Vogue enlisted the greatest models of all time to helm its September 2023 issue.
Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista stunned in black get-ups for the cover, which dropped on Friday, August 11. Evangelista, 58, brought the glam in a sequined Michael Kors coat, while Crawford, 57, and Campbell, 53, opted for Bottega Veneta and Prada gowns, respectively. Turlington, 54, for her part, sported a coordinating Versace jacket and skirt.
The fashion icons went on to reminisce about life in the “supermodel bubble” back in the day. “It was insane. We are not the Beatles!” Evangelista quipped about the overwhelming media attention gained from the ladies’ appearance in George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” music video and their iconic arm-in-arm strut on the Versace catwalk in 1991.
The fab four took the fashion industry by storm beginning in the late ‘80s. “I remember when Cindy first walked in for a casting in 1986. I am a designer who was always happy to see some curves. At that time everything was still very church and state; print models didn’t know how to move,” designer Michael Kors recalled to Vogue. “Cindy walked for me and you knew it was a whole new chapter — very poised, her own way of moving, not stuck in the old-world Parisian way of modeling. The models who were traditional runway models in that show took a look at her and knew this was going to be a whole new era.”
Crawford, Campbell, Turlington and Evangelista were each at the top of their game — and they still wholeheartedly supported one another. “There was a sisterhood there, defined by caring and loyalty: When one is down you pick the other one up,” Campbell gushed, noting that her model friends were the ones who convinced her to walk in her first show for Kors, now 64, after a last-minute cancellation.
The squad is still surviving (and thriving!) in the modeling world, getting a front-row seat to how things have changed over the decades.
“What’s driving me now is seeing that opportunities are being given,” Campbell added before discussing how it felt to close Valentino’s 2019 spring couture show. “When I turned around [at the finale] and saw all those beautiful women dressed so elegantly. … Why was it that I was doing the same job as my colleagues and had to take less money? Why was I booked for the shows but not the ads? I was not close-mouthed.”
She continued: “I was blessed to be working with incredible creatives who cared about your opinion when you were too young to be able to have an opinion. I can never say I have been bored. I have been blessed.”
