Versace Forever

To remind us what makes a supermodel, Cindy Crawford lives out the fantasy of Donatella Versace’s recent spring collection—a tribute to her late brother, Gianni.

- Eric wilson

To better understand what’s behind the return of the original supermodels in popular culture today, it helps to go back to the beginning.

“If you asked me when that moment really happened,” recalls Cindy Crawford one afternoon from her home in Malibu, “I would have to say it was the Versace show when Christy, Linda, Naomi and I came out together lip-synching to that George Michael song.” The year was 1991 and the song was “Freedom! ’90”, which had been playing non-stop on the radio and on television too, with an accompanying David Fincher-directed video starring Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz and, of course, Crawford. Gianni Versace, the Italian designer then in his high-glam prime, had one of the hottest brands on earth, having been early to recognise the potent combination of fashion and celebrity. His autumn 1991 show in Milan, which re-created the supermodel lip-synching scene from Michael’s video, set the fashion world on fire. “With the generation before us, there were show girls and there were print girls, and very few did both,” Crawford says. “Gianni was the first to say, ‘I want the women in my campaign to also be on the runway.’ It was palpable that something had shifted.”