“I love, love, love fashion so much, that’s why I became a model in the first place.”
A kind of Stradivarius” of models, Karl Lagerfeld, the Chanel designer, said of Linda Evangelista. “You can play her like you can play no other instrument.”Unlike some who are more famous for their temperament than their actual professional skills, Evangelista seems to win the respect of everyone she works with. In 2009, the photographer Steven Meisel recalled the first time he shot the eager young model, in the late eighties. He was working with the makeup artist François Nars and the hairstylist Oribe. “It was like crystal, like champagne corks popping. That smile! Her gums! Her eyes just twinkled! We were just very, very inspired and in love.” (The adoration was mutual) . Julien d’Ys cut her hair into what she described as “a bowl cut with sideburns”. She cried during the haircut but it turned out to be the defining moment of her career.
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I was intrigued by Linda Evangelista during the 90ties. She was one of The Supermodels, but for me she was the one. She had more courage than any other model! Her constant changes in hairstyles and colors and her drive, passion and commitment in front of the lens. She was the one that inspired even other models. “Linda probably loves modeling more than anyone I know,” her colleague Amber Valletta once observed. “That’s why we all love looking at pictures of her.” I loved her appearance the most in the photographs by Peter Lindbergh and Steven Meisel.
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Linda Evangelista’s place in fashion history has been cemented at the level of icon. She appears ageless. “I decided when I was twelve that it’s what I wanted to do, and I count my blessings that I got to realize my dreams,” she said in 2006. “Being a rock star was out of the question. I can’t sing.”
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Short Biography
Linda Evangelista is born on May 10, 1965 in Canada, to Italian immigrants. At twelve, the fashion-obsessed A-student (who jazzes up her staid school uniform with fringed cowboy boots and headbands) tells her mother. Linda enrolls in a year-long self-improvement course with instruction in etiquette and makeup application. “I do know how to set a table properly because of that and how to walk down stairs—which way to point my knees and my toes,”she later tells Vogue. She soon begins modeling for local stores for $8 an hour and is discovered by an agent from Elite Model Management at the 1978 Miss Teen Niagara beauty pageant at sixteen. Although she loses, she is spotted by the Elite scout in the audience, who hands her his card. Because of her parents’ strictness, she will wait two years to call him.
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At nineteen Linda moves to New York, where she where she stays at Elite’s Upper East Side apartment for models until the agency sends her to Paris. She becomes engaged to Elite agency owner Gérald Marie at Christmastime. “He put the ring on my finger and I went into shock.” she later recalls. They get married when Linda is 22 and stay married till 1993.
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In the meantime Linda poses for Steven Meisel, Arthur Elgort, Wayne Maser, Bill King, François Halard, and Alex Chatelain in Vogue. Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington (the Trinity) are booked together for the Paris shows.
In october 1988 photographer Peter Lindbergh requests Julien d’Ys to crop Linda’s long brown hair supershort. “I thought I was finished when they cut my hair,” she will later recall. But the daring do only adds more fuel to her career: “Within two months I made the grand slam: covers of American Vogue, Italian Vogue, British Vogue, and French Vogue.” Women everywhere ask their hairdressers for the Linda; a British wigmaker even dubs one the Evangelista. “Sure, I like my short hair. It also quadrupled my rate. I did get sick of seeing it on everybody, though—every stewardess, every salesclerk, and in every restaurant,” she later says.
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Super Linda: W magazine Dec ’12, by Steven Klein
stylist: edward enninful
hair: julien d’ys
make-up: peter philips
manicure: bernadette thompson
In 1990 Linda features alongside Turlington in “Pretty Women,” Jonathan Van Meter’s profile on the top models and best friends; Evangelista jokingly utters what will become one of the most famous phrases in the fashion world: “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.” The comment—once described as the “Let them eat cake” of the twentieth century—triggers a backlash against Evangelista and the Trinity, “until it drove the whole supermodel train right off the tracks,” Van Meter will later note. “I feel like those words are going to be engraved on my tombstone.” Linda Evangelista later says.
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Peter Lindbergh makes the fantastic documentary Models: The Film, in which you can see Linda Evangelista at work.
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In 1992 Linda meets Twin Peaks actor Kyle MacLachlan at the Barneys New York’s fall campaign and soon separates from her husband. Linda and Kyle become a couple.
Linda is so taken by the talent of John Galliano, she walks his first catwalk show for free.
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A couple of years later, Linda and Kyle MacLachlan split up and she begins dating French World Cup soccer player Fabien Barthez. In wake of negative press—calling her out of shape and run-down—during her run at Portugal Fashion Week, retires from the runway. “I was in love and wanted it to work. I was tired of traveling, tired of the whole scene, just tired,” she will later tell. In 2002 she appears on the cover of Vogue with the headline, “Linda Evangelista’s Stunning Return.” Jonathan Van Meter pens the cover story.
In 2004 the magazine i-D devotes its cover and an eighteen-page fashion portfolio to the modeling icon. Linda also begins a long-running role as ambassador for the Viva Glam V charity campaign of Toronto-based M.A.C. Cosmetics (which gave a teenage Evangelista free makeup when she was just starting out).“Now I get out of bed for a much better reason,” she will later say. “I’m part of a team that raises millions of dollars and raises awareness of HIV and AIDS all over the world.” This is not the only charity she works for, she even started her own charity with the singer Brian Adams years before she joint Viva Glam V.
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Linda gives birth to a son in 2006, Augustin James Evangelista. (The father is unnamed) In late June 2011, she files court papers that revealed her son was fathered by billionaire Frenchman François-Henri Pinault, by then the husband of actress Salma Hayek. After several court appearances aimed at establishing a child support agreement, on August 1, 2011, Linda formally filed for a child support order in Manhattan Family Court, seeking $46,000 in monthly child support from Pinault.A heavily-publicized child support trial began on May 3, 2012,and included testimony from both Pinault and LindaEvangelista, with Evangelista’s attorney claiming that Pinault had never supported the child.Several days into the trial, on May 7, 2012, Evangelista and Pinault reached an out-of-court settlement.
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In 2010 pondering the decade to come, stiletto maestro Manolo Blahnik tells WWD, “I think Kate Moss will have huge longevity, and Linda Evangelista will be eternal”
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Linda Evangelista by Mario Testino for V Magazine, Fall ’06
Linda Evangelista as Katharine Hepburn, photographed by Steven meisel
Love Magazine, s/s 2012
The Misfits, Photographers: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Stylist: Katie Grand
(Linda Evangelista has modelled for more than 300 magazine covers)
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