What I find funny is that everyone seems to be so intent on holding on to this antiquated idea of what a supermodel is. Back in the 70's, 80's and 90's and even to some extent the early 2000's it was about commercial and high fashion success, where runway was a must, but the big money was still commercial. This idea is so outdated with the path that fashion has taken it's almost ridiculous in the sense of what a supermodel is.
High fashion rarely if ever translates successfully to commercial modeling, because body types and facial types are so radically different now that it's almost painful to see the cross over. Weird and strange, edgy or gawky makes up the high fashion scene because they are transformable, and mutable, easily staged as props and rarely if ever fully outshine the clothing, which is what they're being paid to sell.
Where as the truly successful commercial model has those soft, or classical features that are more approachable, easily relatable to the average person, and as such much more likely to be considered "super" with model tacked on at the end. People who aren't in fashion can see these women and think "wow she's pretty" not have to do a double take and find the "pretty".
And then, factoring in the modern era, the advent and subsequent take over of the internet and what it's done to modern culture, advertising, and society it's only going to become more prevalent seeing models, and celebrities using the phenomenon that is social networking to expand their portfolio and become a household name.
Vogue dubbed Kate Upton the new breed of supermodel, not only because she is becoming more known across North America, and to some degree the rest of the world, but because she has embraced this new marketing technique and used it to reach out to a larger audience.
So in that sense, the US Vogue cover makes perfect sense. She embodies the best of the both worlds. She's a working model, (not so much in high fashion obviously, but she's doing some commercial work) and she's taking on that role of celebrity that Vogue has obviously embraced over the years.
It's not just Vogue, in reading the editorial you see that some of her peers, (designers and photographers) are jumping on the Kate bandwagan, this new breed of supermodel. I wouldn't be surprised to see in the future more models doing the exact same thing and trying to become an internet sensation.
In other news I personally liked the editorial and the cover, though I will agree that it came across as a little over photo-shopped, but that's nothing new when it comes to any type of fashion spread these days so I'm not overly surprised.
