WHAT SHE MEANS TO ME

Bazaar’s creative director Jo Goodby on the singer Patti Smith ‘I have always admired Patti Smith for her passionate drive. Throughout her career, she has constantly evolved, switching her focus between music and motherhood, politics and poetry, biography and visual arts. At the age of 72, she is still a cultural force to be reckoned with, and in her androgynous uniform of black jeans and white shirts, remains effortlessly cool. Could there be a more empowering role model?’

The ballerina Lauren Cuthbertson on Margot Fonteyn ‘I found her biography at an antique fair in Torquay when I was eight. Just a few images transported me so far from my life. With her poise and glamour, Margot was what I could only dream of becoming. She captured the magic of ballet.’

The stylist Miranda Almond on

Michelle Obama ‘“When they go low, we go high,” said Michelle in 2016. It epitomises her approach to life. She is clever, strong and empowering as a woman, a mother and a human being.’

The Serpentine CEO Yana Peel on the artist Faith Ringgold ‘She inspires me with both her work and life story. Her passionate art, rooted in the American civil-rights movement, is only belatedly getting the recognition it deserves.’

The artist Maggi Hambling on the activist Mary Wollstonecraft ‘Mary wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, yet it was only last century that her cause was taken up by the suffragettes – a struggle that continues today with conversations about equal pay and representation. I’m excited to be creating a statue that features her inspiring words: “I do not wish [women] to have power over men, but over themselves.”’