NEW YORK, America - They are supermodels and in a new exhibition at New York’s Met museum they are also the superheroes of a world where image is everything and beauty is priceless.
“The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion” details a lineage ranging from Richard Avedon’s supremely elegant 1955 photo “Dovima with elephants” to 1960s icon Twiggy and today’s often more scantily clad Gisele Bundschen and Kate Moss.
Running from this week to August 9, the retrospective of fashion and fashion photography from 1947-1997 celebrates a world where the model has become as important as the clothes she wears.
The exhibition, organized by the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and co-chaired by Moss and designer Marc Jacobs, is in part the story of the 20th century.
It shows that famous models emerged in the 1920s, but that within a decade they were being eclipsed by new stars – the Hollywood sirens.
After World War II, though, and the launch of the “New Look” of French fashion great Christian Dior, models began to grow in importance, not just modeling clothes but presenting the image of their era.
Photographs and dresses show everything from the femme fatale of the 1950s and the swinging sexiness of the 60s, to the athletic look of the 1970s. Gradually, models became the muses of photographers – usually men, like Irving Penn, David Bailey or Helmut Newton – and the designers.
Many were discovered at a very young age, like Carmen dell’Orefice, who was 14 when she was spotted in a bus in 1945.
Fame was not their only reward: top models like Cindy Crawford earn millions for being the exclusive representatives of fashion accessories like cosmetics, watches and perfumes.
Ironically, a once celebrated rarity of ultimate beauty has now become almost banal.
A “seemingly endless supply of up and coming eastern European models, exactly alike,” has glutted the world’s runways, the exhibition said.
But there are still fairy tales. One of the latest supermodels, Natalia Vodyanova, had served as a fruit stall vendor when she was 11.
Today, she’s not only a multi-millionaire, but she is also married to an English aristocrat and has three children.
