LINDA FOREVER
The legendary supermodel Linda Evangelista on life, love, and that notorious reputation. By Derek Blasberg. Photographed by Terry Richardson. Styled by Alastair McKimm
The original supermodel affirms she’s still got it
“Linda does not do social media.” The Linda in question, the one talking about herself in the third person, is Linda Evangelista, the monumental ’90s supermodel and fashion industry rabble-rouser. It’s a rainy day and we’re sipping coffee in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, a few blocks from the penthouse apartment she bought more than a decade ago, debating the pros and cons of the Internet. Indeed, the life of Linda Evangelista provides colourful search results. She was a small-town Canadian girl who moved to New York in the ’80s and, along with cohorts Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Christy Turlington, became one of the world’s most sought-after supermodels. She filled fashion magazines with glamour and tabloids with drama. She was a diva—she changed her hair colour 17 times in five years and her personal life was wanton. She married Gérald Marie, the head of her Paris agency, at the age of 22, then left him for the actor Kyle MacLachlan. In 2006, she had a son, Augustin James, but refused to name the father. (It was later revealed to be the French businessman François-Henri Pinault.)
Evangelista, 48, became known for being the industry’s best in front of the camera and the industry’s worst away from it. In 2001, she was sued by her former agency Wilhelmina for defrauding it of commissions before the agency dropped the case. Not that bad press mattered. She was still booked solid. That’s what led to the infamous quote that pops up with any Internet search of her name: “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day,” a reference to her fellow supes, and one that she hasn’t been able to live down since.
What Evangelista finds most appealing about social media is the idea of speaking directly to those fashion fans who grew up idolising her. “Maybe I should start a blog,” she says. “You control it. You can correct things that are said about you. That’s the first thing I’d do.” Like, for instance, the details that were reported in her child-support case—that she allegedly sued Pinault for USD46,000 a month. Evangelista says she was surprised at all the attention, since the headline-making behaviour recalled a former version of herself. “Motherhood is my whole life now,” she explains. “It’s the best. I am so fulfilled.”
The notion of Evangelista as a mother hen on float trips is hard to reconcile with her haute couture alter ego, a dichotomy she readily acknowledges. “There are lots of things you don’t know about me,” she says. “I do needlepoint, I do crochet, I cake-decorate.” She says she’s a proficient chef and a barista, and can play a mean accordion, a skill she acquired growing up in St. Catharines, Ontario. When she’s not working, days that used to be spent shopping, sleeping, and on the beach at her house in St. Tropez are now filled with crafting, specifically macramé, and playdates. And while Evangelista refuses to speak about her son, whom she calls Augie, a few bons mots slip out. “Let’s just say I have a child who doesn’t like fashion. He wants jerseys. We watch sports and go to games. I do boy things now.” As for dating, since splitting with Hard Rock Café cofounder Peter Morton this past spring, she’s single, not dating, and happy about it. “I look at it this way: I have been so lucky in love,” she says, adding with a cryptic smile, “Except for two times.”
Yet even with her various hiatuses from the spotlight, Evangelista is as super as ever. She was featured on the cover of Italian Vogue’s
“25 Years of Fashion” special issue this past summer and recently starred in campaigns for Chanel Eyewear, Hogan and Talbots. The images she created with photographers like Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Peter Lindbergh, and Norman Parkinson (not to mention her iconic BAZAAR covers) have become part of fashion history. “I knew they were legendary, but I didn’t know how relevant their work would become... I didn’t appreciate it at the time, and I regret that.” She remembers when makeup artists and hairstylists didn’t have teams of assistants, when the backstage cabine was the size of an airplane bathroom, and admits to being nostalgic for that era. “It was more personal. It had more energy.”
Evangelista says that in pre-digital-camera days, she felt she was creating art with photographers, which isn’t always the case now: “These young whippersnappers have brilliant eyes and ideas, but they’re not old-school enough for me.” She misses the great technicians who didn’t rely on computer wizardry. “When we were satisfied with how our Polaroids looked and we moved to film, those pictures did not need retouching. Now everything is [done in postproduction]. ”
Talk about intimidating: Can you imagine doing Linda Evangelista’s makeup? It would be like playing the piano for Mozart. “Sometimes I just say to a makeup artist, ‘Listen, I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but you’re doing my makeup and it’s going to be all right.’ Sometimes they do things like, when they get to my mouth, they hand me the lip pencil. And I say, ‘Oh, no, you do it. Just give it a shot’.”
Evangelista is quick to crack a joke, which raises the question: Could the model the industry loved to paint as bitchy and cynical actually be playful with a killer sense of humour? “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m just too honest. I say what other people wouldn’t. I like to be tongue-in-cheek.” Her nasal, winging voice, immortalised in Isaac Mizrahi’s 1995 documentary, Unzipped, when she moaned backstage at a fashion show about always being stuck with flat shoes while Naomi got the heels, now lets loose with punch lines and double entendres. I tell her that Karl Lagerfeld calls her “the best.” “The best what?” she snaps back. “The best complainer?” And she’s not afraid to poke fun at herself. “Want to know what I’m doing when I’m not working? Therapy—individual, group, all of it.”
Still, few can boast the kind of fiercely loyal cadre of friends that Evangelista has built for herself. Famed photographer Steven Meisel is one of her closest confidants. So is Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, the French stylist who Evangelista says “acts like a mum to me. She is very protective, caring, nurturing. And she yells at me!” And the hairstylist, Garren, who was largely responsible for her colourful crops and fluorescent bobs through the ’90s, Evangelista calls a big brother. And when good friend John Galliano was in rehab in 2011, she flew out and spent a day with him.“I didn’t want him to be alone,” she adds
Her friendship with Galliano aside, Evangelista refuses to be pinned down when asked to pick a favourite designer. To hear her talk about fashion is like listening to a woman describe her first true love. “I still crave fashion. I still love fashion. I mean, I’ve travelled the world to work in studios. Nobody put me in bathing suits on a beach.” She wasn’t the sexpot; she was the supermodel we wanted to dress up and project our fashion fantasies on. But when I mention the S-word, she says, “I don’t even know what that means anymore. Who is a supermodel now? Is everyone? Is no one?” She smiles. “You can call me whatever you want to call me. All I know is this: I’m still here.”
“I look at it this way: I have been so lucky in love,” she says, adding with a cryptic smile, “Except for two times.”