The Super Models (2023) s01e02 Episode Script

1
[jet engine roaring]
[pilot, over P.A.] Welcome to
New York City, the capital of the world.
[Naomi Campbell]
I remember when I got to New York.
Coming from the airport,
you see the skyline,
you just go, whew! This energy.
It was more than what I imagined it to be.
["Good LIfe" by Inner City playing]
[horns blaring]
[indistinct chatter]
New York was just jumping.
[talking, indistinct]
[Naomi] People singing on the corner.
- [saxophone playing]
- [car horn honking]
[Naomi] As a dancer,
the first thing I wanted to do
was go to the Alvin Ailey School of Dance.
New York was vibrant
and the energy was incredible.
- [man yelps]
- [horns honking]
[Christy Turlington] I thought that
New York City was like magic.
It had a little bit of that,
kind of, grittiness that it's known for.
There was a lot of graffiti,
especially downtown.
[woman] Here we go, off to the Limelight.
[Naomi] I love that everyone
got dressed up to go out,
and that's how it should be! [laughs]
We were supposed to
have dinner together
[loud kissing]
[Linda Evangelista] We liked
going to Times Square
before Times Square got cleaned up.
When there were peep shows,
we didn't go to the peep shows,
but I'm just saying
New York was a different place.
A little seedy, a little-- It was fun.
[Cindy Crawford] My time in New York,
in the fashion world,
I do think it was kind of
the golden age, but
if it wasn't, don't tell me.
Don't ruin the illusion.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mayor Koch] How am I doing?
[man] You're doing terrific!
Thank you!
[Cindy] When I got to New York,
I was twenty.
I'd been in Chicago, so I knew
a little bit what a city felt like,
but New York is its own thing.
I remember trying to take the Subway,
but being a little intimidated by that.
I would try to get taxis.
Sometimes they would stop
and sometimes they wouldn't stop,
and I could not for the life of me
figure it out until one day I realized,
"Oh, the light has to be on".
[Naomi] I'd put out my hands many times
on New York City streets,
and the taxis would fly by.
Then Christy would put out the hand
and then they would stop.
The guy would be like,
"I don't wanna go to Brooklyn."
I was just like, "Why is he saying that?"
It didn't strike me until Christy
would have to stand out in front of me,
get me a taxi to get to work.
It was all new to me.
It was exciting. It was challenging.
Stand here for us
You just made my day.
[Cindy] I had a really good friend
who was a makeup artist,
and she let me stay on her couch.
After about three months, she's like,
"I think you need to get
your own apartment."
[Christy] I got my first apartment
before I turned 18
and then moved in straight away.
And had that kind of, like,
big lofty thing,
but without any food in the fridge
or any furniture, really.
And I was working constantly
but your agency is taking a lot,
and also, just rent
and all of the other things.
[Naomi] Christy and I lived together.
We were roommates.
We would just be silly
and have a laugh and have fun and
- felt so comfortable with all of them.
- Okay
- Mmm!
- [laughter]
They're my sisters.
[Christy] When I started working
in New York,
it was so very much this, like,
nine to five, it's just a job job.
It felt very much like Working Girl.
[Cindy] I had to make
my own way in the world.
Mommy and Daddy were not bailing me out.
Like, if I rented an apartment
and I couldn't pay my rent, guess what?
I'm getting evicted and moving back home.
There wasn't that cushion,
which gave me a lot of drive,
and I hustled.
Francesco Scavullo booked me
for Cosmopolitan.
He liked me because I reminded him of Gia.
Gia was, like, a favorite
of so many photographers
and so my agency said, "We have baby Gia."
Those girls worked hard,
and they worked constantly.
There was a feeling about them,
that they wanted more
than just what was there,
but they were driven to
be better all the time.
They were constantly seeking
and wanting and curious and knowledgeable,
and just driven.
- [man] When's it gonna be on? Tonight?
- [Christy] Yeah.
- [man] Oh, great.
- If you stay up that late, 12:30.
- [man] Oh, no.
- [woman] Oh, no! Yeah!
[laughter]
I have to work early tomorrow.
I don't think I'm gonna stay up.
[Christy] By the time I started to work
a lot with Vogue,
I would say to the editors,
you know, like, [gasps]
"Well, I wanna work with Steven Meisel,
can I work with Steven Meisel?"
And I remember Polly Mellen
telling me like,
"I don't think you're his type, really."
I was like,
"What do you mean I'm not his type?"
Steven is one of
the great artists of our time,
because he would look at a model,
and he will see through the model
to what they could be.
[Anna Sui] When we started hanging out,
Steven and I would go out
and with a Polaroid camera,
take pictures,
and you knew right then and there
that Steven had the eye.
He could spot somebody,
he could make them pose
the way he was imagining.
He just had such a vision.
Steven started photographing
in the very, very, very, early 80s.
And he had gotten a studio
on 23rd Street.
We used to call it "The Clinic,"
[laughing] 'cause the girls would come in
and Steven would teach them how to model.
The girls would change completely,
and the ones that were great
would come out as superstars,
'cause they just took it,
they were absorbing all of it.
They wanted to learn.
[Fabien Baron] Steven Meisel
had a mirror in the studio
for the models to look at themselves,
giving the girl the authority
to push herself to the nth degree
because they would know
if the foot was in the right place or not.
[Linda] I remember
when I get called to work
with Steven Meisel for the first time.
I was so hoping Steven would like me
and he said,
"Can you walk? Like a big stride?"
And I was like, "Yeah."
And he said, "But do you think
you can hit the mark and stay in focus?"
And I said, "Yeah."
I did it over and over.
And then that was the beginning
of my relationship with him.
And we all got to be part
of the process.
[faint chatter]
[Christy] It was my, like, my school.
He was very tactile always, as well.
Like, come over
and actually hands on your hair.
Help do the makeup.
It was kind of our own little factory vibe
in that we played.
We'd come to the studio
and if we didn't have a plan
of what was gonna happen,
we all kind of got to
work together and figure out
what that was gonna be,
what the look was gonna be.
It was just constant building,
destroying, building again.
[man's voice directing, indistinct]
[Christy] He really created this very
intimate and safe environment on the set.
I felt like he really looked after me.
You know, I just feel like
he cared how comfortable I was,
or recognized maybe when I wasn't,
when I wouldn't have said anything, maybe.
It was really, really a special, um,
family kind of bond.
[Naomi] I was 16 when I got to work
with Steven Meisel for American Vogue.
[Carlyne Cerf de Dudzelle]
She arrives, her legs was already
as big as they are now,
three meters.
So, immediately Steven called her Bambi
because she was Bambi.
She was all shy, she was like
[vocalizing]
Well, she is not at all
but that doesn't matter,
and she was a dancer
so she'd use her legs and everything.
I'm trying to think.
Very first one is the dancing pictures
and I don't know if they're in there.
Mmm.
Working with Steven Meisel
is like an education.
He molds you, in just such a subtle way,
that you almost were like,
"How did he get that out of me
because I didn't think I had that in me."
I was very lucky
to meet this wonderful man
who's still family in my life
and I love him dearly.
And I understood
that you can have chosen families.
I didn't meet my father,
my mother had me at 17.
I think he was the same age.
That feeling of abandonment
It's nothing she could have done
to change that feeling with me.
I also believe a lot of that
was part of my drive, too.
Not having my father figure in my life.
But then I got blessed.
When I was 16, I was working in Paris
and I was on my own.
But one day, my purse was stolen,
I'd had all my money stolen.
My traveler's checks, I should say.
Mum gave me traveler's checks.
I was going to dinner with another model
'cause she felt pity on me,
and that's when I met Azzedine Alaïa.
Azzedine Alaïa
was a very enigmatic designer.
Azzedine really loved
playing with the female form.
[in French]
Femininity is a whole thing.
[interviewer, speaks French, laughs]
I don't know, I can't define some things.
[Beker] I think his clothes were
very slinky, very sexy, very seductive.
There's an architectural feel
to some of these pieces.
But very comfortable. They moved with you.
And he was just a sweet, sweet man.
And he doesn't speak English.
I don't speak French.
But there's something.
And then he gave me an outfit,
and he asked me to put it on,
to see what his clothes looked like on me.
[laughs]
And I put it on,
and he liked how it looked.
And then he asked me where I was staying,
and I told him, at the Hotel Lenox.
He then said to me, "Where's your mother?"
And I said, "My mother's in London."
My mother speaks French.
So, he said, "Call her."
So, I called my mum, and they spoke.
And he told to my mum
that he would take care of me,
that I would stay under his roof
and that I would be safe to stay there.
My mother did not know
who she was talking to,
never met him, but trusted him.
And so the next day
or the next two days later,
I moved into Rue du Parc-Royal.
[woman] Oh, I love this dress.
- I've worn this.
- [woman] Oh, really?
- Piece of art.
- [woman] Yeah.
My papa was a genius.
[woman] Yes, he was.
[Christy] There you are.
[indistinct chatter, laughter]
[woman] Mm-hm.
I thought my papa was gonna live forever.
- I never imagined
- [woman] Mm.
I never imagined
even thought about him leaving.
[Baron] Naomi became Alaïa's muse,
you know, like, almost like family.
[Naomi] He introduced me
to so much in the world.
I met so many amazing people.
I learned about art, architecture, design.
Most importantly, I got to watch him work.
I got to be part of his work.
And he really treated me like a daughter.
I mean, like, made me breakfast,
made me dinner.
[voice breaking] I mean, we used to fight,
don't get me wrong.
I would sneak out the window, go clubbing,
they'd call and tell him
I was in the nightclub.
He'd come down to the nightclub.
And before he would take me home
he'd say, "You wore the outfit wrong,"
and he'd be fixing it.
And, "You should have put
the belt like this and"
[vocalizing]
And you know,
'cause you have to imagine
the boutique was my closet.
What girl of 16-years-old
has an Alaïa shop as her closet?
[crying] When he passed away,
it was a shock to the system. [sniffling]
My life would have definitely
been different without him.
He protected me in this business,
he guided me.
I mean, once, uh
art director felt the need to tell me
that he thought my breasts were perfect,
but he felt the need
to have to touch them.
I called papa immediately,
I called papa right away
and papa called him up
and read him.
Never came near me again.
It served that I opened my mouth
and would speak my truth
because I believed that protected me,
as well as who I was surrounded by.
[indistinct chatter]
[man speaking French]
Hi, everybody.
- Hello.
- Hello.
[man speaking French]
[woman, in French]
In his fifties, Jean-Luc Brunel
allowed himself to be filmed
during a casting in Florida.
It's his favorite exercise,
"chasing models"
as they say in the business.
Courtney Powell landed
at the Karin Models agency in Paris.
"He started talking about sending me
for a bathing suit campaign.
He told me that my measurements
had to be perfect,
and that you have to have a certain look,
and he wanted me to pull up my shirt.
He started touching me."
Courtney says that she
resisted him several times.
"From the moment I said no
to Jean-Luc Brunel
I no longer got any work."
[Christy] I met Jean-Luc Brunel,
who's the infamous French agent
who was running Karin's agency
in Paris at that time.
And they were like partners,
the Fords and Karins.
I would go to Paris
and the Fords would have it set up
that I would stay at Jean-Luc's apartment.
I think most of us are young.
You're put in an environment
that you probably
is completely new to you, right?
You know,
you're overpowered by a older man
that's, like, going to guide your career.
You trust him.
You know, same old story.
[Christy] Nothing happened.
Most of the time
he wasn't really even there.
I got angry at just looking back
and thinking, like, survival sk--
Like I can't believe that I'm okay.
Nothing really surprises me about anybody.
I feel like even people you know,
you just don't know
what they're capable of.
President of Elite Europe,
who coordinates the efforts
of the Elite offices on the continent
Mr. Gérald Marie.
[applause]
I married my agent
Gérald Marie.
Who I thought was, like, so charming,
I liked how assertive he was.
[in French] When she has Elite
on her back, the girl must be good.
If an Elite girl doesn't bring in
$200-$250K a year
we won't keep her.
[Christy] She was only 22, she was young.
I never really saw him in New York.
And when I met Linda,
she was already engaged to him.
[Linda] He really pushed me
to work, so much.
He felt like a great guy.
He told me he was
a German photographer's assistant.
- [chuckles]
- And I thought he was obnoxious.
[woman laughing] But something happened!
And the next time I met him
I found out he wasn't.
And I fell in love.
[woman] Aw, aww
See, it's very good to be
a German photographer assistant.
[woman laughs]
I just wanna live happily ever after,
that's all.
[Linda] I lived in Paris
about three years
and climbed the ladder slowly
before I felt like
I really made it,
I could start saving money.
I started working with
really the top photographers.
But I wanted to be on a cover of Vogue.
Any Vogue, it was a dream for me.
I went on a trip with Peter Lindbergh.
Peter saw the androgynous side of me
and he really wanted me
to cut my hair off.
He explained to me, "We already did
so much with your long hair.
I think you really need to do this
to go further."
I asked my mother what she thought.
She said, "But why?
You'll be the only girl with short hair."
And I went,
"Well, that's not a bad thing."
[Lindbergh] She just walked
into the studio and said, "I'm ready now,
I want to cut my hair."
And then Julien,
Julien who was her hair dresser,
just took her whole hair back,
and said, "Is everybody okay?"
And she said "No, no,"
and she start crying, no?
And he took the scissors, and whap!
It was gone in one zip, no?
After that I went to Milano
to do the fashion shows
where I was booked for 20 shows.
As I was doing my fittings
and as they were seeing me,
they all started canceling me.
I only did four shows.
Done. [laughs]
And the next day,
instead of doing the shows,
Franca Sozzani put me
on the Concorde to Steven,
who photographed me.
And, like, two weeks later
I'm on the cover of Italian Vogue.
And then, I was doing all the Vogues.
I was doing British Vogue,
French Vogue, Spanish Vogue,
American Vogue.
And this is, like,
the moment I thought I made it,
after three years.
I think that's where
I really gained confidence,
and it just kept going from there.
I think when you're a kid, you don't like
anything that makes you different,
so having a beauty mark,
[chuckling] which I tried to call it, um
You know, I didn't like it
and my sisters would tease me that
a beauty mark is on this side,
that it's on the left side
it's an ugly mark.
Then when I started modeling,
it was always a discussion.
"Like, should we cover it with makeup,
we can't really cover it with makeup
'cause it's not flat."
My first British Vogue cover,
they retouched it off.
The jury was still out.
Richard Avedon,
the first time I worked with him
was for my first American Vogue cover.
I'm a portrait photographer
as well as a photographer of women.
And the clothes are elements
that I can use for design,
as are the women, for form,
for a way of expressing, uh
certain things, I feel.
Avedon is a legend among photographers,
a legend in the history of art,
within the history of photography.
[Charles Decaro] Richard Avedon's work
has always been
what continues to resonate.
He's the master.
One of the most famous photos in the world
of Dovima with the elephants.
You've seen an Avedon before
even if you don't recognize it.
[Cindy] With Avedon,
it's a very different kind of energy.
It's not like click, click, click.
It's like, "Okay," and click.
I think he liked that
I was a good student of his.
[laughs] I paid attention.
He taught me how to, like, bring it.
For, like, that spark.
And it ended up that from that shoot,
I got two covers.
August,
and an October of 1986.
American Vogue left the mole on.
And that was it,
it was never a discussion again.
'Cause, it was kind of like,
the Vogue seal of approval.
If it's good enough for Vogue,
it's good enough for everyone.
[Naomi] Let's talk about the structure
of this issue.
When's this issue need to be
ready to print?
What's our deadline?
- [woman] The end of February.
- [Naomi] Perfect.
So, we're gonna to put Kehinde Wiley
'cause he's doing my portrait for
the National Portrait Museum this year.
I love this, but I love this picture.
I love it, because we see Christy.
You see Kate.
Bridget Hall.
Oh, my God, you see everybody
[indistinct murmuring]
I don't want this one. No.
We've got no models here.
[man] We got big sister Iman,
I was gonna say, yeah.
I think Iman and Katoucha.
Yes!
And Farida.
[Naomi] I appreciate the work
that Beverly Johnson, Iman,
Naomi Sims, Donyale Luna,
Gail O'Neill, Karen Alexander
I appreciate the work
of the ladies before me.
But I wanted to take it more,
I wanted to go further,
I wanted to push the envelope.
I wanted what the white model was getting,
I wanted it too.
So, in 1987,
I asked for my first Vogue cover.
It's like they don't know how to
answer me, they don't know what to say.
And I felt a little awkward,
and I felt a little shrunken,
like, I shouldn't have opened my mouth,
I'm not gonna get a yes.
[Enninful] There were so many restrictions
on what it meant to be a black model,
and she had to really fight
a system that essentially said
you had to be white
to succeed on the runway
or in fashion magazines.
[indistinct chatter]
[Naomi] So, I was at the time
working for Mr. Saint Laurent,
so I told them.
[Bethann Hardison] Mr. Saint Laurent
had always been supporting
the idea that black models
are valuable too.
[applause]
[Naomi] I didn't know what type of power
Yves Saint Laurent had.
[woman, faintly] Bravo!
[Naomi] I didn't know
that Yves would say something.
That is one of my best collections.
It was very hard to do,
and when it's hard to do, it's better.
[chuckles]
And the next thing I knew,
I was in New York
with Patrick Demarchelier.
I had no idea until it came out
that it was the first time a black person
had been on the French Vogue cover.
I didn't look at it as breaking a barrier,
I just looked at it as,
"This can't stop here.
This just can't be the one token."
But then I shot
my first American Vogue cover,
and I had no idea
that it was for September
'cause, you know, I'm still
What I did learn
about the magazines in America was
February was Black month,
and every February on all the magazines
was a Black person.
That I knew. That I got.
But I hadn't realized that March
and September were their big selling
I was just going from job to job
and just living my life.
[Cindy] Once you're on the cover
of American Vogue, especially then,
that was it.
Like, then we started doing runway shows,
which was a new thing.
Back in the day,
you were either a print model
or a runway model.
[Isaac Mizrahi] Fashion shows were like
very quiet little affairs
and the only people attending were,
you know, fashion executives,
people buying clothes
and the fashion press and that was it.
[Linda] There was a shift when
the print girls started doing runway.
[applause]
[Tonne Goodman] When designers
put all the girls on the runway,
it changed the caliber of a fashion show.
[Karl Lagerfeld] Now, the print girls
you see in the magazines,
you have them in the shows,
so it's like seeing
movie stars in the real.
[Cerf de Dudzeele]
Everything was exciting!
The girl was exciting on the runway.
They were not walking like asparagus,
"Boom, boom, boom, boom," you know?
[Suzy Menkes] These models were
very strong in the way they strutted out.
They showed their personality.
That was the whole point.
[Naomi] Most of the time
I just looked straight ahead,
and think about walking straight,
and putting a pleasant look on my face
and looking at people who I know,
and going
[Linda] I remember at one of
the Versace fashion shows,
three photographers came backstage
and they said, "Could we speak to you?"
And I thought I was in trouble.
And they showed me pictures of me,
and my eyes are down in all the pictures,
because I'm looking at the front row,
and at my colleagues, my friends.
And they said, "Can you please look at us
when you get to the end of the runway?"
And I said, "I'm so sorry, of course."
So, when I looked up
I was like, "Whoa!"
[cameras clicking]
I couldn't believe how many photographers
were there. I had no idea.
[Christy] The backstage vibe
is very intense.
[Naomi] But we loved it that way.
We loved being hectic and the adrenaline.
Girls, standby on this side of the stage.
[Cindy] We all think,
"Wow, I'm the only imposter here,"
like, I can pretend,
"Oh, yes, I, I'll have that wine,"
or "Oh, Hermès, I love Hermès."
I didn't even know what Hermes was
or whatever when I was a kid, right?
But you quickly learn to fit in and adapt.
[Naomi] Cindy was definitely
the more serious,
but we knew how to get her
to loosen and have fun.
Tequila.
[Mizrahi] The thing you have to love
about these women
is that they didn't do this,
kind of, fake bullshit,
kind of, walk, you know?
They just had fun.
Nobody walked like Naomi.
She had a walk that basically said,
"Get the fuck out of my way,
'cause I'm owning wherever I'm going."
[Mizrahi] I remember one show, my mother,
who is, like, the straightest,
sort of, middle-aged woman.
At this point,
she was probably in her mid-sixties.
After the show,
she came up to me, she said,
"Darling, I would have sex
with Naomi Campbell."
[faint chatter]
[Linda] The glory days!
But, remember, in those glory days
it wasn't perfect.
Because
Because Naomi wasn't always booked
to do the shows.
See, I didn't understand.
Naomi, I thought was more beautiful,
had a much more rockin' body than I did.
And a better strut.
And I'm, like,
"Why aren't they booking her?"
[Enninful] When Naomi came,
designers were still, you know
"We only have one Black girl this season."
It was that time.
"Black girls can only do shows
in the summer.
Black girls can only wear
the bright-colored clothes."
I said to them,
"If you don't book her, you don't get me."
[Naomi] Linda and Christy absolutely
put themselves on the line.
They stood by me, and they supported me.
And that's what kept me going.
[horns honking]
I would do all these great shows,
wear all these beautiful dresses,
but then it would come time
for the advertising,
and I would not be included.
And that used to really hurt me.
And then sometimes,
I was booked just to appease me
or to make me think,
"Okay, we're gonna use her."
Then I'd go to the shoot and sit there
from nine till six all day
and not be used.
It made me more determined than ever.
Not to ever be treated that way,
not to ever be put in that position again.
Can we hold a wall
that Christy can lean against?
- [man] Um, yeah, totally. Black or white?
- White.
[woman] We also have to do a Calvin Klein.
With the cube, you mean?
It could just be the corner, maybe.
- [woman] Yeah, or just like
- [man] So she can lean
Leaning. Yeah, I feel like
[camera clicks]
Christy, can we try profile a little?
Like-- Yeah, beautiful. Calvin Klein vibe.
[woman] Very Calvin Klein. Classic.
[Christy] I worked for Calvin Klein
for 33 years.
I was probably 17 or so
when I first met Calvin Klein
and met the brand,
doing fashion shows and things.
You know, it stood out for me,
I think even as a younger teenager, um,
all the ads.
I knew Calvin Klein jeans
and I knew Calvin Klein fragrances.
Obsession was a big deal.
[Calvin Klein] What you want to do
is create excitement,
you want people to notice your ads,
your print ads, or your commercials.
In the kingdom of passion
the ruler is obsession.
Calvin Klein's Obsession.
[male voice] Oh, the smell of it.
"Ah, the smell of it."
Now, when you hear,
"Well, the smell of it,"
your mind goes
right to a very specific place.
[Klein] I have an effect on society.
I mean, I can change attitudes.
I can make people feel a certain way.
He understood how to
use the tools at the time,
You know, like,
the billboards, the magazines,
to push his image in a very clean
but controversial way.
You wanna know what comes
between me and my Calvins?
Nothing.
He always wanted everything
to be super erotic and sexy,
and everybody sleeping with everybody.
And then there was AIDS.
And they just wanted to chill
and they wanted to calm everything down.
So, he had this perfume called Eternity.
Which was about family.
And he signed up Christy
as the face of Eternity.
[Christy] I have so many memories
from that first Eternity campaign
in Martha's Vineyard.
The photos were shot by Bruce Weber.
It was really bonding and super fun.
[Bruce Weber] The sun's setting,
the light's really beautiful.
Look at these girls' pictures,
they have that desire.
The desire to stand alone and be somebody.
[Grace Coddington] Bruce Weber,
he really changed photography and fashion
through his cameras.
He changed girls from
that much more heavy makeup
to the more natural girl
that was healthy and just glowed.
[Christy] I made close to
a million dollars a year on that contract.
I remember signing it, for some reason,
at night at some law office
with my agents.
I didn't have my own lawyer.
I only had to work, like,
a hundred days a year,
which is not a lot of work, really,
and, of course,
I couldn't work for anybody else,
and I couldn't-- Not even editorials.
But the Eternity campaign
had a certain kind of visibility
and so representing Calvin Klein
felt very much like the pinnacle
of what was happening at that time.
[woman] Eternity, Calvin Klein.
[static, music playing]
[woman] Revlon new complexion make-up.
Cindy--
[man speaking French]
[ad jingle playing]
[Cindy] As a model,
a cosmetic contract is the golden ticket.
It's, like, job security all of a sudden.
You're not waiting for like,
"Oh, I might get that campaign,
I might not."
[David Letterman] Please welcome,
the lovely Cindy Crawford.
[crowd cheering, applauding]
Hi, how are ya? Nice to see you.
Thanks for being here.
[applause continues]
She has just now been named
the spokesmodel for Revlon.
What does that mean? Free lipstick?
[laughter]
Yeah. And that,
that and hopefully more freedom.
More freedom to do?
Anything I want.
[Cindy] Things were really happening,
I was doing the right campaigns.
[man] Flex your hair
and show off your body.
[ad jingle playing]
And then all of a sudden, in '88,
I was asked to do Playboy.
Everyone in my life at the time
thought I shouldn't do Playboy.
My modeling agency
didn't feel that that fit into,
you know,
the type of jobs I should be doing.
I think the brand
still had a connotation to it
that maybe scared some people off.
I understood the platform of Playboy
and what that symbolized.
It was definitely
outside the normal trajectory
for a Vogue model at the time.
The offer came through Herb Ritts,
a photographer.
Herb Ritts was someone
that I worked with a lot,
and I stayed at his house
and we were very good friends.
[Herb Ritts] Part of what I do
that's very important
is being able to suss something out,
to be a diplomat of sorts.
So, you really have to be
one-on-one with someone
and realize what they're about
and try to get what you want.
I don't know. There was just something
about it that intrigued me,
so against the advice of my agents,
I said yes.
But I said, "You don't need
to pay me a lot of money
as long as I can have the control
of the images."
And I wanted the right to
kill the story if I don't like it.
Herb and I combined it
with another trip that we were doing
for French Vogue to Hawaii.
We would shoot a picture for French Vogue,
and we would shoot a picture for Playboy.
I mean, you almost couldn't tell
which pictures were for French Vogue
and which pictures were for Playboy.
It was very organic, and
I loved them.
That's the whole thing for me is
even if I make choices that
other people disagree with or don't like,
if they're my decisions
and I have control of it,
that's empowering to me,
even if it's doing Playboy.
I never felt like
a victim of that decision.
I don't feel like when I'm nude,
that I'm nude.
It really depends who I'm shooting for.
I could feel totally clothed,
it's the concept and the way
when it's tastefully done
you don't feel like you're nude.
Might have made people think,
"Oh, she really feels
comfortable in her skin."
Not necessarily, I didn't.
Just because I was not thinking of me,
Naomi, showing myself,
I felt like I was in some other character.
So, I didn't necessarily
feel like I was [inhales]
I felt dressed, if you can believe that.
[Christy] I respect and admire people
who can be comfortable in their bodies
and comfortable naked.
If I'm working with somebody that I trust,
and that I have respect for,
and I understand their vision,
then I can take some risks.
If I can trust that person capturing it,
and I know what they see
and I know that my comfort
is gonna make that image
that much more exciting,
interesting, whatever,
then I can, kind of, go there.
But if that trust isn't there
and there's this sense of well, you know,
like, [laughing] "Go!" "Do it!
You do your thing, I'm gonna capture it."
I can't do that,
like I can't, I can't just, like,
do all my the things.
That takes time and trust,
like, for any camera.
[Cindy] Herb had the
I just never once felt even remotely
uncomfortable in front of his camera.
There we go, and yeah,
there we go, that's it.
The thing I love about this,
it's not about fashion.
Obviously, they're nude,
but they were great friends
and all of a sudden,
to just put them together
and have them knowing each other.
There's a great heart that comes
when I look at that picture.
It's not overtly sexual at all.
There's a true soulfulness
coming from these girls.
You can feel their eyes. It's really
about their eyes and their looks.
[Cindy] It's such a Herb picture because
we were naked but we weren't being sexy.
There was, like, a simplicity to being,
you know, without clothes.
But we shot it with and without Christy
because Christy couldn't be
in the Rolling Stone edition at the time.
I was working with Calvin and
I couldn't do anything with anybody else,
so when Herb was like,
"Just get in for a couple of shots,"
I realized that the desirability
of having a model in a campaign
was because of all the things
that you're seeing out there
and seeing somebody do interesting,
more edgy kinds of things.
And then to kind of cut all that off,
I don't know, it just, kind of,
wasn't that exciting anymore.
[Christy] All right. [chuckles]
- It is so long, Mom.
- [mom] I know.
I had to come all the way
from New York to cut your hair?
It's a little tricky with the mask,
I gotta say, working around your ear.
[mom, laughing] I know.
How short are you going?
[both laugh]
[mom] I was telling my friends
this morning at coffee,
and I said, "Yeah, she cuts hair."
I said, "Yes!
She used to cut even Oribe's hair."
[Christy] That's my claim to fame.
[mom] I know, and he let you.
[chuckles] A hairdresser.
[Erin] Maybe you should, um,
do your hair short again.
[Christy] I think about it sometimes.
And then I'm like,
it just takes so long to grow.
- [Erin] I liked it. I thought it was good.
- [Christy] I do think about it sometimes.
Like, "That was a haircut."
[indistinct chatter]
[photographer] Christy,
look this way, please. Beautiful.
[Christy] I realized that
I really hadn't been happy
with the Calvin Klein contract.
It wasn't like a bad deal per se,
but I hadn't really gotten to a place
of feeling burnt out or tired or anything.
I was, like, ready to go.
So, I sort of re-negotiated
my deal with Calvin
by cutting my hair.
When we were cutting it,
my friend Oribe cut it,
we were laughing and saying,
"Oh, I'm gonna get in so much trouble,"
but I didn't really think
I was gonna get into trouble.
But it definitely was not received well.
I think Calvin was really mad,
because when you have a contract,
you have to continue that look.
So, to suddenly cut your hair off
in the middle
was kind of a disaster.
[Christy] When I re-negotiated
- I know, it's hard. It's hard.
- It's also
[Christy] I still was able
to stay close to Calvin
and continue to work for Eternity
and actually opened his show
the next season with my new haircut.
It was sort of the end of an era
of those kinds of contracts
because they just didn't make sense.
Agencies have power,
and yet they behave
like they don't have power.
They're supposed to be working for you.
Let's I mean, like, let's be real,
this is not about personalities
and, like, chemistry or,
like, we're really a family.
This is, like,
this is a business for you all,
and I never signed another contract
with any other agency since.
[Klensch] This is Style
and I'm Elsa Klensch
reporting on the design worlds of fashion,
beauty, and decorating.
[Cindy] In the late 80s,
there was an explosion of new media.
All of a sudden,
there was cable television
and they needed more content.
We start with a story that's been hot
since the spring fashion shows
There was this new, kind of,
interest in fashion that was brewing.
[Beker] Elsa Klensch
was the first to look at style
as a true fashion insider.
[Klensch] Calvin Klein
experimented with silhouettes.
It's all close to the body,
they're very body-conscious clothes.
[Oldham] And that started
changing everything.
[interviewer] People think of models,
you know what the image of models is.
But obviously you must be bright
if you're, you know--
What is the image of models?
I'd like to know.
You mean, that we have, like,
single digit IQs and stuff like that?
- I'm not saying that to you.
- No, but I mean
Before cable, large parts of America
were really culture starved.
In a way, cable took what was going on
with that vibrant culture in New York City
and pushed it out by satellite
all over the country.
When we started MTV in the early 80s,
it was not only to play the hits,
it also exposed people
to all sorts of new things
in the popular culture.
So, we said, "Let's do some more stuff
on what's sort of coming up
as fashion from the streets.
Let's try for a new face, a new host.
MTV spokesperson for fashion."
[Cindy]
Fashion still was primarily female,
and then all of a sudden,
Playboy was, like, primarily guys,
it was a very different thing.
I, like, doubled my audience
by doing that.
And those two things together led to MTV.
They wanted someone like a model
or someone from fashion,
but they also wanted someone
that had male fans.
That was like a 30 second
pitch meeting. "Let's do it.
Can we get one on next week?"
[Cindy, on TV] Welcome to House of Style,
I'm Cindy Crawford.
It's like my first big piece for MTV,
right? I'm here by myself.
[Cindy] I had no training in broadcasting.
I'm gonna show, like, the whole look.
So, you walk down the runway,
take the coat off.
[Cindy] It was bringing together
music and fashion
and pop culture
and, like, putting it into,
like, a mixing bowl.
And we didn't really care what came out.
Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford.
Welcome to House of Style,
coming to you this time from Paris.
She would mine and create episodes
and bring in her friends
and acquaintances,
people she knew from the business.
We don't like wearing clothes.
No, that's a joke.
Naomi, behave yourself.
She began to incorporate designers.
The length is a little bit long.
We definitely took the pads
out of the boob, too.
I'm one of the old models that has boobs.
It gave me an opportunity to talk
and I was able to bring
a little bit more of myself
to my public persona.
It shows your little beauty mark.
That all felt very empowering to me.
That about wraps it up
for this edition of House of Style.
I'm Cindy Crawford
and I'll see you again real soon.
Bye.
[Cindy] British Vogue
wanted Peter Lindbergh
to shoot a cover to represent
the new idea of beauty for the '90s.
And Peter said,
"I can't do it with just one woman."
He reached out to me
and to Cindy, Naomi, Linda and Tatjana.
We all worked together in various
combinations a lot at that time,
so we all came just in our jeans
and I remember being in Tribeca.
Peter always gets super excited
when he shot and, like,
you know,
"Ah, I'm so excited, so excited."
And I was also just out of
my Calvin contract too.
So, just to be together as a group,
it just was so fun.
It wasn't about the fashion.
It wasn't about the hair and the makeup.
It was about the women.
[Kurt Loder] Welcome back
to The Week in Rock.
George Michael has a new video
just out for "Freedom! '90",
the second single off his latest album
Listen Without Prejudice Volume One.
Once again, Michael himself has declined
to actually appear in the clip.
Instead, he's delegated a flock of
Elite and Ford agency fashion models
to do his lip syncing for him.
I made decisions a couple years ago
to change the way my career was going
and my life was going
by not appearing in videos.
By not being interviewed.
By not doing press.
Basically, letting my music,
kind of, do what it's gonna do.
We get this phone call
that George Michael wants to shoot us in--
Wants us in his video.
George was like,
"It has to be this group of women."
It had to be all of us.
So, we go talk.
"Are you doing this?"
"Are you doing this?"
I wasn't interested initially at all,
because it wasn't fashion.
And at some point, we made a decision,
like, a group decision.
I said, "I will do it."
- "I'm gonna do it!"
- I said, "Yes, okay, I'll do it."
So, who's gonna tell George?
Basically, I'm in a nightclub in LA.
Roxbury's, actually, on Sunset.
And George is there.
And he comes up to me and he says,
"So, what is it that you guys want?"
I said, "We want this much money
and round trip Concorde tickets!"
He goes, "And that's it?"
I said, "That's it."
[David Fincher] When George
pitched me his idea,
he said, "What do you think
about doing the entire video
with just amazing looking women
lip syncing?"
So that he didn't have to.
And I said
"Knock me over with a feather
and throw a sheet over me,
that sounds like a great idea." [laughs]
["Freedom! '90"
by George Michael playing]
[Linda] When I got to the set,
and they wanted me to lip sync,
I didn't know the words.
I had to learn them very quickly
in the trailer
while they were doing my hair and makeup.
[lip-syncing]
Heaven knows I was just a young boy ♪
Didn't know what I wanted to be ♪
I just remember it being super dark
and someone explaining to me
that I was gonna be in a bathtub.
I was like, "Really?"
I felt like everyone else
had a better part than me.
[lip-syncing]
I won the race, got out of the place ♪
Went back home, got a brand new face ♪
For the boys at MTV ♪
These girls knew
how to position their faces.
They could find their light
and when we gave them a character,
they brought something to it.
[lip-syncing]
Now I'm gonna get myself happy ♪
They sucked you in.
My very first scene that I shot was
where you just see my eyes
through, like, this cutout.
You see my mouth, then you see my eyes,
you see my mouth, you see my eyes.
And anytime I dip down
it's because I don't know the words yet.
[laughing] I'm not that great with lyrics.
[Naomi] We were not knowing the impact
that that video had at all.
We didn't have time to know
because, honestly,
we were just jumping from next country
to the next country.
[Donatella Versace]
"Freedom" had just come out.
I was talking to Gianni and said,
"Why don't you get the girls?"
"The gorgeous girls on the runway?"
[Christy] We got there,
saw our clothes, did our rehearsal.
And then the song came on.
And then it was like,
"Oh, I get what you're doing." [laughs]
["Freedom! '90"
by George Michael playing]
- [applause, cheering]
- [cameras clicking]
[Menkes] You just can't
imagine the excitement,
the energy, the sort of, madness
of when Gianni Versace
had all the supermodels together.
I mean, he really caught that moment.
[song continues]
[Donatella] Each one of them
had this strong personality
and they're not afraid to show it.
The combination of fashion
and their personality was magic.
[Menkes] It was a moment.
It was the moment of Gianni Versace
and the way he wanted
to produce sexy women
who were also strong women.
[Cindy] This incredible song,
this incredible designer,
the moment of the women singing the song.
It was just like it all came together.
[song continues]
[Christy] We could feel that moment.
That is a moment that you kind of knew
would be iconic, actually.
[song continues]
Was like,
"Okay, that's what a supermodel is."
[Linda] I didn't imagine
that it was going to
catapult us to another level.
[Fincher] They were not like other people,
they weren't just beautiful.
[Baron] They stand out,
they were really becoming iconic
and, you know, memorable.
And important.
[Enninful] They became household names.
And I think that
really solidified the supermodel.
We looked powerful,
and then we started believing that.
[kettle whistling]
[whistling fades]