'WE WERE THE IMAGE OF POWER'

SUPERMODELS LINDA EVANGELISTA, CINDY CRAWFORD, NAOMI CAMPBELL AND CHRISTY TURLINGTON SHARE THE SECRETS OF THEIR SUCCESS IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY

-  JEN PHARO

We were the physical representations of power,” says Cindy Crawford as her famous lips curl into a confident smile. “We looked like strong women, and we would look in the mirror and we started believing it.”

Along with Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington, Cindy was one of the original supermodels who made hundreds of millions of dollars and revolutionised the fashion industry.

“You see our photo, our image, so you feel like you know us, but there are no words that go with our pictures,” adds Naomi.

Now the fabulous foursome are finally telling their stories in a four-part documentary, The Super Models, on Apple TV+ this month.

Naomi, Cindy and Christy were spotted as teenagers by scouts, then worked hard to build their portfolios, work for the best designers and create powerful brands.

But Linda’s story is different. “I dreamt of being a model. I wasn’t discovered, I chose,” she says. Canadian-born Linda, now 58, became obsessed with magazines when she worked in a convenience store as a teenager, confessing, “I would use my minimum wage so I could buy magazines to put the photos up on my wall.”

Aged 12, she pierced her own ears. “I got a file from my father’s toolbox, filed my hoops and drove them through. I got in so much trouble. She [my mother] called me a streetwalker,” recalls Linda, who followed the piercings with a perm and cut her hair into an 80s mullet. “I thought I was the cat’s miaow,” she laughs.