The 1990s Episode 1: The Rise of the Supermodel

0:06Hi there, it's me, Chloe Mel, host of The Run Through. We interrupt our Fashion Month coverage to bring you some breaking news. Part 1 of Vogue's new docuseries, In Vogue, the 90s, launches September 13th on Hulu, and it's based on Vogue's podcast series of the same name. The original documentary podcast has always been a Vogue staff favorite. So, in honor of the series launch, we wanted to share an episode of In Vogue, the 1990s, the podcast with you. The episode, The Rise of the Supermodel, explores how the idea of the supermodel was one of the most important fashion moments of the 90s. Keep listening for the full episode, which includes Victoria Beckham, Garen, Tawny Goodman, and Camilla Nickerson, and more.

0:47And check out the docuseries, In Vogue, the 90s, streaming now on Hulu.

0:56One of the most pivotal moments in early 90s fashion happened at Gianni Versace's 1991 Fall Runway Show, and I was lucky enough to be there. Gianni was showing with almost every other Italian designer in Milan. He was showing at a space called the Fiera. You kind of arrive for the 9am show and you leave after the 8pm show, and it was a pretty soul-destroying way to experience clothing. You were lucky if you could find a kind of stale panini and an indifferent espresso to get you through the day. The seats were very much assigned and there was an absolute hierarchy. And at that point, I was the fashion director of Harpers and Queens, so I think I would have been in the front row.

1:41The front row, by the way, although the most prestigious place to sit, was by no means the most convenient place to see or experience a runway. The runways then were always high rise, So you're already looking up the girl's nostril. So the show starts. Linda Evangelista opened the show in a short little black shift in these kind of fetish boots. A little bit simpler for Gianni. This kind of new decade vibe, kind of leggings and little shift dresses. But, you know, raunchy kind of fetish boots. Then, of course, some amazing print moment. I always had some gridded paper notebooks. and I did very, very elaborate sketches of each look that came down the runway.

2:29I mean, lightning sketches, but pretty detailed. And then I would write in additional notes of colour and I would write down the name of the girl who was wearing it. That's Yasmin Laban. Colourblock Tartans. Barpester and Gail Elliott. And a kind of neoclassical... Yasmin Garry. Ballerina print. Then does Cindy. Byzantine Prince just there. Naomi. Cutaway black. Mini dress with... Claudia. bright yellow with this bomber jacket. So I was sitting there furiously sketching in my notebook every look that came down, and then... Suddenly I heard the opening strains of freedom on Gianni's runway. That iconic beat of music, and it was like this kind of electric jolt had charged through the room.

3:23Linda Evangelista came out in a very short, flirty, red, kind of A-line mini-dress. Then Christy came out in a black version with a different neckline. Naomi came out in a kind of singing chrome yellow version. And finally, Cindy Crawford, also in black again. And, you know, each girl having singly come out, then they all came out arm over shoulder, lip-syncing the words and kind of reliving that moment. And then really everyone just went crazy.

3:55It was a real energising, zeitgeisty fashion moment.

4:04And as I watched from my vantage point in the crowd, I realised that I'd found myself in the epicentre of the fashion world at a moment when everything was changing. And what Gianni understood, and what the rest of the fashion industry came to understand, was that these supermodels, they were a symbol, and even a vehicle of that change. The fashion industry was exploding into the mainstream. This world that had been so exclusive and exclusionary was now opening up. And of course, the moment that door opened ajar and people could see this kind of magical world through the slither in the open doorway, they wanted to break the door down.

4:52Welcome to In Vogue the 1990s, a podcast about a pivotal time that ushered in a new era in fashion and in culture. Join us as we examine the defining moments of the decade that shape fashion as we know it today. We'll hear from fashion leaders, cultural icons and Vogue's own editorial team. I'm Anna Wintour. And I'm Hamish Bowles, Vogue's international editor-at-large and your host. Modelling used to be a very different sort of profession There was this dichotomy between runway models and print models I mean literally the cover girls literally with Vogue and the Avedon covers at that point they only needed to be fabulous from the neck up and then you had you know runway models they had this total runway allure they were of course always great looking they weren't maybe a cover face, but they had striking runway presence.

5:54So there was an expectation that they would have perfect symmetrical bodies that were easy for the craftspeople to fit. From today's perspective, when we're kind of now happily inured to the idea of body diversity on a runway, it requires a different focus and prism to look back at the 80s and realise that the runway body paradigm, particularly for the haute couture designers of handcrafted clothing, was a symmetrical, focused, cookie-cutter norm and a mould. You know, there was a very, very particular cultivated runway walk that the runway-specific models knew how to do, which was, you know, a kind of slink and a turn and a twirl and a turn.

6:49They would walk down, they would turn, they'd walk back. Toni Goodman is Vogue's sustainability editor and was a fashion editor in the 90s. You know, they were completely vital. That was what their job was as a mannequin for the clothes. They were living mannequins that could move and that could display whether the drape worked. And so pride of place really was given to the clients. Designers that were considered sort of dressmakers to the social set, they had their prominent clients. In the front row, they would all be immaculately dressed in head-to-toe outfits from the designer's last collection.

7:30At houses like Dior or Givenchy, for instance, it was almost like informal modelling in a department store, but of course amplified to a very glamorous level with the occasional cameo from a Prince star like Iman or Jerry Hall. There might be music and at Yves Saint Laurent, a tannoyed voiceover announcing the dresses. And it would say, Numéro un, number one, numero deux. Then the buyers in the audience would be frantically sort of scribbling down the numbers of the dresses that they wanted to buy, cross-referencing the programmes that had been left on their seats for them. So the shows took forever because you were looking at every strata of what was presenting.

8:16It wasn't a convention in almost any magazine that I knew of to identify the models. Laird Borelli-Person is Vogue's archive editor. If they were identified, it was usually in the credits. So for insiders, they might have that knowledge, but the job was to present the clothes, just like the runway models. They generally aren't identified. The job of a model was to show clothes. But by the end of the 80s, that all started to change. The birth of the supermodel for me was linked with two covers of British Vogue a year apart. Mark Holgate is Vogue's fashion news director. I was a student at the University of Northumbria and I was bored and I was like, oh, I'm going to buy this copy of Vogue to read.

9:07It was a January 1989 edition of British Vogue, and it had Linda Evangelista on the cover. Linda Evangelista's haircut that helped propel her into fame. She was the one that had the short, boyish haircut. What's the thing you're most tired of being asked? What's your next hair color? But then what she started to do was she changed her hair color. You know, she went from being brunette to platinum blonde to being a redhead. And what she chose to do was she chose to debut those new hair covers on different covers of Vogue. And that was, I think, the first moment I had this connection with. I guess a fashion model and their appeal could transcend the cover and could start being something that touched the lives of people in everyday life.

9:52Before she became a fashion designer or even a Spice Girl, Victoria Beckham remembers the influence that supermodels had on her. I mean, Linda was always my favorite supermodel. So you can imagine my excitement when Garen, the hairdresser in New York that used to cut Linda's hair, he was the hairdresser that cut my little tiny pixie haircut that I had, which was very exciting for me, probably more exciting for me than it was for him. Linda Evangelista's hair, like, oh my God. Garen is a high fashion hairstylist. It was like there was no rules as far as it came to hair. Linda went blonde and then Linda went redhead.

10:34And all my clients were so impressed by having all these young fashion models in the salon. They all were requesting haircuts. Women taking these dives and going, if she can wear it, I can wear it. What's the trick? It's hard to imagine in today's world, but this was something that was a kind of major obsession. these women became more than just blank faces that stared out at us from a magazine cover or a magazine page. You know, we got to know their names. Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatiana Patis, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford. They were starting to appear also in British Vogue to Italian Vogue to American Vogue, playing different characters across these different issues in different kind of narratives, in different depictions.

11:21Somehow they were also themselves.

11:28All of these girls had great personality and they also had great understanding of character and how they could transform themselves into different characters. And one of the photographers who really took advantage of that was Peter Lindbergh. He really allowed them to be actors. One of the first stories that Peter and I did together was Naomi Campbell as a Gauguin painting. We went down to Jamaica and we did that shoot. So the opportunity to do cultural references, art references, that came up a lot. Peter Lindbergh, he often did outdoor shoots or location shoots. So there was a sort of fresh airness to his work.

12:13But there was also a cinematic quality. his women were often moving and happy, and there was an idea of natural beauty. It wasn't about a lot of makeup. It was a fresh natural beauty, some sort of connection with nature, but seen through a cinematic, not Hitchcockian, but like sort of a classic frame, like a still shot from a film often. And cut to a year later, the January 1990 cover, a black and white cover, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatiana Petit, Naomi Campbell, and Cindy Crawford. They're not in some fantasy setting. They're not, you know, looking like they've got incredibly elaborate hair and makeup and jewels on.

13:01They look quite natural. Their hair is kind of not overly done. They don't look like they're wearing a ton of makeup. They're in jeans with these tops. The idea of it being a snapshot, a class photo of five of the most important models of the moment. And again, it was that moment of authenticity and realness, really kind of, it really hit home, I think, in a kind of major way. That snapshot also caught the eye of another important figure, and he would propel supermodels into the stratosphere. More after the break. Thank you.

14:04New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

14:12In 1991, George Michael was everywhere. He was a major pop star coming off the success of his latest single, Faith, that had been a huge hit on MTV back in 1987. This is the official George Michael station. He was a cultural icon working on his eagerly anticipated upcoming album. But at that point, he felt that he was already overexposed and had become disillusioned from the pressures that fame brought. So much so, in fact, that when it came time to make the music video for his latest single, Freedom 90, he refused to be in the video. He was living a life as an idol that was probably conflicted.

14:47You're always supposed to be on. You're always supposed to be beautiful. You're supposed to conform to the societal norms, even if it's not true to yourself. And how do you break out of that when you're living in public? Will people even accept it if you do? He hadn't come out at this point. And I think, in a way, this was a song of rebellion.

15:11He wanted to be free. But how can you be free when you're a celebrity? So he chose the supermodels as sort of stand-ins.

15:26What did George Michael want to be free of? what does a model look like when they're not a model? It was going to be a Linda Evangelister. It was going to be Naomi Campbell. It was going to be Christy Tarlington, Tatiana Petits, and Cindy Crawford. Camilla Nickerson is a Vogue contributing editor. Camilla had been an editor at Harpers and Queens. She'd been my assistant at one point, in fact, and then a very talented editor in her own right. And I knew that she'd got this gig to do the George Michael. single and that it was with the supermodels. I didn't know what was being asked. I didn't know really what I was doing.

16:06Again, very, very lucky that probably somebody else had been asked but got sick or something. Like, it was purely, just totally chance that I got asked. I'd never really been to a film studio, so I walked into this room that was just, like, with all these drawings, and David Fincher, he kind of showed me these storyboards, and I'd never seen a storyboard, but pretended I had. He wanted Christy to walk in a long white sheet made of Irish linen, but it needed to be 100 foot long. And that was my budget gone, right there. So the rest had to be like from my cupboard. So two weeks later, we went to an old hangar and there was like two caravans, one for the girls and one for the boys, tiny.

16:56and then we'd get sort of the girls dressed in there and you definitely knew who George Michael was at the time. I mean, he was there on set. He was as much, you know, he was a creative part and talking with the girls and, you know, all coming and going. They're all huge personalities. So, you know, they're under us. They're not supermodels. They're not film stars. They're themselves. Just seeing, like, the girls all sort of practicing their lines and, like, trying to sing and lip sync. So Naomi's wearing my boyfriend's boots and Linda pulls my sweater over her head and, you know, it was great.

17:37It was so great. The music video was moodily shot in sepia black and white. Linda Evangelista has discovered lip syncing George's lyrics while sitting cross-legged on the bare wooden floor of a shabby apartment. Cindy Crawford is lip syncing whilst naked in a bathtub. I mean, they were in this, like, abandoned house with seemingly no heat and, like, an oversized sweater. I think it's important to say that as glamorous as the supermodels are, they weren't depicted as glamorous in the video. I mean, besides their natural glamour. To me, it shows them at a more intimate, domestic kind of feeling to the video.

18:18So you feel them more vulnerable. You know, here's the thing. When I was a model, the thing that was clear to me is the generosity that a model had to have in their DNA. And these girls were so generous with what they could put forth. And they did it with freedom. I mean, if you needed to be vulnerable, you were able to, you know, to portray it, to project it. If you needed to be haughty, you could do that. You could run the gamut of different emotions that would have a resonance with whoever was watching you or, you know, looking at an image of you. Looking back, I think that MTV generation, the fact that we were all tuning in, that there was this new medium that fused fashion and music.

19:07It was exciting. It was new. People were watching it everywhere. So it felt like pop culture, sort of the lifestyle was aspirational. The idea of being on the Concord and partying with Donatella Versace and being able to wear anything you want. But because they had personality, it was more like being a fan of a musician or a band or an actor. You know, you had a new audience. The music videos in MTV had a music-driven audience that was then entertained by video. But this brought in a whole new community to start watching a music video, which was the fashion community. And I think that that absolutely opened a huge door for anybody who wanted to take advantage of having this adjunct audience get tacked on to what they were trying to do.

20:00The crossover of fashion and music began to really become something that you saw played out day in, day out, video in, video out on MTV. and, you know, that's in a huge way down to George Michael's Freedom 90 video. I mean, everyone in the fashion community loved the video because it was this idea of a high-style fashion shoot and the idea that our world was kind of being co-opted by George Michael and the supermodels. They just started to become more present in the culture. They were lip syncing to a song that was being sung by George Michael through this incredible, what became an incredibly kind of iconic and groundbreaking and influential music video.

20:50It was a kind of case of starting to join the docks and kind of see these women start to pop up in different aspects of the culture. You know, you were like, OK, they're now in a show. Now they're on a magazine cover. Now they're being photographed at a party. now you're seeing them in an ad campaign. So these girls really were it. Now in the 90s, fashion has ushered in the superstars. The glamorous hyper... You know, they were everywhere. They were ubiquitous. I mean, you know, they were on the side of every bus. They were on the cover of every magazine. They were inside every magazine. Who needs a new supermodel?

21:23They were doing TV commercials. The new supermodel. Some of them were trying to break into movies. You want to watch headline news with me? It's not going to kill you. They were the very hottest fashion commodities.

21:42Right now, in movies, in the opera, even in pop music, divinely inspired women are everywhere. This week on Critics at Large, we make our case. Saints are having a moment. Look, I can spout off any number of cliches, but they're all true. The world is moving faster and faster. materialism is now reaching every single corner of the globe, it's very hard to say no and to say stop and to say I will do without. And I think that explains some of the modern cultural appeal. I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts on Critics at Large from The New Yorker. Find us every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

22:24You know, Gianni Versace was a designer who was uniquely attuned to the cultural zeitgeist. He was all about folding music and rock and roll into his clothing and movie stars and artists. And he was someone who could absolutely seize the moment, seize the zeitgeist and tailor it to his own aesthetic in a very kind of powerful way. And of course, Versace had always been using these girls in his ad campaigns. But this was a total synergy that all the girls who'd been in that video came down the runway embodying Gianni's vision. You know, Gianni was unusually media savvy because he was a perfect showman and he understood how to kind of manipulate emotions through fashion and the way he presented his collections.

23:19So when that Freedom soundtrack rang out and the girls came down kind of arm in arm, it was just so amazing. First of all, because they looked so wonderful and you saw that, you know, they could maneuver their way down a runway, they could walk, you know, which wasn't necessarily a given, but it was electrifying.

23:47So it was an interesting collision of all sorts of different kind of fame. You had the fame of George Michael, you had the fame of Gianni Versace, and you had the fame of the supermodels, all kind of coalescing into one major kind of pop cultural moment. And that was really, for me, that was sort of the moment where you realized that this was going to be the kind of dominating narrative. These models were supermodels. And of course, the photographers went crazy because they knew that, you know, if they had photographs of these girls, they were going to be surefire sellers. There was no social media.

24:28There was no Instagram, no Snapchat. You know, there was none of these things. There was no means to actually be reminded of their presence on a daily basis. designers in particular became aware of the fact that these girls were personalities as well as models and that their personality in your clothes gave more of a message it wasn't just i'm going to show this to you so you can buy it or you cannot buy it you can like it you can't like it but all of a sudden you had a personality that was delivering how you could wear these clothes and who you would be when you wore those clothes. These girls were worth their weight because they contributed to the image significantly.

25:19And that's why they were who they were. That's why they got that attention. They were credible. They had their own lives that revolved around fashion. They were devoted to it. They understood it. They collaborated with it. And they really, really were important. I mean, what happened was they were also smart enough to realize that they themselves had a role and a power in shaping fashion, and they had some agency of their own in continuing to be part of the fashion landscape. The supermodels became like an industry. As they sometimes do five shows a day, their weekly salaries can quickly climb to six figures.

26:03At that point, those four models were doing everything. They really helped foster an identity for what fashion was and what it could be. And you saw a shift in fashion, but the supermodels, they were part of that shift. On this edition of House of Style, we traveled to Milan, Italy for the Spring 93 collections and spent the week with Naomi Campbell both on and off the runway. As fashion became a bigger interest and became part of a bigger cultural narrative, suddenly you started to see, because of the way that fashion operates and it goes in cycles and it gets sated by one thing and then it's looking to the new thing to inject a difference or some sense of newness into its creative process, then other narratives were starting to kind of come in the new person the new face the new designer the new thing that that is counter to the gloss and the fame and the success the question the fashion industry is asking are the models worth the money they get especially in these times of recession or does their high profile detract from the very close there was kind of a feeling that the opulence and the conspicuous consumption were somehow inappropriate for the moment and out of step with the vibe of the moment.