THE NINETIES and Noughties were awash with supermodels.
Catwalk superstars like Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington, Kate Moss, Eva Herzigova and Jodie Kidd became household names.
They swapped strutting their stuff on the runways of the world’s most fashionable cities for talk shows, fitness programmes and clothing brands.
Some made history – Naomi Campbell was the first black model to appear on the front cover of Time, French Vogue, British Vogue, and the September issue of American Vogue, traditionally the year’s biggest and most important issue.
Later, names like America’s Tyra Banks and Germany’s Heidi Klum entered the mix, swiftly followed by Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen. Making big money and securing contracts with big brands, the supermodels ruled the fashion world.
Some of them even made it to Glasgow, albeit on rather less glamorous assignments.
In 2006, supermodel and car enthusiast Jodie Kidd was in the city to help launch the new online Road Tax Scheme.
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She popped in to the Glasgow Transport Museum and happily posed with some of the vintage vehicles on display (and a toy Ferrari F430).
Supermodel Eva Herzigova was at Fraser’s department store in 2007 to launch the new Philips Aurea TV.
She managed to make it look glam, although it cannot have been her most exciting modelling job. This was the woman who shot to fame as the face and body of Wonderbra, after all, who graced billboards and magazines around the world.
Perched on the Fraser’s staircase trying to look excited about a telly must have been a tough gig.
The Buchanan Street store locked its doors for the photo shoot, which involved Eva - made famous by her traffic-stopping Hello Boys bra advert in 1994 - parading down the stairs in a lilac dress and silver heels.
Arguably the world’s first supermodel, Twiggy, also posed for our photographers in Glasgow, back in October 1977.
She visited the city on several subsequent occasions, including a stop off in 2001 to Fraser’s (a favourite model destination, it seems) to promote her new range of skin care and beauty products.
Twiggy, whose real name is Lesley Hornby, gave up modelling in 1970 and on her visit to Glasgow 30 years later, our sister newspaper The Herald asked her if she thought modern-day models have a tougher time than she did back in the 60s.
“What happened to me was extraordinary but I was exclusively a photographic model,” she said in the interiew.
“In those days, that's all that we did. If you were a top model, you never did catwalk. It wasn't until, I think, Versace in the 80s, that it all turned around and the supermodel arrived and started doing both.”
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