Revealing look at ’90s supermodels in 2023
A new Apple TV+ docuseries promises to revive the lustre and glamour associated with the original It-girls. Time to brush up on your knowledge of the supers.
For lovers of fashion, caring deeply about the original ‘supermodels’ was never really off the table. The term was first used in the 1980s to describe runway and editorial models whose conventional star power set them apart from their predecessors. In the ’80s, models Janice Dickinson and Beverly Johnson embodied the term, but the ’90s was when it really skyrocketed, mainly through Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford – known as fashion’s ‘core four’ – who became as famous off the runway as they were on it. George Michael’s ‘Freedom ’90’ music video – which also featured the late supermodel Tatjana Patitz, who passed away earlier this year – only helped the cause, as did designer Gianni Versace’s penchant for casting the women in his risqué runway shows.
Naomi. Cindy. Linda. Christy.
— Apple TV (@AppleTV) July 11, 2023
The Super Models premieres September 20 on Apple TV+ pic.twitter.com/ijwGvGgptv
Evangelista was famously quoted as saying “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day”, further cementing the core four’s status as a cut above.
Now, a new Apple TV+ docuseries, produced by Brian Grazer and Barbara Kopple, promises to give the supermodels’ stories new life – and who better to tell it than the women themselves?
On Wednesday, 12 July, a teaser for a series named The Super Models dropped featuring Turlington, Campbell and Crawford seated in an interview-style format, giving the impression they’re about to set the record straight. The trailer finished with a mic-drop appearance of Evangelista, who has kept a low profile after a failed fat-freezing procedure but re-emerged into the spotlight last year. Before the trailer cuts to black, an off-camera producer asks the all-important question: “How do you define the word ‘supermodel’?”
Today, it depends. While Campbell and Evangelista’s relevance is tangible in 2023 – the former is still a runway and campaign fixture for brands like Fendi and Schiaparelli – social media has given way to a new definition of success.
The rise of Instagram in the mid-2010s saw new supermodels feted for their online followings and engagement (meaning the number of followers that interact with their posts) and were paid accordingly in numbers that, adjusted for inflation, would rival Evangelista’s $10,000 per day. Between 2018 and 2022, Forbes reported the highest-paid model in the world is American Kendall Jenner, who counts a whopping 292 million Instagram followers and has deals with Estée Lauder and Calvin Klein. The success of social media in launching modelling careers defies arguments from some purists who claim the ‘supermodel’ label only counts for the aforementioned ‘core four’ and their peers.
Still, supermodels have always been good for business, and while the core four raked in unprecedented sums, it was worth it for the success it guaranteed the brands that cast them. Cindy Crawford’s Pepsi campaign from 1991 is still referenced today, and made her a bombshell that transcended just the elite luxury world.
Fashion may have historically been notorious for promoting youth, but this hasn’t stopped the original supermodels from achieving current superstardom. Old footage of Campbell, Evangelista, Turlington and Crawford walking the runway often goes viral on TikTok, playing into Gen-Z’s obsession with all things ’90s. In the wake of her cosmetic procedure that “backfired”, Evangelista re-emerged on the all-important September British Vogue cover last year some three decades after the start of her career in an article titled ‘Back In Bloom: The Rebirth of the Indomitable Linda Evangelista’. Crawford’s daughter, 21-year-old Kaia Gerber, is one of the most in-demand runway stars of the moment, rivalling the superstar demand her mother experienced and showing the supermodels continue to influence the next generation.
The release of an official trailer for The Super Models will yield more secrets on what the docuseries will hold before September 20’s official release, but based on the huge buzz alone, we can already confirm these women are more than deserving of the title ‘super’.