A Model Society

They're baaaack! As you've probably heard, dear readers, our favorite supermodels of the 90s are showing up in more ads now than possibly they did then. Claudia Schiffer has signed on for fall campaigns at Chanel and Salvatore Ferragamo, Linda Evangelista will be parading in Prada, Naomi Campbell (assuming she stays out of trouble!) will be layering on Yves Saint Laurent, and Christy Turlington will be ensconsed in Escada.

Already ads by Louis Vuitton (like the one at right) have reminded fashion magazine readers what a fashion ad with professional models looks like. Could this possibly signal an end - or at least a diminishment - of the incessant celebrity-driven advertising campaigns of the 2000s? The UK's Independent traces the demise of the model in fashion ads to Donna Karan's Fall 1996 campaign featuring Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, reminding readers that by the end of that year Calvin Klein claimed people "just aren't that interested in models".

Maybe there was some fallout from the media saturation of the so-called Big Four: Christy, Cindy, Linda, and Naomi. They were practically everywhere in the fashion and pop-culture world, including music videos and full-length documentaries. Remember Unzipped? And then they settled down, got married, had kids, or just found other pursuits for awhile, many of them philanthropic. And Hollywood seized the opportunity to use fashion as a medium for promoting everything from the casts of television shows to A-list movie stars to celebutantes who had no discernible skills beyond the fact that they could fit into a sample size.

I recently stumbled upon an Allure Magazine dated March 1998 in a pile of vintage fashion periodicals that were donated to me, and who is on the cover but Jennifer Aniston! Aside from the incredibly awkward pose and unnatural airbrushing on her face - or maybe because of it? - this magazine could be from last week. It has all the hallmarks of the current fetishization of celebrity found in most fashion magazines: "Special Issue CELEBRITY BEAUTY" in the upper right hand corner; "PRIMPING FOR THE OSCARS" in the lower left hand.

Because knowing about "The Stars, The Experts, Their Top Secrets," somehow made one more fashionable in 1998. Just like it still does today. Doubtful!

Anyway, I thought it was just fun to see a magazine that's now over 10 years old and to realize how little has changed since the seismic shift of the late 90s. But I'm ready for something new, or maybe just a return to what was before. I'm ready to see a model on the cover of a fashion magazine again.

Vogue attempted a trip down memory lane with their April issue this year. On the cover is - gasp! - Giselle Bundchen. You know, a model. Sure, she's posing with LeBron James, but it's the "shape issue," so having an athlete on the cover seems perfectly reasonable.

Unfortunately, what made headlines about this cover was not the fact that it was absent a movie star (thank goodness!), but that there might have been some racial undertones to the pose of the two cover subjects. While that debate raged on, the DCGF quietly smiled, crossed her fingers, and secretly hoped that this might be the change I'd been hoping for. Tragically, the two subsequent months of Vogue featured Gwyneth Paltrow (new movie in theaters!) and Sarah Jessica Parker (new movie in theaters!).

-sigh-

Same as it ever was.

Even if we never again experience the beauty and magic of the heyday of the supermodel, perhaps there's still hope for fashion magazines and their increasing collaborations with the art world.

I'd love to see Lucien Freud or Takashi Murakami commissioned for some cover art on a major fashion magazine. I know this sometimes occurs on international versions of these same periodicals, but why can't we see it here? If the Gap can get Jeff Koons to design a t-shirt, then anything is possible.

Check out the Vogue cover to the left, from October 1957. It's stunningly beautiful. And painfully simple. Something like that would never fly today, I know. We need all of our little headlines telling us how much slimmer, prettier, hipper, chicer we'll be after reading 300-some-odd pages of shiny copy.

But maybe, just maybe, there's a shift out there, back toward the fashion industry's roots. Back to beautiful clothes and accessories, and not just the touched-up celebrities who are lucky enough to get to wear them.

I look forward to what's in store for us...

Goodwill’s fashion blog provides detailed knowledge and insight on vintage and contemporary clothing and accessories that are valuable to fashion shoppers. The facts and opinions shared present readers with entertaining, exciting and value based information on vintage and contemporary fashion and shopping trends.