This is an article I wrote during the summer when I was going through an ‘angst’ face but never really got it published.
Let us go back twenty years, shall we? There was a launch of fresh faces in the fashion industry who ruled the industry in the 1990’s. The ‘Big Six’ dominated the editorials, shoots, runway and were at the helm of their success. Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington were stalwarts of the 90s.
The rise in the name ‘supermodel’ occurred in the 1990s but twenty years later, it is quite sad to see that the leading magazines all over the world are revisiting the ‘then’ supermodels. Is the most exciting industry in the world actually turning boring?
“Moss has appeared on the cover of British Vogue 30 times, in addition to dozens of other international Vogue covers, and has been featured on the cover of 17 issues of W, including one issue with nine different covers that featured the model.”
I fully agree with the fact that these supermodels are legends but that does not mean that the industry should keep focusing on them over and over again? If the celebrities and the 90s supermodels are still dominating the magazine covers; is there is no room for any new talent to enter? When have we last seen a fresh face on the cover of Vogue, W or Vanity Fair?
Let us consider this year’s September issue of Vogue; they are putting Kate Moss in its cover again where she talks about her wedding (which us happening two months prior to the cover). How many times have we seen Kate on the cover? We have already heard her life history and probably have it on our fingertips including the scandals/controversies she has got herself into.
Claudia Schiffer who is almost 40 is appearing in July’s Harper Bazaar (British edition). But the sad fact is that Claudia had already been in 500 magazine covers during her career.
On the other hand, magazines like Dazed and Confused, Love or even Paris Vogue are better who portray fashion as an art and do not plaster anybody’s face on their cover. With the rise of such endowed names like Anja Rubik, Natasha Poly and Andrej Pejic, there shouldn’t be any room for forty-something models to be on the cover! They ruled the industry in the late twentieth century and their time has ended! The Sun published in 2007 that- “She is still very big but the honeymoon period has ended.” This probably sums up the whole ordeal.
It is a well-known fact that breaking into the fashion industry is hard. And the bitter truth lies that a new face takes a lot of time to settle in. But choosing the same models over and over again will make the entry of the new face harder; thus affecting the modeling culture in an adverse manner. Gisele Bundchen, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell are now more of celebrities than models. I respect and reward their hard work because they created a revolution.
The main reason why magazines use renowned models is because they are more profitable. They are merely apprehensive in putting new faces on their cover is because it won’t sell. The impact on the industry may not be big because they are many people who get excited on seeing them on the cover. But the vicious cycle where they appear on the cover again and again while at last result in monotony- a fact which I believe should be considered now. I hope they realize this now before we actually start yawning whilst looking at the spread of Vanity Fair next time.
The main reason fashion magazines use celebrity models from the 90′s is because they’re celebrities. When’s the last time you’ve seen a model on the cover of a magazine? They’re not there. Glamour, Lucky, Vogue (I could go on and on) only use actresses and celebrities on their covers. So the only models we see on the covers, at all, are the one’s who are celebrities in their own right, like Kate Moss.
Umm… while I agree that it’s always good to innovate and see fresh faces, I simply cannot get upset that “women in their forties” are on the covers of magazines, instead of some equally underfed twenty-somethings. And if modelling is the most exciting industry in the world, we all have bigger problems than this.