The legacy of the Super Models

15:59The legacy of the Super Models

The most iconic super models of the late '80s and early '90s — Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista — are reuniting on the cover of this month's Vogue magazine and for a new Apple TV+ documentary series.

Commotion host Elamin Abdelmahmoud talks about their staying power — and how they changed the game — with models and culture critics Hanna Ellis and Bee Quammie.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: There's something about their lore that far transcends their industry. They just sort of became stars in the sky…. As a Black girl starting out in modeling when you were ten, what did Naomi Campbell mean to you?

Bee: Oh, Naomi was everything. And Naomi was kind of the girl that I had, because my mom used to talk about Iman…. Just seeing her command the runway the way she did, command the shoots. I haven't been lucky enough to meet her in person, but that presence just emanates every time you see her. Knowing that we share a Jamaican background — my parents loved anybody I loved that was Jamaican, so Naomi was a win all around.

Being able to relate, on a very different level, but being able to relate to some of the experiences that I'm sure she had as the only Black woman or one of very few in that realm, feeling the same when I was kind of trying to do my thing, it felt like, "All right, I've got a kindred spirit there, even if she has no clue who I am."

Elamin: I like this point about her being "your girl" in the sense that each generation gets a figure that gets to define its relationship to fashion. And of course, each generation is going to chafe against whatever figures came from generations before them…. The notion that she was yours, that sounds like it was kind of transformative in a way.

Bee: It definitely was, and the thing that's really unique about it is as a Black girl you only had one. So Naomi was the one, and then Tyra came through and [gave] a little something different. But that was the other thing too, that I didn't realize was such a problem. I was so glad to see Naomi, and it took me a while to realize, "Wait a minute, I'm really only seeing Naomi." That was something that kind of added a little bit of context and nuance too.

WATCH | Official trailer for The Super Models:

Elamin: Hanna, something that we see in this documentary is that getting discovered comes with a lot of baggage. Cindy Crawford reflects on the time that she was on Oprah when she was just starting out. The man that Oprah is directing her questions to, by the way, is not Cindy. It's the man who founded Elite Model Management and represented all of these women, John Casablancas. How did you feel watching that, Hanna?

Hanna: Oh, that is just heart wrenching, honestly. It's so difficult watching these women and how little agency they had in their own careers, and the agency that they lacked with their own bodies. I think at one point in the documentary, they were being described as mannequins or clothes hangers. The constant objectification, it really is heart-wrenching because you've got these girls who are growing into themselves, growing into the industry, and that can be detrimental to their body image — their mental health. It's a difficult industry to work in…. I like to think that women have a lot more agency now going into this industry, but some things have changed and some things haven't.

Elamin: That notion of objectification is very different from the job that you sign up for. You sign up for the job of showing clothes, of displaying something beautiful, but then in effect you end up being, potentially, dehumanized. Were there any moments like that in your career when you were starting out?

Bee: Oh my goodness, yes. Far too many moments that I can think about, where I've been spoken about, not spoken to or even spoken at.

Elamin: While you're in the room?

Bee: Oh, yeah, definitely in the room standing there, arms out, people poking and prodding at my body, saying, "I wonder if she can lose a little bit here."... Definitely having those moments. And race also played a role in the dehumanization in a lot of different ways…. Those are the moments when you're like, "Oh, you're not supposed to live your life. You're just supposed to be this product."

Elamin: Hanna, you're a model. You're also a photographer. What's so special about this era of collaboration, about agency that comes from women like these?

Hanna: Well, I find them so inspiring because at the point of their career that they're in right now, they have that agency where they can choose who they want to work with — which photographers they want to work with, which designers they want to display. Going into my career, I just sort of told myself, "This is what I want to have from the beginning. I don't want to do what other people want me to do until I can. I'm just going to go into it and do it. I'm going to go in and say, 'No, I don't want to do that. I do want to do this.'" Without those women, I don't think we would really be able to do that in the industry. There wasn't a place for that then, but there is a place for that now.

Elamin: Bee, the series is about them reflecting on their lives and their legacy as women in their 50s. It is interesting seeing the different ways that they're choosing to age, right? There's a variety of approaches to aging there. They had an impact in terms of the way that we understood the power of models back in the '80s and '90s. I think there's also a message here about the power of women in their 50s. What do you think that message is?

Bee: Oh, I think that message is so critical. I remember Linda Evangelista says something at the end where somebody said to her that beauty is fleeting, and she said it's not beauty that's fleeting; it's youth that is fleeting — and that's okay. Beauty continues. It's just so interesting to see these women who, for a particular generation, had been upheld as this idea of beauty in their youth, even though a lot of them did not feel beautiful in their hometowns — which was very interesting.

Now we get to see them age, and see them contend with that in different ways: who gets work done, and who maybe hasn't really had any work done, who is settling into different roles in motherhood or in different career aspirations. I really think they are showing that, like Linda said, beauty is not fleeting. Beauty shifts, and we can find new ways to be beautiful as we evolve into the people that we are decades down the road.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.