On a warm Sunday morning in November of 1989, a small group of models huddled on a street in downtown New York. British Vogue had lined up five of the “supers” – Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and Tatjana Patitz – to be photographed by German photographer Peter Lindbergh for the magazine’s January 1990 cover.
Christiaan Houtenbos, the hair stylist on the shoot, recalls Lindbergh using a “kind but determined” approach to getting the five women, each with “extremely different personalities,” to align in front of his lens. With gentle persuading, Lindbergh and fashion stylist Brana Wolf were able to produce an image that has become a landmark in fashion photography.
It seems even before the issue went to print, the British Vogue team knew they had created something special. Opposite a page announcing the “Femme De Siecle,” the magazine featured “A Cover In The Making,” showing behind-the-scenes pictures of the shoot, as Lindbergh snapped away and was lovingly embraced by the models. It was history in the making.
As a 31-year veteran of Condé Nast – 20 of those years spent as photography director of US Vogue, and now overseeing our US archive for the last seven years – I thought it would be the perfect time to have another look at some of my very favourite supermodel images from the pages of the British and US editions. For, not only did models like Cindy, Christy, Linda, and Naomi become household names, but the photographers who created their images became stars themselves.
Cindy
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As the go-go ’80s were coming to a close, British Vogue sent Cindy Crawford halfway around the world to the remote Ladakh province in India with photographer Patrick Demarchelier and fashion editor Lucinda Chambers. Demarchelier’s images – both his reportage of the locals in their village, and the accompanying fashion images of Crawford – are at once intimate and dramatic. Crawford seems to be a woman on a journey in a strange land, yet at the same time in perfect harmony with the landscape.
Jetting off again, this time for a series of images that were both haunting and provocative, Crawford was teamed up with US Vogue’s former creative director André Leon Talley and fabled lensman Helmut Newton for a story titled “Venus de Monaco” for the US Vogue November 1991 issue.
Shot in Monte Carlo, where Newton lived for many years, it was the first time Newton and Crawford had worked together. Newton, one of Vogue’s most prolific and boundary-breaking photographers, reimagined not only the idea of where and when one might wear a swimsuit, but reimagined Crawford as well. As the accompanying text made clear, “Helmut Newton photographs Cindy Crawford for the first time and transforms her from the All-American girl next door to a Riviera goddess.”
Naomi
In a story titled “Campbell Condensed,” former British Vogue editor-in-chief Alexandra Schulman caught up with the most notorious of the supers, Naomi Campbell, for a heart-to-heart conversation in the August 2002 issue. Campbell had just gotten out of rehab, gone through a breakup, and was still in the midst of a very public court case against The Mirror in London.
Accompanying the interview, Corrine Day, arguably the most influential of the early ’90s Grunge-era photographers, shot Campbell in a Parisian apartment “with a suitably faded elegance to suit Corrine Day’s style.” Stylist Kate Phelan gave Campbell an early ’70s-era makeover, including a wig that seems to be channeling the look of ’70s blaxploitation star Pam Grier. Campbell appears both strong and vulnerable, cool and, of course, beautiful.
Twenty-one years later, we see Campbell again in Paris. This time, photographed for
US Vogue by Annie Leibovitz as part of the magazine’s May 2023 tribute to Karl Lagerfeld. Campbell comfortably “carries Lagerfeld’s beloved Choupette” in her arm and wears pieces from the latest Balmain collection, designed by Olivier Rousteing. Her outfit evokes the feeling of a military uniform and the open-door Aston Martin behind her makes one imagine Campbell to be a modern-day 007, probably having just chased a villain off the bridge. Campbell’s beauty remains, and her strength of character has only grown.
Christy
For the December 1989 issue of US Vogue, lensman Steven Meisel turned Christy Turlington into a movie star. In a story titled “La Dolce Vita,” styled by Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, Turlington turns on the glitz and evokes all of the aura of an Italian screen siren. The accompanying text makes it clear that Turlington was the only one for the job: “Setting off some of the most spectacular and the most extravagant diamonds: the glamorous movie-star style of Christy Turlington.”
Meisel’s ability to capture a brief moment of intimacy between photographer and muse while still exuding gobs of glamour is one of the reasons he became the premier photographer for the US and Italian editions of Vogue for over a decade.
“It seems so far away now” is how Christy Turlington describes her previous life modelling. By 2002, Turlington had moved on to write a book on yoga and establish Nuala, a yoga-based clothing line. Gone were the days of non-stop partying with the other supers. Vogue’s Sally Singer met up with Turlington to get the story, aptly titled “Warrior One,” and photographer Steven Klein, along with US Vogue Fashion Director Tonne Goodman, added a touch of glamour to Turlington’s perfect pose for the cover.
Linda
Linda Evangelista famously claimed that “she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 day,” but for the May 1991 issue of British Vogue, Evangelista found herself in a desert flat in the American southwest with Peter Lindbergh and fashion editor Lucinda Chambers. The story, “Bonnie and Clyde” – based on the famous outlaw couple – saw Evangelista teamed up with fellow supermodel Karen Mulder. (Evangelista played Bonnie, while Mulder played Clyde.) Lindbergh was a master at creating narratives in fashion and then finding brilliant contrasts in black and white. Evangelista’s black coat and hat are in perfect juxtaposition to her stark white top, bleached white hair, and the bleached landscape surrounding her.
Two years later, Evangelista landed in China with two legends of the medium: photographer Arthur Elgort and US Vogue creative director Grace Coddington. As Elgort tells it, he had the idea of shooting Evangelista standing on a sampan, but was warned by the boat’s owner that it was nearly impossible for someone to stand on his boat. Elgort asked Evangelista if she thought she could do it. The model snapped back, “Will it be a full page spread?” Elgort assured her it would be. Up went Evangelista and the rest is history.
