Your List of "True Supermodels" and why.....
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happycanadian
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LMAO joseph, your signature is a riot.
heaven's tibetsy.
heaven's tibetsy.
happycanadian
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Galini,
perhaps you believe that Gisele, Kate, Karolina, Daria, and Gemma are all ugly, and perhaps others agree with you.... BUT, they have all left their mark in fashion and even Gemma is more relevant and more likely to be (wrongly) referred to as a Supermodel, than the ladies whom you listed, pretty as they may be.
perhaps you believe that Gisele, Kate, Karolina, Daria, and Gemma are all ugly, and perhaps others agree with you.... BUT, they have all left their mark in fashion and even Gemma is more relevant and more likely to be (wrongly) referred to as a Supermodel, than the ladies whom you listed, pretty as they may be.
PussyLee said:The same one, where you live!
and what kind of covers?
check out http://www.fashion-iconography.net/, if you have luck maybe you will find 10 covers, not 1000 
I think that if you ask fashion people who are the supermodels and if you ask your average person who they are, you will get very different answers. Most people probably think of someone like Cindy Crawford as the ultimate 90s supermodel, however a lot of fashion people don't count her since she became famous for her commercial stuff (ie the Pepsi commercial) instead of modeling clothes.
By that standard, fashion people would really only say Linda, Naomi, Christy, Kate, and sort of Gisele, but since Gisele became known for her VS modeling and being DiCaprio's girlfriend when he made Titanic and was the biggest thing in the world, its questionable.
As far as girls like Daria and Gemma, they have a long ways to go. You can't call them supermodels in the true sense of the word, but then what do you call them? You can't just call them top models imo, because they are on an entirely different plane than a lot of girls who I would consider to be top models. I think those 2 girls have a unique opportunity to carve out a new path for themselves, something that doesn't involve getting splashed across tabloids for cocaine problems or having to have a famous boyfriend.
By that standard, fashion people would really only say Linda, Naomi, Christy, Kate, and sort of Gisele, but since Gisele became known for her VS modeling and being DiCaprio's girlfriend when he made Titanic and was the biggest thing in the world, its questionable.
As far as girls like Daria and Gemma, they have a long ways to go. You can't call them supermodels in the true sense of the word, but then what do you call them? You can't just call them top models imo, because they are on an entirely different plane than a lot of girls who I would consider to be top models. I think those 2 girls have a unique opportunity to carve out a new path for themselves, something that doesn't involve getting splashed across tabloids for cocaine problems or having to have a famous boyfriend.
^ what about a famous girlfriend? 
anyway, that's what i've been reflecting too.
i think we should be back to the origin of the term "supermodel", that existed before the hedonistic version of linda, christy etc.
i know there was a thread where a scan of the first article where the word was used (late 60s, i think) was posted... but i can't find it!
anyway, that's what i've been reflecting too.
i think we should be back to the origin of the term "supermodel", that existed before the hedonistic version of linda, christy etc.
i know there was a thread where a scan of the first article where the word was used (late 60s, i think) was posted... but i can't find it!
PrettyPeasant
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eword said:i think we should be back to the origin of the term "supermodel", that existed before the hedonistic version of linda, christy etc.
i know there was a thread where a scan of the first article where the word was used (late 60s, i think) was posted... but i can't find it!
I think it's mentioned in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermodel
this article is dedicated to Callidora, I really hope you can illustrate you a little. 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Supermodels
The word "supermodel" was first used in the 1940s, but the supermodel phenomenon belongs to the 1980s and 1990s, when a few women epitomizing glamour and opulence captured the American popular consumer's imagination. For most of the supermodel era, the pantheon included Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington--all of them tall, architectural, and distinctive in appearance--who represented both the triumph of unadulterated image and the mass marketing of fashion.
Models had been famous before--Suzy Parker in the 1950s, Twiggy in the 1960s, Christie Brinkley in the 1970s--but the supermodels were touted for taking charge of their own careers, marketing themselves assiduously, and commanding huge fees for themselves and their agents. They cast themselves in discrete roles: Crawford was the confident sexual one, Moss the waif, Schiffer the one who looked like Brigitte Bardot. Like most models, they tended to launch their careers in Europe, where the pay was relatively low but a girl (often as young as fourteen or fifteen) could accumulate photographs and develop a distinctive "look." Once in New York, the U.S. modeling capital, a girl hoped to sign or continue a relationship with a powerful agency such as Elite and Ford, where clients in search of an image looked first. The supermodels were lucky to enter the American scene at the moment in which fashion designers were changing their target market from the wealthy elite to the masses. When Calvin Klein began to advertise on television, billboards, and bus shelters, the subliminal message seemed to be that even common people and their clothes could attract attention; paradoxically, perhaps, his model Brooke Shields shot to celebrity (as, later, did his muse Moss). At the same time, Hollywood actresses had de-glamorized themselves; now that they were more inclined to appear in jeans and unwashed hair rather than in evening gowns and jewels, models stepped in to feed America's hunger for opulence, harking back to the glamour of stars such as Myrna Loy and Grace Kelly. Yet, perhaps because they had no real careers beyond posing, and didn't even select the clothes or products they would wear, the supermodels were able to represent a product, an image, completely--in this regard they were forums for display, not fleshed-out characters.
The individual supermodels themselves achieved name-brand recognition. Advertisers focused on the same six (and a few slightly less enduring lights, such as Elle MacPherson, Paulina Porizkova, and Tyra Banks) in part to show they could afford to: hiring Turlington for seventy-two hours at a cost of sixty thousand dollars was a good way for a company to display its success, confidence, and solvency. Models and supermodels alike made most of their money in advertising: Turlington's 1991 contract with Maybelline, for example, netted her eight hundred thousand dollars for twelve days' work a year. The more prestigious work, including magazine covers, was comparatively unremunerative--in 1995 Vogue, Glamour, or Mademoiselle might pay as little as one hundred dollars a day--though the exposure did help establish a model as a commodity. But a woman who had achieved supermodel status never had to worry: in 1995 Claudia Schiffer, modeling's biggest wage earner, made twelve million dollars from various assignments. In the eras of Reaganomics and, later, recession, such well-publicized paydays were part of a supermodel's allure.
The wild and bratty behavior that often accompanied the models' sudden wealth was another element of their mystique; unleashed on New York, a number of them danced and drugged the nights away, and they were known for prima donna behavior such as sulkily kicking their limo drivers in the neck. Off the runway and out of the magazine, they lived larger than life, and the careers of many would-be supermodels ended in financial ruin and despair. Psychologists Vivian Diller and Jill Muir-Sukenick, both former models, explained in Psychology Today that many in the business suffer from a "fragile personality that makes them potentially self-destructive ... what we call 'extreme narcissistic vulnerability.'" Without a secure sense of and liking for herself, argued Diller and Muir-Sukenick, such a young woman might easily fall prey to exploitative agents, clients, drug dealers, and others who prey on the young and attractive. Models' dissolution became a popular subject for articles, books, and movies, as audiences craved to see the girls consumed like the products they represented.
As it turned out, despite the supermodels' status, the public was interested in them as images, not as women. Though Campbell wrote a novel, and Crawford (who once referred to herself as "Cindy, Inc.") made TV specials and a movie, these attempts at establishing themselves as personalities largely failed. While some photographers and designers achieved respect and enduring fame as artists, their models, including the celestial six, were often considered merely a medium for expression. In the late 1990s, magazines started heralding "The Fall of the Supermodel," noting that reglamorized actresses were claiming many of the most prestigious modeling jobs and that consumers (in the words of superagent Katie Ford) had grown tired of "just seeing six people at the center of most magazines." Image was not enough to guarantee an enduring place in the popular imagination.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Supermodels
The word "supermodel" was first used in the 1940s, but the supermodel phenomenon belongs to the 1980s and 1990s, when a few women epitomizing glamour and opulence captured the American popular consumer's imagination. For most of the supermodel era, the pantheon included Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington--all of them tall, architectural, and distinctive in appearance--who represented both the triumph of unadulterated image and the mass marketing of fashion.
Models had been famous before--Suzy Parker in the 1950s, Twiggy in the 1960s, Christie Brinkley in the 1970s--but the supermodels were touted for taking charge of their own careers, marketing themselves assiduously, and commanding huge fees for themselves and their agents. They cast themselves in discrete roles: Crawford was the confident sexual one, Moss the waif, Schiffer the one who looked like Brigitte Bardot. Like most models, they tended to launch their careers in Europe, where the pay was relatively low but a girl (often as young as fourteen or fifteen) could accumulate photographs and develop a distinctive "look." Once in New York, the U.S. modeling capital, a girl hoped to sign or continue a relationship with a powerful agency such as Elite and Ford, where clients in search of an image looked first. The supermodels were lucky to enter the American scene at the moment in which fashion designers were changing their target market from the wealthy elite to the masses. When Calvin Klein began to advertise on television, billboards, and bus shelters, the subliminal message seemed to be that even common people and their clothes could attract attention; paradoxically, perhaps, his model Brooke Shields shot to celebrity (as, later, did his muse Moss). At the same time, Hollywood actresses had de-glamorized themselves; now that they were more inclined to appear in jeans and unwashed hair rather than in evening gowns and jewels, models stepped in to feed America's hunger for opulence, harking back to the glamour of stars such as Myrna Loy and Grace Kelly. Yet, perhaps because they had no real careers beyond posing, and didn't even select the clothes or products they would wear, the supermodels were able to represent a product, an image, completely--in this regard they were forums for display, not fleshed-out characters.
The individual supermodels themselves achieved name-brand recognition. Advertisers focused on the same six (and a few slightly less enduring lights, such as Elle MacPherson, Paulina Porizkova, and Tyra Banks) in part to show they could afford to: hiring Turlington for seventy-two hours at a cost of sixty thousand dollars was a good way for a company to display its success, confidence, and solvency. Models and supermodels alike made most of their money in advertising: Turlington's 1991 contract with Maybelline, for example, netted her eight hundred thousand dollars for twelve days' work a year. The more prestigious work, including magazine covers, was comparatively unremunerative--in 1995 Vogue, Glamour, or Mademoiselle might pay as little as one hundred dollars a day--though the exposure did help establish a model as a commodity. But a woman who had achieved supermodel status never had to worry: in 1995 Claudia Schiffer, modeling's biggest wage earner, made twelve million dollars from various assignments. In the eras of Reaganomics and, later, recession, such well-publicized paydays were part of a supermodel's allure.
The wild and bratty behavior that often accompanied the models' sudden wealth was another element of their mystique; unleashed on New York, a number of them danced and drugged the nights away, and they were known for prima donna behavior such as sulkily kicking their limo drivers in the neck. Off the runway and out of the magazine, they lived larger than life, and the careers of many would-be supermodels ended in financial ruin and despair. Psychologists Vivian Diller and Jill Muir-Sukenick, both former models, explained in Psychology Today that many in the business suffer from a "fragile personality that makes them potentially self-destructive ... what we call 'extreme narcissistic vulnerability.'" Without a secure sense of and liking for herself, argued Diller and Muir-Sukenick, such a young woman might easily fall prey to exploitative agents, clients, drug dealers, and others who prey on the young and attractive. Models' dissolution became a popular subject for articles, books, and movies, as audiences craved to see the girls consumed like the products they represented.
As it turned out, despite the supermodels' status, the public was interested in them as images, not as women. Though Campbell wrote a novel, and Crawford (who once referred to herself as "Cindy, Inc.") made TV specials and a movie, these attempts at establishing themselves as personalities largely failed. While some photographers and designers achieved respect and enduring fame as artists, their models, including the celestial six, were often considered merely a medium for expression. In the late 1990s, magazines started heralding "The Fall of the Supermodel," noting that reglamorized actresses were claiming many of the most prestigious modeling jobs and that consumers (in the words of superagent Katie Ford) had grown tired of "just seeing six people at the center of most magazines." Image was not enough to guarantee an enduring place in the popular imagination.
oversharer
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My feelings on what makes a supermodel:
For me a supermodel is a model that the PUBLIC knows. A woman who people outside of fashion enthusiasts can recognize easily. I think it's good that this is so much less these days, but it does mean that models like Gemm and Daria are NOT supermodels, they are truely incredible TOP models and I love them for it. My dad knows who Naomi Campell is and if I was to speak about Daria he would have no idea who she was, it's when the mainstream knows them well that they become Supermodels.
Anyway my Supermodels:
Kate: The ultimate and the infinite.
Naomi
Heidi
Linda
Cindy
Christy
Gisele
Twiggy
Tyra
For me a supermodel is a model that the PUBLIC knows. A woman who people outside of fashion enthusiasts can recognize easily. I think it's good that this is so much less these days, but it does mean that models like Gemm and Daria are NOT supermodels, they are truely incredible TOP models and I love them for it. My dad knows who Naomi Campell is and if I was to speak about Daria he would have no idea who she was, it's when the mainstream knows them well that they become Supermodels.
Anyway my Supermodels:
Kate: The ultimate and the infinite.
Naomi
Heidi
Linda
Cindy
Christy
Gisele
Twiggy
Tyra
I don't have list of somthing like "true supermodels."
I'm very uninterested in supermodels and they're all boring because they're OVEREXPOSED.
IMO no one on earth is beautiful or interesting enough to grace magazine covers 100+ times.
It's all about diversity!
I'm very uninterested in supermodels and they're all boring because they're OVEREXPOSED.
IMO no one on earth is beautiful or interesting enough to grace magazine covers 100+ times.
It's all about diversity!
bored_exhausted said:
I think you're right. The best thing about beauty today (or the worst thing if you're hankering for the return of the supermodel) is that there is no beauty ideal. It's impossible to take one woman, or a couple of women and say, here it is! This is the standard of beauty to which we all must aspire. People accept more and more that different is beautiful, quirky is beautiful, hell, sometimes even ugly is beautiful. It all depends on your tastes, or what works for a specific designer or a specific idea. And everything is constantly changing. Which is, imo, a lot more fun and interesting than bowing down to worship a handful of models.
Yeah, that's true, Callidora - about faces. But it is not true about bodies, I don't think. Diversity of faces but not of bodies is the current beauty ideal IMO. And if you look at models there was more diversity during the supermodel days. Cindy C would have had to loose 20 pounds in order to fit into todays crowd.
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