and also just to clarify, freja didn't have a chanel contract. yes, she was a favourite of karl and was used repeatedly in campaigns. but being a fav and being on a lucrative contract is the biggest distinguishing feature that separates number 1s from everyone else.
That may be the case but IMO it should not be the case (or at least not the be all-end all), but actually it is not the case because if it was then Valentina Zelyaeva would be on the Women's List. Awarding a contract is a way that some design houses choose to do business but other design houses go a different route, it is as simple as that. I don't think that a model with a contract that covers four season is above a non-contract model who books a campaign with the same designer for four seasons, other things have to be taken into account. IMO a fashion contract is mostly a convenient way of knowing that the model will likely book at least one high profile gig for the next year or two, so yeah it makes sense for MDC to take this into account because it is a predictor, but that does not mean that the model will have the best career for the duration of her contract.
From a
retrospective standpoint, there is nothing substantively different than Lara, Karlie, Freja, Joan or Mariacarla's multi-season campaigns with their labels simply because Lara had a contract. My points system would be:
* Lara and Karlie would get points for their campaigns being OG;
* Freja would get points for the number of seasons that she was the in mainline campaign, I think that it was a seven or eight season run;
* Lara, Karlie and Joan would get points for what I presume to be their generous pay for the campaigns;
* Karlie and Joan would get points for (my anecdotal observation that) their ads ran in more magazines and in prominent places;
* Freja and then Karlie and then Joan and Lara in a tie would get points for the prestige of the labels.
From a
prospective standpoint, I think that at the time Raquel was moved to the icons list, the contenders would have been Anja, Lara, Natasha (my choice at the time) and maybe Sasha, and given those choices, I could see why Lara's impending Calvin Klein contract would be the deciding factor in her getting the top spot, and IMO history has proven that that was the right choice and she has also proven to be deserving based on her impact in the industry and on culture, now I personally think that she has been in the top spot for too long, as was Raquel, but Lara was definitely the right choice at that time to be number one.