Claudia Schiffer remembers being a Barbie girl

Celebrating 30 years in fashion, Claudia Schiffer remembers her living-doll moment in 1994

This picture was taken by Ellen von Unwerth for Vogue Italia in 1994. The story was called Claudia:

The Real Barbie and, as you’d imagine, there were mountains of blonde hair and an array of Barbieworthy dresses; lots of PVC and chainmail. Every time I felt the hair couldn’t get any bigger, it did, and no one on set would stop touching it as they walked past – making me really feel like the toy!

The look was a big part of the shoot but, as always with Ellen, I also had to inhabit the role. I remembered the poses from playing with Barbie when growing up in the 1970s. It’s quite an odd thing to make your limbs look doll-like, but we had fun with the concept and set up some classic Barbie moments – brushing my hair, walking my dog, playing with Ken. It was very tongue-in-cheek.

By this point Ellen and I had worked together for several years, so she was someone I trusted and who always managed to make the photos look cool even if they were silly. We had both just started out, me as a model and Ellen as a photographer (Ellen herself had been a model before). Then when we were enlisted to work on the Guess campaign together, it became our big break as photographer and model – and from then on, our careers grew side by side.

My life was incredibly busy when this picture was taken: Ellen and I had recently worked on a cheerleader shoot for French Glamour as well as for Guess, but I was also working with Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel and the Versace campaigns with Richard Avedon, as well as lots of other editorials.

I never wanted to say no to a job I was interested in, even if it meant missing a party, or having a day off – which quickly gave me the reputation for being professional – but I was just acting on instinct, deciding for myself which campaigns to take part in. It’s still the way I am today.

The 1990s were a very competitive but fun time, when models became the rock stars of fashion. Previously they had either been a runway model or an advertisement face, now they could be both.

I remember when I first heard the term ‘supermodel’ I couldn’t stop laughing, but soon I came to realise that for me it was quite apt. There I was playing at being Superman, hiding behind the make-up and hair, when in real life I was actually Clark Kent, quite shy and introverted.

The irony of the Barbie shoot wasn’t lost on me, and of course it had a layer of meaning beyond just looking like a famous doll. The idea of models as mannequins who just looked pretty and said nothing – like real-life Barbies – was shattered in the supermodel era because our personalities became more important than they had ever been for models before. We were suddenly known across the world by our first names ( just like Barbie!), but for much more than just looking pretty. Some people might have seen the Barbie comparison unfavourably, but I was amused by it and knew what Ellen was saying.

The shoot underlined how recognisable we had become at the time – and poked fun at the idea that all we did was pose and dress up. The shoot inspired a lot of other photographers to create similar images in the years since – but I’m proud to have been the original Barbie supermodel. Claudia Schiffer, with an introduction by Claudia Schiffer and a foreword by Ellen von Unwerth, is published by Rizzoli in October (£45)

When I first heard the term ‘supermodel’ I couldn’t stop laughing, but soon I came

to realise that for me it was quite apt