From Kara to Gigi: A new era of supermodels
"Linda, Naomi, Christie - they were movie stars; they were celebrities; they were superglamorous; they, you know, created dreams ", - says Camilla Nickerson, executive editor of American Vogue. She, like many experienced editors of large magazines, managed to work with the whole supermodel: Kate and Claudia, Cindy, Gisele and Milloy and, of course, Linda , Naomi and Christie. They lived like rock stars, looked like “even better” versions of Hollywood divas and received royalties with many zeros, hung out with the most talented and famous, and frankly enjoyed life.
Their main advantage was that everyone liked these girls: both Alexander McQueen and George Michael, and conditional teenage girls who hung their rooms with torn pages from magazines. It really was a phenomenon impossible without the prefix "super." Many of them are still actively working, using the status of godmothers in modeling, but the world did not stop when the nineties were over. The fashion industry is developing at such a pace that the head is spinning, and, it seems, the institute of superstars is gone, having broken into thousands of different with smaller ambitions. But no, new supermodels have appeared - and they are really new.
2015, January. “I was very lucky to live and work as a model in the era of social networks. Previously, models were just faces, and social media gave us the opportunity to have not only a face, but a voice,” said Gigi Hadid in an interview with Vogue less than a year ago. Over the past few months, from a rising star of model business, it has turned into a model of the year according to readers of Models.com, the main star of her favorite social media (according to the jury of Models.com), Victoria's Secret model, face Tommy Hilfiger, Max Mara, Versace, Balmain and Topshop and the heroine of the covers of the British and Italian Vogue.
The number of followers on Instagram has grown from 1.6 million to 10 million, while Gigi also appeared in the video for the track Kelvin Harris and Disciples "How Deep Is Your Love" (300 million views) and in the video Taylor Swift for the song "Bad Blood" (678 million views). Less. Than. Behind. Year. It is foolish to compare decades here, as is the case with supermodels, because in 2005 Gigi was, in general, ten.
Such scales and rates as Gigi and her friend Kendall Jenner raise a number of questions. The main ones: how and why? That is a year ago, when we (and not only we) recognized that Kendall is the main model of 2014, her success could be explained by the popularity of her family and the effect of novelty. Now it is impossible. A year ago, Jenner had 16 million subscribers on Instagram and a big cosmetic contract with Estée Lauder, and this one has 44 million subscribers, contracts with Fendi and Balmain and one of the four anniversary covers of Vogue Paris. On the other three, by the way, Gisele Bundchen, Christy Turlington and Kate Moss - a serious neighborhood for the "beginner."
Anyone who even squinted at the geometric progression of the success of two girlfriends might have noticed that editors, stylists and designers are increasingly timidly using the forgotten word “supermodels” in relation to them - and brands are not shy about playing allusions to supermodels and shooting the past. And they do it timidly because it is still not clear how to identify the place of such players in the industry. They look like models, famous as celebrities, live like wealthy heirs (and they are) and deal with their social networks with care, which the top bloggers will envy, and their career does not even take two years. What is it then?
The main thing is that these girls can no longer be dismissed with the words: "Damn, how much is already possible." Yes, they are literally everywhere, but, as time has shown and the example of the pioneer of this wave of Cara Delevin, this is not the error of the industry, but only the beginning of a completely new era that is changing the model business. The hyper-claimed girl with eyebrows was replaced by Kendall, who is about to be moved by her friend Gigi, and behind them new social media giants are growing up - the incredibly beautiful model Smith family: Lucky Blue, Daisy Clementine, Piper America and Starley Cheyenne.
Yes, none of the new stars can not compare with Kate and Naomi - at least because for this you need to spend under the spotlights much more years, and at most - because the rules have changed. Regretting this is the same as blaming digital cameras for killing film. Because no matter how short the glory of these modern heroines is (and we cannot yet predict its duration), Kendall and Gigi already have what the “real” supermodels have been striving for over the years. In general, they have even more.
Firstly, Gigi was not cunning when she said that she loves social networks for the opportunity to speak. New models are not silent - a few months ago, Hadid turned out to be the object of ridicule caused by her allegedly unmodeling parameters, and responded to this with an open feminist letter. Cara Delevingne did not hide his bisexuality and relations with the singer St. Vincent. Kendall, like her entire family, actively supported Caitlin Jenner throughout the process of correcting biological sex, and Lucky Smith Smith regularly appears on TV shows and shares her existential reflections with subscribers.
Selfie Kendall, Cara and Gigi sell collections better than shooting and shows
On the exhaust - some advantages: new heroes have a positive effect on fans and provide themselves with a couple of thousand new mentions in key media. After all, what did we know about the personalities of the first supermodels? In addition to carefully edited interviews in gloss, gossip and random snapshots of paparazzi, fans didn’t receive practically any information that would allow them to judge the life, views and beliefs of modeling stars - and here’s a ready-made social position first-hand.
Secondly, Kendall, Gigi, and Cara are media monopolists. Remember the famous phrase attributed to the Evangelist? "For less than ten thousand dollars, I won't even get out of bed." Yes, for ten thousand dollars social media models will not even agree to stand next to your project. According to the CR Fashion Book, models of the first echelon - just Hadid, Jenner and Delevingne - receive from 125 to 300 thousand dollars for one post on Instagram. Favorite top photographers and “angels” of Victoria's Secret, Carly Kloss, Miranda Kerr and Behati Prinslu turned out to be second-tier models - “only” 25-50 thousand dollars for a photo on the social network.
In contracts of new stars, the number and nature of Instagram-pictures are spelled along with the terms of participation in the show or shooting, because their selfies sell collections better than shooting and shows. Olivier Rustin didn’t just choose Kendall as the main face of the Balmain x H & M collaboration: the total number of girl’s subscribers is 65 million. It is unlikely that you have forgotten what came out of this cooperation - a competent marketing strategy not only instantly sold all the things from the capsule collection, but also became the reason for a real shopping madness.
And thirdly, behind the new superpopular models there is a careful, verified, literally sterile management, which, as a rule, their influential parents are responsible for. Mom and Dad Smith were personally taken to the castings of each of the four children, as soon as those milk teeth were replaced. Mama Gigi Hadid, a reality star, a former fashion model and ex-wife of construction magnate, first took her daughter to the Guess film set when she was two. Mama Kendall, Chris, produced her entire Kardashian-Jenner family. Cara's mom is the personal stylist of the Selfridges chain of stores, the grandfather is a British official, and the older sister is Poppy Delevingin's model. By themselves, these facts from biographies do not guarantee even an average model career, but they speak of targeted planning for future glory. This is not a story in the spirit of "walking the Scout Elite Modeling - and found in McDonald's Gisele Bundchen".
It was just the middle of the 2000s, when fashion blogs began to appear and everyone happily started talking about how much more accessible the industry had become, it was a good, but hypocritical period. Such a large and tough business can not be hospitable. Girls like Gigi are pleasant and open, but their career is impossible for a simple beautiful girl from the suburbs: she will not have a life that fans can dream of, there will be no famous rich girlfriends and parents who know who to call. And, accordingly, this girl will not be able to provide direct sales of such volume, even if she is super-gorgeous. Because while talking about rational consumption is just talking: brands annually produce eight collections each, a Dolce & Gabbana logo slapped on a bucket of potatoes makes everyone hunt him on eBay.
It would be foolish for all this to predict the decline of the career of "ordinary" models. For designers and stylists, the overall concept is still important, not the popularity of individual girls. In addition, the worldwide fame of Kendall, Gigi and others leaves them a little sideways: the girls look too "folk", they are too understandable and cute, there is no depth in their images, so they are not suitable for the presentation of intelligent brands - the average adult customer Céline or Hermès is not things to peripetias family Kardashian. And here it is important for brands not to miss the moment.
Five years ago it would never have occurred to anyone that Rihanna would represent Dior, and Selena Gomez would become the ambassador of Louis Vuitton. The decisions of PR-departments of brands with a long history to choose pop stars as ambassadors still seem controversial to many people and at least mean that the division into high and low culture is becoming obsolete before our eyes. But the generation of YouTube and Instagram is getting older, soon these girls and boys will reach the peak of solvency, and then those who could find a compromise between the DNA of the brand and effective ways of attracting young customers through new mega-new-lookmakers will win.
In this sense, Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid are just a compromise. It may not be universal yet, but this does not mean that in the near future a suitable newsmaker will also not appear for even more intelligent brands of at least about the same scale. And to the question of whether these girls can be considered supermodels, well, what's the difference? They are exactly models and exactly super - their portfolio and demand speak for themselves more eloquently than any texts.
Photo: IMG Models, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Versace