According to this it's kate Moss.
Last year's models
August 24, 2005
Britain's Channel Five concluded its countdown of history's 30 greatest supermodels Monday night, handing the No. 1 spot to Kate Moss
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You do remember supermodels, don't you? You may not if you're much under 20. Once the boldest of boldface names, they bestrode '90s celebrity culture like so many couture colossi: Cindy and Christy and Naomi and Linda and Stephanie and Claudia and, yes, Kate. Why bother with surnames? They were superfluous, as superfluous as the supermodels' faces were ubiquitous from runways to talk shows to magazine covers.
They're still around, of course: Crawford and Turlington and Campbell and Evangelista and Schiffer and Moss. Moss, for example, is currently featured in Gucci and Dior ads, and Schiffer is in ads for L'Oreal and Ebel (the luxury watch designer). But for some years now supermodels have vanished from magazine covers, relegated -- like second-class celebrities -- to fashion spreads inside.
Look at the September issues of the leading fashion magazines. (September is to fashion magazines what sweeps months are to television networks or the playoffs to professional sports, when things get
veryserious and everybody has their game face on.) Vogue has Sarah Jessica Parker. Harper's Bazaar has Demi Moore. Elle has Jennifer Lopez. Marie-Claire has Reese Witherspoon. InStyle has Jennifer Garner. And Allure, which is cosmetics rather than fashion but close enough, has Mariah Carey (so apparently there's some hope for the '90s, after all).
The top young fashion models have names like Natalia Vodianova and Karen Elson and Hana Soukupova and Gemma Ward and Liya Kebede. Recognize them? Didn't think so. Really, Gisele Bundchen -- Giselle! see, no surname necessary -- is the only true supermodel to have emerged since the bumper crop of the late '80s and early '90s, and at least some of her exalted status owes to her being Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend.
So extensive was the original supermodel bounty that there existed a subsidiary class, one much beloved of Sports Illustrated readers, the non-haute-couture supermodel: Elle, Tyra, Heidi. That's how abundant supermodels used to be -- they required not one but two species for complete taxonomic classification. Two species of perfect creatures nearing extinction in barely a decade: Let's see advocates for intelligent design try to account for that.
MARK FEENEY
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.