I’m so excited to publish this. I still have some edits to do, but I can’t resist. I wish I could’ve posted this on Linda’s birthday, but better late than never. I hope you guys love it. Linda is the ultimate model!
5/17/22: Working on a series in the coming months.
Fever to Tell
Lauded as the Maria Callas of modeling, the supermodel of supermodels, and the model, Linda Evangelista has experienced longevity like no other while redefining the notion of the fashion model since starting her journey in 1984. Born to Italian immigrants on May 10, 1965, in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, Linda as a child was very tall, frail but carried herself beautifully according to Marisa Evangelista, Linda’s mother, and dreamed more than anything of being a model since the age of 10.
“Since I was 10 years old, I have always wanted to be a model. My mother told me that, as a little girl, I used to spend my time trying her dresses on and swiping her jewelry.”
Blessed with a modest home life and a close-knit family, the A-student was never without extracurricular activities, taking up ice skating, ballet, tap dancing, and even learned to play the accordion. Yet with all her talents, Linda as a fashion obsessed teen, adored fashion and modeling most, papering her bedroom walls with pictures of Kelly Emberg, Kim Alexis, and Joan Severance, torn from the pages of fashion magazines:
Yeah Yeah Yeah!
“At twelve, I could see she was into hair and experimenting with make-up,” says Marisa Evangelista. “She was always trying to alter her school uniform and not always getting away with it.”
Pack up
I’m straight
Enough
Linda’s appetite for fashion was so great that she would beg her mother to buy her new outfits in which to pose in and even enrolled her into a local modeling school. “I went through a kind of training session–not really a modeling school–where they taught us how to move, how to walk, how to use makeup, to do one’s hair–in short everything a young lady has to know! My mother spent quite a lot of money on clothes and makeup.”
Linda started off doing bridal shows, newspaper ads, and work for local department store catalogs. But she would finally get her big break at the age of 16 when she entered the Miss Teen Niagara Pageant. Although Linda ultimately lost the contest, an Elite scout happened to be in the audience at the time, and approached Evangelista, giving her his card. However, Linda would have to wait nearly three years to contact the agent as Evangelista’s parents wanted her to finish her education.
At the age of 19, in 1984, Linda Evangelista would finally realize her dream when she joined Elite New York. Linda was on her own in an agency apartment with eight other girls. She had her first test shoots for her portfolio and was paid $600 by Jean Louis David. Linda was ecstatic with her start, but Elite wasn’t impressed. “I thought it was great, but Elite obviously didn’t think so, because they shipped me off to Paris with two other girls.”
Although it would be three years until Linda did any work for Vogue, she persevered and reached her first turning point in her career in 1987 when Arthur Elgort booked Evangelista for French Vogue, which led to her fated encounter with Peter Lindbergh, leading to a job with Steven Meisel. Elite with a change of heart, suggested Evangelista return to New York:
I’ll say, say, say
I’ll say, say, say
I’ll say, say, say
I’ll say, say, say
I’ll say, say, say
“American Vogue started booking me,” she says. “They would book I don’t know how many girls a day, and you would sit there in hopes of being called for a picture. On one shoot I was booked with Steven, and there were quite a few models, and they asked me to get dressed and put me on the set, and I remember he released everyone else and finished it on me.”
“I asked my office to find out who this girl was and I booked her, says Meisel. “I think we had a three-day shoot, and I think Paulina [Porizkova] wound up in the story as well. Linda was the last day, and all of a sudden everyone fell in love with her on the set and said, ‘This is the girl we should have done the whole story with.’ We reshot 75 percent of it with Linda.”
“And I worked with Steven and Peter Lindbergh constantly after that,” says Evangelista. “That was my big break.”
In October of 1988, legendary fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh suggested Evangelista cut her hair after seeing her in a short-hair wig. Everyone from Steven Meisel to Linda’s mother scoffed at the idea. Although terrified at the thought, after ruminating on the matter, Linda was persuaded by Lindbergh and Julien d’Ys to go through with the big chop.
Julien d’Ys cut my hair short. At first, nobody understood, and people would tell Julien, “You are a monster how could you do this to Linda?” And the following season, short hair became the fad!
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Maps
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Linda’s fashion profile went into hyperdrive from then on, landing three Vogue covers that same year and nearly everyone emulating the look. The following year, Linda would have 6 Vogue covers for 1989, another 6 for 1990, and an unheard of 9 Vogue covers for 1991! Unbeknownst to Linda at the time, her aesthetic, larger than life rockstar aura and the late fashion designer Gianni Versace’s over the top, glamorous fashion productions would set the stage for the supermodel phenomenon.
Gianni can take a lot, a lot, a lot of credit for me sitting here today and talking to you. He was our biggest backer. He really believed in us. I don’t know if he knew what he was doing or it just happened — the way it happened. But he had a lot to do with the creating of the “Supermodel.”
From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, Linda Evangelista with Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, and Christy Turlington ushered in the era of the supermodel, where fashion models were bigger than Hollywood stars, commanded higher fees, landed lucrative contracts from major cosmetic brands, headlined daytime TV shows and magazines and starred in music videos like George Michael’s Freedom! ’90.
With the impact of grunge, the Kate Moss waif, and in era of third wave feminism where women demanded media be more conscious of its representation of beauty, the supermodel bubble burst and Linda growing tired of modeling, parted ways with the fashion world in 1998. “I wasn’t managing my time or my life properly and I felt that I had done everything I wanted to do. It was right for everyone involved for me to step aside.”
Made off
Don’t stray
My kind’s your kind
I’ll stay the same
Pack up
Don’t stray
I’ll say, say, say
I’ll say, say, say
But after a three year respite, the passion and zeal for Linda’s once beloved profession was rekindled, having her first of five Vogue covers in September of 2001, photographed by Steven Meisel with 28 pages dedicated to Evangelista! “I love fashion,” she shrugs. “I love everything about it. I love the people, I love the clothes, I love the creative process of taking the pictures.”
When Linda was asked about her feelings on what was the age of the supermodel, she exclaimed, “Things changed! Thank God they did. If we were stuck in that era forever? That would be horrible! Thank God we get tired of things and keep moving on. When I buy a magazine, I enjoy seeing new models, new writers, new photographers. Otherwise, we’d all be stuck in the eighties!”
Evangelista gave birth to her son, Augustin in 2006 and until 2016, has worked on and off in fashion and will only join in a project if she truly feels passionate about it. Linda’s 30 plus years of longevity is so remarkable. Even now she stands as the standard-bearer in the fashion world when many have gone away or fizzled out. Photographers, designers, and models alike still admire Linda Evangelista greatly.
The often taken out of context quote of not waking up for less than $10,000 a day is a total mischaracterization of who the real Evangelista is. To many she’s known as a consummate professional, who works the hardest, and someone who cares the most. “I care what people think and I shouldn’t. I try hard to please everyone, and I am insecure [about the way I am perceived]. Don’t ask me why. I always have been and always will be. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Maps
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Maps
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
“She has been the major co-author of the rewriting of the rules of modeling,” says Sarah Mower. “From the way she has insisted upon doing her own make-up to the fees she’s been able to command and the longevity of her career, she has been the prime mover in shifting the balance of power in models’ favour.“
The reason she’s such a favourite,” says make-up artist Mary Greenwell, “is that she’s a brave, creative woman who is totally open-minded about what you’re trying to do. She helps you bring out your own creativity.”
Among many of her contemporaries, Linda is regarded as a complete model or the model. As a fashion chameleon Linda could virtually model anything, change her hair color on a whim, and bring designers and photographers creative ideas to new heights. Even acclaimed fashion editor Tim Blanks couldn’t help but marvel at his favorite model Evangelista and her uncanny ability to hone and adapt her craft like no other:
I think she was and is the great actress of the modeling world. The ability to project a vast range of emotions just the way a great actress does. There’s just that innate quality that some people are born with that make them incredibly good at what they do and her destiny was to be a model.
Like the great artists of the Italian Renaissance, Linda too with the great designers and photographers of her time, unknowingly led a fashion and cultural Renaissance of her own. As a “character model,” Linda assumed the likenesses of Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sophia Loren. It’s if Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, and Patrick Demarchelier were creating their own silent films with Evangelista as each shot pieced together an iconic story.
Shane Watson once declared: Of all the supermodels, Linda was most responsible for elevating the job into an art form, pushing up the fees, piling on the expectations and generally ensuring that by the end of the Eighties the world of the top model had become as lucrative, glamorous and shrouded in enigma as that of the Hollywood star.
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Maps
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
Maps
Wait, they don’t love you like I love you
With her, there’s always such a devotion to the job. She’s creative, artistic, original. We always think together, sometimes suffer together, to get the best picture. I feel I could work with her for six months and it would never be boring. – Peter Lindbergh
Linda Evangelista never cared for her supermodel designation by the media or using modeling to branch into another arena. Most models just stumble into it, but for Linda it was a dream, a passion, a way of life. Everyone from Karl to Peter Lindbergh were mystified with Linda’s innate ability and creative force. It’s an enigma that probably eludes Evangelista herself, but it’s truly a work of the heart.
“I was never ashamed to be a model — it was my dream. A lot of people would never admit to that or don’t want to be a model and complain about it. I’ve always been very grateful to have realised my dream. I never felt the need to get out there and do something else to prove that I was better than a model or more than a model. And that I’m still here means I’m still realising my dream.”
Super Love Unknown 
Sources:
Mower, S. (1992, January). Bravo Evangelista! Sarah Mower applauds the qualities that took Linda to the top. Vogue UK. pg, 80-83.
Lamberterie, O. (1995, Vol. Fall, Iss. 6.) Linda Evangelista: Miss Sublimissima. Top Model (US). pg, 33.
Elle. (1995, December). The Changeling. Elle Australia. pg, 16-18.
Meter, J. (September, 2001). she’s back. US Vogue. pg, 584.
Norton, V. (2004, August 1). Model Behaviour: Why Linda’s happy to get out of bed. The Sunday Telegraph. pg, 23.
Shana and Ekat. (2006, October 13). Biography. levangelista.net. Retrieved from https://www.levangelista.net/linda/biography.html
Watson, S. (2001, August 20). Vogue’s Old Girl; Linda Evangelista Was the World’s First Supermodel. Now, at 36, She’s Back – Storming the Cover of American Vogue. The Evening Standard (London, England). Retrieved from https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-77329022/vogue-s-old-girl-linda-evangelista-was-the-world-s
Pielou, A. (2004, March 21). Viva Linda. The Mail on Sunday (London, England). Retrieved from https://www.questia.com/article/1G1-114494879/viva-linda#/
Helmore, E. (2005, September 23). The Fashionable One; in the Supermodel Era, Linda Evangelista Was the Fashion World’s Favourite, and She Can Still Turn It on If the Cause Is Right. but What Gets Her out of Bed Now, Asks Edward Helmore. The Evening Standard (London, England). Retrieved from https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1G1-136572361/the-fashionable-one-in-the-supermodel-era-linda#/
Hector Caamaño. (2016, March 23). Fashion File : LINDA EVANGELISTA [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/bR9NMCX7MRM
Style.com (2014, Apr 24). Linda Evangelista: The Fashion Chameleon – #TBT with Tim Blanks – Style.com [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/Z3Y2Ykh-Z-8
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