy improves, they'll have very few options left by next summer.
, because of course GNR and all the hairies were over by this time. It's most unfortunate that I didn't open an issue of Italian Vogue to see some Nadja, but when you are attacked by uncool fashion faces all the time you just don't associate Vogue/Bazaar with coolness. So I didn't get interested in fashion until I saw a Gia movie and a website for her online. As I delved deeper, I realized that every time has it's merits (except 1983-1985). And now I'm quite fond of the 90s supermodels too (still can't really seem to like Linda, though).
