The Super Models (2023) s01e01 Episode Script

1
[indistinct chatter]
[Naomi Campbell] Hi.
I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it,
because I'm at work.
So, I don't think it's gonna
happen today, for me.
[people murmuring quietly]
[man] This will be really easy to slip on.
[woman]
And the shoes works, I think.
[Naomi] Yeah, so this one. Okay.
- [woman] I prefer this one.
- [Naomi] It's magic fabric, isn't it?
[hairdresser] This is perfect, look.
And the shining is perfect.
[Cindy Crawford] Well, people always,
they're like, "You look just like Kaia."
- I'm like, no she looks like me.
- [woman 2] Exactly.
- She looks like you. Come on.
- [Cindy] I had it first.
[woman 2] Yeah, exactly.
I think it might be Dior.
- From New York Vintage.
- [gasps]
- [man] Chic, right?
- [Linda Evangelista] So chic.
[woman 3] I heard you wanted
maybe company, Linda.
[Linda] Yeah, now they came to fit.
[woman 3] Okay, when you're--
When you're done
[man 2] Oh, my God.
This feel so nineties, this camera.
- Where did this come from?
- [printer whirring]
[interviewer] How do you define
the word, "supermodel"?
I don't. [laughs]
I like to be simple about things,
like call a spade a spade.
Model, a model.
Christy's, like, the most beautiful.
Was never a dream,
I never really thought about it.
It just sort of happened, and then it
became much bigger than I ever expected.
She's a classic beauty.
You see our photo, our image,
so you feel that you know us.
But there's no words
that go with our pictures.
People only just see this part of us,
they don't know what we're like inside,
and they have a whole different idea
of what we are.
[Linda] Naomi
is like this fierce goddess.
[Cindy] We were the physical
representations of power.
Like, we looked like strong women.
And we would look in the mirror
and we started believing that.
I mean, I was ambitious,
I wanted to do something,
I wanted to make my mark,
but I didn't know doing what,
so I guess I got my chance.
Cindy was the all-American girl.
I think she was one of the first
to really start to plan for a future
that she would have more of a voice in.
You know when your dream comes true,
and then you get to do it over and over.
[Christy Turlington] Linda's a chameleon.
[Cindy] She could really become whatever
the photographer wanted her to become.
I dreamt of being a model,
I wasn't discovered.
I chose.
[Naomi] We had to earn our stripes
and take our stepping stones.
[people cheering]
It was insane, like,
we're not The Beatles.
[Christy] In 50 years time,
I'll think of it as a very good experience
and most of my friends,
I'm sure, I will keep.
This is my class.
This is the group that I came of age with.
[Cindy] That's what a supermodel is.
[laughs]
[car horn blaring]
[Christy chattering, indistinct]
[both exclaiming]
- [Linda] It looks so big. Hi.
- [Christy] Hi.
- [Linda] Hello.
- [laughter]
- [Arthur Elgort] Hello. Hello.
- [Christy] Hello.
- How are you?
- Hello. Well, good enough.
[Christy] You used to have
all the records in this back room here.
[Elgort] Yeah, yeah.
- [Christy] Are they upstairs now?
- [Elgort] I guess so.
Careful.
- So, now, Linda, you're here.
- Next to her?
[Elgort] Yeah. You can do backsies. Right.
- Come closer.
- Closer than this?
[Elgort] Okay, now
I think you're ready to model again.
You haven't changed.
- Now, we that's very good.
- Okay, I have to lift you, Turly.
- Okay.
- [Elgort] No Yeah, do that.
- Did you lift me, or I lifted you?
- I think I'm doing
[Linda] Yeah, I can't, though.
Okay, sorry. I don't wanna break her.
- I really don't.
- Here we go.
- [Elgort] You can come closer, by the way.
- I don't wanna break you this way either.
[Elgort] Could you come closer?
- Oh, to-- Closer to you?
- [Elgort] Keep going. Keep going.
Now stop. Yeah, that's it.
Okay.
[laughs]
[Elgort] Good. Good.
Ready? I'm gonna lift you. Ready?
One, two, three.
[both shriek]
[Elgort] Oh, God!
- Do it again because I missed it.
- You're gonna need a massage after this.
- One, two, three.
- Okay.
[both shriek]
["Notorious" by Duran Duran playing]
[Christy] I was really young
when I started working.
The only thing I'd done before modelling
was babysit and clean stalls.
As a teenager, I just remember
that feeling of being in the suburbs
and going to school every day
thinking, like,
there's gotta be something better
out there than this.
[song continues]
My mother is from Central America,
she's from El Salvador.
And she and my father met on a flight,
because my mother was
a flight attendant for Pan Am
and my dad was a pilot,
was from Northern California.
And so, um, we ended up settling
in the Bay Area because of that, really.
My dad did not believe in
spending money on things like clothing.
[song ends]
He heard us talking about,
like, designer jeans
and then he would take a trip to Asia
and come back with, like,
counterfeit Calvin Klein jeans
and think that we would be so excited
to have the brand,
and we were, like,
"These aren't real, Dad."
[birds twittering]
When I was about 14,
I was at the stable after school.
And at the barn, there was a photographer.
He walked over to my mom, and he asked her
if, you know,
we had ever thought about modeling.
And my mom said no.
Um, but I think she was intrigued.
[laughs]
My mom brought us to meet this agent,
and she kind of looked at my sister and I,
sort of sizing us up,
and then she said to my sister,
"You're too little," like,
"you're not gonna work.
But you, you can probably work,
and let's see what we can do with you."
And my sister was devastated. [laughs]
So, when I was in school
and starting to model,
I think I probably shared that
with just really close friends.
I didn't really talk about it too openly.
You know, to be 15 years old modeling
bridal dresses is kind of funny.
Sometimes I would say yes to a job,
and then of course I didn't even want
to do that job if I had
a more promising or fun thing
to do with my friends.
So, I remember there were a few times
when my dad was driving me to something
and saying, you know,
"Well, you made a commitment,
and this is what you have to do."
Modeling was not cool at all,
except that I had money.
That gave me, uh, a lot of independence
right out of the gate, just based on that.
My next guest began her own
modeling agency 24 years ago,
and it's now the biggest one in the world.
Will you welcome, please, Eileen Ford?
Can a lady survive without being
in your favor in modeling,
since you are the most powerful, certainly.
That's not a very feminine word,
but let's face it, you are powerful.
We do a lot more of the work
than anybody else,
and we get more of the cream of the work
than anybody else.
[Christy] I was probably 15
when I met the Fords.
When I came to New York
the Fords live in this big townhouse
on East 78th Street and Lex.
And then it was dormitory style.
And my mom was planning on going home
and letting me stay on my own.
I think everybody was there
for a week or two.
There was, like a
a cycle, a constant cycle.
[distant siren wailing]
If you went on a casting
or on a go-see, they call it,
you'd have, like,
your list of appointments.
And then you can have somebody
just with your portfolio,
open it and close it and then just, like,
send you off on your way.
- [traffic humming]
- [whistle blowing]
On one of my castings,
the sittings editor said to me,
"Hey, I want to send you down
to Arthur Elgort's studio."
And that's sort of like
when everything changed.
I just knew that this is gonna be a star.
[Christy] Arthur's style
is very much, you know,
where you're always in motion and always
in action and not super stylized,
just very kind of free.
He photographed a lot
of dancers and musicians.
He taught me a lot about, like,
how to be comfortable in front of a camera
and, like, move
and what to do with my hands.
[Elgort] I called the booker.
I said, "I have a job coming up
for Vogue magazine, and I want Christy."
And it was funny at the time
because the booker said,
"Oh, you think Christy's good?
We have better."
I said, "You've done your part.
I'll stick with Christy anyway."
[Elgort] Now, this is the first picture
I took of Linda.
- This picture.
- The first one?
Yes, yes. You remember it?
- [Linda] I do remember.
- [Christy] Was it in Paris or here?
[Elgort] No. In Paris.
Now, this one, you remember that?
It was raining out. Here.
[Linda] Did I do that many times
or just once?
- No, no. Twice.
- Twice I did it?
[Elgort] And you said,
"I know what to do,"
so I just made sure I was in focus,
- and she did that.
- [laughs] You always were.
- No, not recently.
- We always got a picture.
Oh, Cindy That's a gorgeous one.
[Christy] I feel like
I remember that one, too.
- There's baby 'Omi.
- [Christy] For the Azzedine book.
[Elgort] Now, I haven't seen
Naomi in years.
- No
- Does she look the same?
- Oh, uh, better.
- Better?
[Linda laughs]
She just gets better and better.
[Christy] After that first photoshoot
with Arthur, I went to London.
Went straight to the studio,
and then Naomi came in.
["Wham Rap '86" by Wham! playing]
She was, like, not in her school uniform,
but she was basically also in school,
and, you know,
just super excited to be there.
Just adorable.
When I first met Christy, she was so kind,
and we had such a great shoot.
I didn't want it to end.
It didn't feel like work.
We were playing Wham!, I remember.
[Christy] We'd just be dancing
and dancing and hanging out,
having such a good time.
After a few days and just the hours
they had us there,
you know, you just get to be
sort of delirious.
[song continues]
From that moment on,
Naomi and I stayed close.
[song fades]
[motor stops]
[Naomi] We done, we done, we done,
we done, we done?
- [man] Waiting for me?
- [laughter]
[Naomi] Okay, first outfit.
I know you-- I know you makeup artists
love to put it with the lip brush,
but I'm like, mm-mm.
Straight up with the lipstick.
- All right?
- [woman] I love it.
- Okay, cool.
- [woman] Just a little?
Okay. I don't know
how many hours late I am,
but I'll just knock out the pictures.
[spray bottle squirting]
[indistinct chatter, laughter]
[Naomi] You know, let me tell you this.
By the time this comes out,
- I will not be smoking.
- I hope not.
I am stopping to smoke
on the 31st of January,
- and now this is documenting it
- You promise?
so I'm gonna be held to my word.
- I have to stop. I have to stop.
- I'm gonna hold you to your word.
Please. It's so bad for you, Naomi.
- I know. It's terrible.
- It's really bad.
And none of the other three smoke.
Linda doesn't smoke, Christy doesn't smoke
and Cindy doesn't smoke.
[Naomi] I've lived most of my life
in front of a camera.
I studied theater arts in London.
Dance was my main thing.
And that's all I wanted at that time
was to make it in theater arts,
that was my focus.
I'd tell my mum I have an audition,
and my mum would say,
"Okay, but how many kids
do they want out of this audition?"
Like, maybe six or seven.
And we'd get to the audition,
there'd be like 600 kids,
and she'd be like, "Oh, my God, Naomi,
I don't think you're gonna get this,"
and I'd be like,
"Yes, I am. I'm getting it."
- What part do you want to read for?
- Snow White.
We're not doing Snow White.
We're doing Cinderella.
Cinderella, then.
You can be a footman if you like.
- Okay.
- What's your name?
[Naomi] My mother did her best
to put me in a place
where I could study and learn
and get educated.
She sent me to this private school,
and I was called the N-word
when I was five.
I wasn't gonna accept to be bullied
at school for the color of my skin.
My mother was paying my school fees
just like everybody else.
I had every right to be there,
so go take your bullying somewhere else.
That's how I felt.
["Is This Love" by Bob Marley playing]
I remember Don Letts walking
into my school and saying,
"I need children for a Bob Marley video."
Bob Marley's walking down the street
holding a little girl's hand
and a little boy's hand.
I'm the little girl.
[song continues]
Bob Marley, for a Jamaican,
was like a god.
Couldn't believe it.
["I'll Tumble 4 Ya"
by Culture Club playing]
I was in a Culture Club video.
I lived for Boy George.
I lived for Culture Club.
I thought Boy George was just like
He didn't care what people thought of him
and how he dressed,
and if he put on makeup, and if he was
a boy in makeup, I loved it.
[song continues]
In 1984, I didn't want
to go home directly,
so a bunch of my school friends and I
stopped in this great, kind of, artsy area
we have in London called Covent Garden.
There was the square,
music in the streets.
There was always artsy things happening.
American lady said to me did I model?
I was a bit taken back because
some of my school friends,
like, had beautiful,
long, silky golden hair,
and there was me just like, you know,
a little awkward in the sense of
I always wanted to shrink myself a little
bit 'cause I felt like a little lanky.
And so, I took the lady's card,
and I didn't call her for weeks.
And then I called her.
Her name was Beth Boldt.
She sent me on go-sees.
I had three pictures in my book.
Gotta start somewhere.
I did not know how to model.
I didn't have money
to buy fashion magazines.
So, I used all the dance training I had,
so jumping in the air,
splits, you know, all of that stuff.
Well, Martin Brading gave me a break.
[Martin Brading] I started with her
when she was 15.
But she was old for her age in some ways.
She was quite clever, smart.
She knew what was going on.
She liked having her photograph taken.
You could feel that.
[Naomi] At the time, modeling was
kind of looked down on in my family.
My mother had no idea
that I was doing any of it.
[Cindy] He sells the pictures
for charity, right?
We want him to sell
for the most amount of money possible.
So, sometimes the more recognizable I am,
like, it shouldn't be like,
"Who's that girl in the picture?"
It should-- "Girl." [chuckles]
"Who's that woman in the picture?"
It should be,
"Oh, that-- It's Cindy Crawford."
So, like, if he wants the hair up,
but we really don't think
it's the most flattering for me,
we should fight for it.
See you tomorrow. Thank you.
Whoo! Brr!
[Cindy] It is like small town, isn't it?
I mean, it has that vibe.
I grew up in the Midwest,
so I grew up with snow and weather.
[indistinct chatter]
[Cindy] Every kid in my town,
once you were either, like,
a certain height or a certain age,
you could work in the cornfields
in the summer.
You'd come home covered
in pollen and dirt and bugs.
My mother would hose us off
before we were allowed into the house.
I grew up in DeKalb, Illinois.
Small town.
Blue collar family.
I actually had a very, I think,
idyllic kind of all-American childhood
until I was nine years old and my brother
got diagnosed with leukemia.
He passed away a year later.
While my brother was sick, obviously,
that became the focal point
of my whole family.
And then when he passed away it's like,
how do you grieve as a family?
My sisters and I kinda felt like,
"It should have been one of the girls."
Like, as opposed to the only boy.
I think we felt pressured
to be perfect kids,
which probably served me well in life.
My parents split up
when I was in high school,
so that was kind of like,
the second reminder
that fairytales are,
you know, not real. [laughs]
My mother was, like,
the model of unconditional love.
"Oh, you got an A? Oh, that's so great."
"You got a B? That's great."
"You got a C? That's great."
I never got a C, ever. [chuckles]
But my dad rewarded success.
He was, like, my ambition.
Because that's how you got his attention.
I never felt like I looked special
or different.
If anything,
I wasn't like the ugly duckling,
but in my high school the pretty girls
were, like,
the little petite cheerleaders.
That was what the idea of beauty was
in my small town.
I never even thought about modeling.
I didn't even know it was a real job.
I didn't know how I would get
from DeKalb, Illinois to a magazine.
But then a local photographer asked me
if he could photograph me.
My dad really didn't understand
that modeling was a real career.
He thought modeling was, like, another
name for prostitution. [chuckling]
So, they came with me
to my very first modeling appointment.
[train squealing]
[indistinct chatter]
The agent was kind of like,
"Well, I don't know,
you've got a mole on your face."
But she's like,
"Let's do some test pictures."
The pictures were really terrible
and pretty unusable,
except that the hairdresser,
he saw something in me,
and he showed it to Elite in Chicago
and they called me in,
and they set up a test shoot.
I got a job for Marshall Field's,
which was a department store for a bra ad.
About two weeks later,
I go to school one day
and it's plastered
all over my high school.
And I remember, like,
kids are trying to tease me about it
and make me feel bad and I'm thinking,
"Do they know I made, like,
120 bucks or whatever doing that?"
I didn't care. I was like,
"Better than working in the cornfields."
[faint traffic hum]
[man] So you wanna put
a couple more earrings on one ear?
- Like a couple of those little guys.
- [Linda] Yeah.
Yeah, I want you to know,
these two holes,
I don't know what angle they are,
- but I did them when I was 12 years old.
- [laughter]
And I found a file
in my father's tool box
- And you punched it yourself.
- [gasps] Stop.
and I filed my hoops
and I drove them through.
And I got in so much trouble.
She called me a streetwalker.
[laughter]
[Linda, sighing]
My parents were so strict, yes.
My mother in particular.
They both emigrated from Italy
to Ontario, Canada.
[faint accordion music]
I grew up very Italian,
very Italian traditions,
but I was always into fashion.
Obsessed with fashion.
[woman on commercial]
You know who this is?
Uh-huh. But not the Barbie you know.
This is new Color Magic Barbie.
Her hair actually changes color.
[Linda, laughing]
My poor Barbie dolls,
they got dressed and undressed
I don't know how many times.
And my Barbies got married a lot.
["That's Good" by Devo playing]
I worked in a convenience store.
We had a magazine rack.
And in my free time I would
go through the magazines,
and if there was one that I adored,
I would use my minimum wage
to buy the magazine,
so I could put the photos up on my wall
in my bedroom.
[song stops]
I had curly hair and I got a perm.
And then I cut my hair over the ear,
I think they call that a mullet.
I thought I was the cat's meow.
My mother understood
how important fashion was to me,
so my mother said,
"Why don't we try modeling school?"
I learned how to take a jacket off
with one hand.
You pop your buttons with one hand,
you start at the bottom.
No one needs to go to modeling school
to be a model.
It's ironic that my parents
let me go to Japan
when I was 16
on a modeling contract.
They wouldn't let me go
on the school ski trip.
But they let me go to Japan.
When I got to Japan,
first thing they asked me
was about nude photographs,
and they wanted
to take all my measurements
and take your clothes off.
And I'm like, "I just made a composite,
and it had my measurements on it."
And I didn't want to take my clothes off.
I kind of freaked out.
I never should have went there by myself.
I went home.
I sort of gave up,
but then my modeling agency
insisted I enter
the Miss Teen Niagara pageant.
I was unsuccessful,
but there was a scout in the audience.
And they introduced me
to John Casablancas.
And when he met me, he said,
"Wow, I think you look like
Joan Severance."
And I almost dropped dead
'cause I worshipped her.
He said, "Yeah, we'd love to take you on.
Maybe you should lose five pounds.
And, uh we'll give it a go."
John Casablancas
was an extremely charming man.
[Cindy] He was the head
of Elite Modeling Agency.
You can tell, he had,
like, you know, he was that suave guy.
I think, by the time I met him,
he did date,
you know, someone my age or almost my age.
I never saw him as that.
Like, to me he was my agent.
In my senior year of high school,
Elite Agency signed me up
for their Look of the Year contest.
So, it's like a model search contest.
Me and about, probably,
200 young women were in Acapulco
and that was more, like, almost, like,
you would think of a beauty pageant.
My name is Cindy Crawford,
I'm from Chicago, Illinois.
[chuckling] But you didn't
have to have any talent.
[Casablancas] This is a contest
for the fun of it, for the beauty of it.
Judging is taking place all the time.
You are being watched all the time.
Because being a model is being a person
who can be great at all times.
When I look back on it,
it's probably pretty "not woke,"
but at the time it didn't, you know,
it just felt like it was an audition.
[light applause]
We went around the world
and we grabbed you, we found you,
we brought you here, and we hope
that this is just the beginning
of something that will make you
great Elite models,
and that we will make together
a lot of money
and have a lot of success.
[applause]
[Cindy] I got selected in the top ten.
When you were in the top ten, they kinda
pulled you aside to interview you,
"Would you be willing to quit school?"
"Can you move to New York?"
and blah, blah, blah.
I was still in high school, and I wasn't
ready to quit school, and I said that.
So I went back to high school.
I was well on my way,
and did become co-valedictorian.
And I applied to Northwestern University
and got a scholarship if I would
go into Chemical Engineering.
The summer, before I went to college,
I had been invited to New York by Elite,
and I went to see a photographer,
Patrick Demarchelier.
He said, "Fine,
I'll book her to go to Rome.
But I want her to cut her hair off."
My agency and I decided,
"No, it wasn't worth it."
So, we said,
"No, she's not cutting her hair."
And they said,
"Fine. We'll take her anyway."
I was so excited.
It was just a great opportunity.
The very first night,
they send the hairdresser to my room
to give me a "trim."
Combed my hair, put it in a ponytail and
chopped my ponytail off without asking.
I was in shock.
And I just sat there
in a hotel room in Rome crying.
And if people wonder why I've never really
cut my hair since then, that's why.
Because I was so traumatized.
I really felt
I was not seen as a person
who had a voice in her own destiny.
It wasn't that
I didn't like my hair short,
it was that I hadn't voted myself in
to having short hair.
If this is what it means to be a model,
I'm just not ready for this.
[Robin Givhan] There's so much mythology
that surrounds models,
and the job of that mythology
is to kind of hide their humanity.
When you look at the history
of the model,
the model's role was
to basically be a living hanger.
They were referred to as mannequins.
Models, typically, are silent,
and their job is
to make everything look effortless.
[Bethann Hardison] You didn't necessarily
know a model's name.
I was lucky to be a model, runway model,
but I really always had a full time job.
There were many other models
who were famous,
but most of them were famous,
really, just for print.
You know, whether it would be Twiggy
back in the '60s,
Lauren Hutton in the '70s.
I think the model types
tended to look like
men's ideas
about what women should look like.
They were blondes like Cheryl Tiegs
or Christie Brinkley.
I mean, gorgeous women
but they, you know,
from ten feet away,
they kind of look alike.
I think the fashion industry
has created an illusion of glamor and sex
because you're not supposed to know
that perhaps that model
who's supposed to represent
this idealized woman,
is only 17 years old.
The models were the ones
ultimately responsible
for selling the brands
at the end of the day.
Or certainly selling the magazines.
So I think the pressures were incredible.
You have to have great photographs,
or be great in a fashion show,
and then you have to slay it the next day.
- [dryer whirring]
- [indistinct chatter]
- [Linda] Like that?
- [man] No, a little bit more.
That's it. Roll it.
- [interviewer] Let me ask her a question.
- [man] Good. Okay. Go ahead.
[interviewer] How important are
your eyelashes to your total look?
Um, it's very important.
Without eyelashes, you're not finished.
[interviewer] Do you use your eyelashes
to communicate at all?
- Yes, when you want something.
- [interviewer] How?
- [interviewer] Pardon me?
- Like, when you want something.
Adds to your charm
when you bat your lashes.
Was that a good answer?
[laughing]
[Linda] I didn't think I was beautiful.
I thought I was pretty.
And I knew I was tall.
And I was thin, very thin.
So, I thought I had most
of the credentials to be a model.
I believe I was almost 19
when I went to Paris.
It was suggested that I maybe
cheat on my age a little bit.
I did get bookings,
but bottom of the ladder.
I wanted to be whoever they wanted me
to be when I showed up at work.
So, whether it was a designer
or a photographer
I wanted to please them.
[people speaking French]
[speaking French]
[Lagerfeld, in French] Where is Linda?
Linda Evangelista is right there.
[Linda] I did a Chanel show very early.
- [in French] It's going better?
- Yes.
The "Small One"!
[in English] I'm not that small.
[in French] Linda, we need you to wear
your hair a bit lower.
- [in English] Oh, really?
- [in English] Because of the hairdressing?
And I felt like, at that point,
I still hadn't found myself.
I felt like a little bit like an imposter.
[in French] Linda, go there and
I'll explain what to do.
[in English] English or French?
In what language are you supposed to talk?
[Linda] English.
A bit of French. Good.
[Linda] But I so wanted to be there.
I so wanted to be there.
My agent thought I should start
from the beginning again,
because my book was not impressing
a single person.
I think I looked awkward.
And I thought I understood fashion,
but I didn't understand fashion.
Many people told me a good career
is three years.
And I did my three years.
So, when I went to see
Peter Lindbergh on a go-see,
I went without my portfolio.
And he booked me.
What I try to do is,
like to give respect to women,
not to transform them into
Mickey Mouses or things like that,
just leave them the way they are
and work with their personalities.
And that's-- I mean, when I find
somebody new to work with,
they have to bring it, no?
I don't make it.
They have to bring it.
And that's what in the end in the image,
that's what's left is them, no?
[Fabien Baron]
Peter Lindbergh was a craftsman.
He had his technique
down to the millimeter,
getting a certain woman inside his camera.
He had, you know, that very Germanic,
Nordic look to his pictures.
You know, like German industrial.
Always in black and white.
[Grace Coddington]
Peter was raw and atmospheric.
They were all very gritty, his pictures.
I think if anybody captured the real me,
it was Peter Lindbergh.
Those were the ones
that made me the most uncomfortable,
'cause it's really hard to just be you.
[woman] We've got some
young models in today.
Naomi, why does she make
a good cover girl?
[woman 2] Um, she's got an amazing
personality, apart from being very pretty.
She's incredibly professional.
I mean, even at 15, she's turning up
on sessions with bagfuls of gear and
those necklaces and makeup
and everything like that.
[Naomi] My agent goes,
"I'd like to send you to Elle magazine"
because they would like to take me
on this trip in America.
I felt this real guilt.
My mother had no idea
that I was doing any of it.
My mother was born in Jamaica,
and she came to England
when she was three years old.
My mother was my mother,
my mother was my father.
I also believe a lot of that
was part of my drive, too,
not having my father figure in my life.
I always wanted to make my mother proud.
I know how hard she worked
and sacrificed for me.
So, I finally go home,
and I work up the nerve to tell my mum.
She's pissed.
It's not what she'd sent me to school for.
She's paid my school fees
all these years.
And now I'm just gonna
want to be in modeling?
But she did say yes,
but my mother couldn't come with me
because she was pregnant with my brother.
So, off I went in April 14th
to New Orleans.
[boat horn blaring]
[playing lively jazz]
[Brading] Naomi was very cooperative
in those days.
It was her first big job.
It was a big adventure for her.
We did two stories, one on the beach
and this other story called,
"Land Girls."
We were on a slave plantation
when we did this picture,
six white people and a Black girl.
This is 30 years ago. Different world.
[Naomi] My mom was nervous.
She talked to me before I left.
She told me about racism in America.
[people clamoring faintly]
She told me about the South,
about the Ku Klux Klan.
[yelling, indistinct]
You know, that's what we knew
about the South in England.
[insects chirring]
I started to understand culturally
that I was gonna have to work really hard
to feel accepted.
There was no way I could go back home
with my tail between my legs
saying it didn't work out, I gave up.
No way.
I was gonna go harder and further.
About four months
after I shot British Elle,
there were some people that came to London
because they heard
about this young black girl.
So that was a bit like "Wow, they're
flying over to England to meet me?"
I had a studio in East London.
And a very good friend of mine had run
over and said, "You've got to come over.
You've got to check this girl out,
check this girl out.
She's only 14, she's only 15."
Tap school or whatever.
And that's when I first saw Naomi working.
I think it was for British Elle.
She has presence.
Presence, grounded.
It's like a magnet.
[Hardison] The woman
who had discovered her,
she contacted me because she said,
"There's a girl I think
you should take care of."
Naomi was very respectful
and very shy, quiet.
I was so impressed with her.
[Naomi] Just got to meet
really good people.
Eileen Ford started
to come over to London,
trying to get my mother to get me
to sign with them.
[Naomi] I loved Eileen Ford.
I look back now
at her old-fashioned way of
her old traditional way
of being a model agent.
- [man] Yeah.
- I think she was correct.
I think she was the most correct
of all of them.
[man] How did she approach you
that was different?
I just liked the way
she took care of the girls.
- [man] Right.
- We all had to live in her home with her,
and you know, she made your parents
feel very protected.
[Cindy] At the time there was, like,
two big agencies in New York.
There was Ford, which was Eileen Ford.
She was very, like, proper,
and you know,
expected all her "girls"
to behave a certain way,
and they would stay in the townhouse.
And then there was Elite, which had
a much different energy at that agency.
They didn't feel like
they were our parents
or wanted to be our parents.
You weren't their responsibility.
They were your agents. That's how I felt.
I didn't feel like I had a second parent
in my agency.
I was 20 years old.
I had dropped out of college
to model in Chicago, and it was great.
I was making a thousand dollars a day.
The main business there was catalog.
There was one big photographer,
Victor Skrebneski.
He was the big fish in the little pond.
Victor was definitely my first mentor
in the fashion industry.
He would tell you, you know,
"Okay, right arm out, shoulder up,"
and when Victor said, "Don't move,"
you didn't move.
You were like,
"Okay, I'm not gonna move a muscle."
I passed out there more than once,
especially right before lunch.
If you were hungry, you would faint.
Then they'd prop you back up, and
[chuckling] you'd do it all over again.
It wasn't about, "Oh, wow, you're so
pretty, we're gonna take pictures of you."
No, it was like, "Your job is
you're helping me sell this jacket."
Like, "We're all here
to sell this jacket."
[Oprah Winfrey] Straight from DeKalb,
Illinois, please welcome Cindy Crawford.
[applause]
Did she always have this body?
Stand up just a moment.
- Now, this is what I call a body.
- [Cindy laughs]
Did she have to go
through that training period or no?
Well, with Cindy it was
much more psychologically--
She was not sure
she really wanted to model.
- [Cindy] I was like the chattel.
- mental stability.
Or a child, like, "Be seen and not heard."
When you look at it through today's eyes,
when Oprah's like,
"Stand up and show me your body."
Like, "Show us why
you're worthy of being here."
In the moment, I didn't recognize it,
only when I look back at it,
and I was like, "Oh, my gosh,
that was so not okay, really."
Especially from Oprah.
[Casablancas] Little by little,
her ambition is growing.
She's getting a sense that she could be,
and I'm saying it now on this program,
if she wants to, she can be maybe
the number one in the business.
[Cindy] I felt good in Chicago,
like the city didn't overwhelm me.
And I had my own apartment.
And I could drive home and see my mother.
I had this very safe situation
with Victor Skrebneski,
who I was working with every day
and making a great living.
I got offered a job in Bali,
and it was like a ten-day trip.
And in Chicago the modeling jobs
that we did were in Chicago. [laughs]
Like, we rarely got to go on location
and travel and do anything exciting.
Skrebneski's studio, they were holding
one day in that ten days,
and I said, "Can you release me from
this day so I can do this other thing?"
And they said no.
And not only did they say no, they said,
"If you cancel,"
this half-day catalog or whatever it was,
"we will never use you again."
I was working four, five days a week,
mostly with Victor.
They were my bread and butter
and everything.
I was making more money than my parents
would have ever dreamed of.
When I was a kid, there was
never enough to go around.
And then, when my parents split up,
I had seen how my dad used money sometimes
to try to manipulate my mother.
I remember seeing that and going,
"That will never be me."
As you mature,
you know when it's important
to say something and when it's not.
I canceled the job.
I went and did the ten-day trip in Bali.
And that was it.
He never booked me again ever.
If you were modeling in Chicago,
and you weren't working
with Victor Skrebneski,
it was like taking a step down.
Okay, well,
I'm gonna give New York a shot.
[traffic humming]
[photographer] So, we're doing two covers,
the main cover,
the 75th anniversary cover,
and I think another online cover.
Okay.
[blower whirring]
[photographer] Can the hand come up more
to the neck somewhat?
Yeah. And then I'll just go into it.
Beautiful. Maybe, that's it.
Like that. That's better, isn't it?
- Oh, my God.
- [woman] Oh, my God. Gorgeous.
[photographer]
Jesus, such good photography.
[all laughing]
[photographer] Christy looks amazing
as well, guys.
I don't want to--
We got that on camera?
[woman on TV] Christy Turlington will do
her first Cosmo cover.
She'll take home 500 dollars
for only three hours of primping
and 15 minutes of posing.
[distorting] Not bad for a girl
who just graduated high school.
[Christy] Modeling is like
a learn as you go,
learn as you watch and observe.
There's no real, like, teaching.
Nowadays, all the magic happens
in post-production.
[machinery buzzing]
[Linda] In the '80s and
the early '90s, all the magic happened
exactly at that moment
that you heard "click."
A still image is sacred.
We would take a hundred frames
to get that one.
[Linda] What we saw is what we got.
Somebody was holding the end
of the skirt with a fishing wire string.
There was maybe a Coke can
behind your belt
to cinch in your waist, uh
We had all these tricks, but the light?
The photographers really worked
on the light
'cause there was no retouching then.
And you never knew
what the picture was going to be
until you saw it in the magazine.
In the 1980s, kids, there was no internet.
There was something called magazines.
[laughing]
We didn't have Instagram.
We didn't have Facebook.
We had magazines.
Back then, magazines were one of the
primary ways of entering another world.
And we had people who curated
what culture should be.
[Coddington] A magazine
hopefully catches the reader
who looks more deeply into the clothes
and goes to the shop and buys them.
[laughing]
Bazaar has a style,
Vogue has a style,
Elle has a style
I don't know how to describe this.
But they were all different.
Harper's Bazaar was very toney.
Elle magazine,
we were doing everything fast.
It was weekly!
Because fashion is quick
you know what I mean?
Vogue was always the crown jewel
of fashion magazines.
[woman] Vogue was very international.
And then American Vogue,
obviously, was the Bible.
[Anna Wintour] I think being in Vogue is
something, basically, every model wants.
And it helps her career.
It gets her advertising campaigns.
It gets her book together.
I mean, there's other reasons that girls
want to do do Vogue beyond the money.
[Cindy] I remember getting booked
for American Vogue to St. Barts.
For a girl from a small town
going to St. Barts,
I was like, I-- "This is heaven."
And from that shoot,
I got a cover try for Vogue.
[Linda] We were never guaranteed covers.
Back then it was a "cover try."
You would go in, and you would do a few,
and then they would have a look
at them and say,
"Yes, this one's a go," or
"No, let's shoot more on someone else."
And you wouldn't know until,
like, a month later
if yours got selected or not.
Like, that was my dream
to be on a cover of Vogue.
Any Vogue. Didn't care which Vogue.
Any Vogue.
[Christy] My first Vogue cover
was Italian Vogue.
I remember loving the way
that I looked in the mirror,
and I felt like such a princess
walking to the set.
And you couldn't get
Italian Vogue everywhere,
so, you know, when I went
back to my life at home,
it took me a long time
before I got to see the magazine
'cause it was something
that I couldn't really find.
My second Vogue cover, I think,
was a bigger deal,
in the sense that more people noticed it,
and that was for British Vogue.
Looking at it now, I look so young,
I can't even believe that I'm
on the cover of Vogue.
I was probably 17 by then.
Patrick Demarchelier shot it.
Donna Karan had just launched
her new brand,
and so it was a cover story
wearing her first collection.
After we finished the shoot,
we took a portrait,
and I had these extensions in my hair,
so it was this very long hair.
And we did, like, a portrait kind of,
you know,
where I was like this,
kind of the classic covering yourself.
My arms went down a little bit lower,
a little bit lower.
"Could you put your arms down
a little bit lower, a little bit lower?"
And I remember being,
like, self-conscious,
but I didn't feel necessarily bad.
I felt-- I felt good from that shoot.
I felt pretty in that moment.
Patrick didn't give me the creeps, per se,
but I do remember being like,
"Oh, my gosh! I'm not so supposed to be--
I shouldn't be doing this."
Eventually, that image came out
on the cover of Photo magazine,
which is not like huge circulation
or anything like that,
but it was like, "Oh, gosh,"
because I don't know
what I thought it was for,
but I definitely didn't think it was
for a cover of a magazine.
I don't think if there was any, like,
age that you were supposed to be
in order to have a nude picture.
Like, I don't think there was anybody
monitoring or regulating any of that.
I can't say that I was
so savvy the whole time,
but I know my mom
would say much later that,
"Oh," you know,
"you were always gonna be fine.
I knew you had your head
on your shoulders,
and, you know, you were gonna be fine."
But I don't know that there was
every guarantee that I was gonna be fine.
It was just kind of, you know "Go."
[laughs] "Good luck."
[indistinct, overlapping female voices]
[man] Cindy Crawford is now the most
recognizable and marketable celebrity.
A man would get a pat on the back
and say, like, "Job well done."
[Larry King] "I won't get out of bed
for less than ten-thousand dollars a day."
It's half the game, really. [laughs]
[excited crowd chatter]
One day will come when it's over.
[end music playing]