Going Vogue: Model Behavior

Not to blow my own horn here or anything, but the December cover of Harper’s Bazaar UK was leaked last week, and with its release a few of my predictions came true about the fashion industry.

As I knew it would, the Age of the Model has officially returned. Models are superstars again. There was that 10-year lull in the 2000s when only movie stars got covers — and while the majority of magazine covers are still dominated by celebrities, models are slowly taking the mags back.

First of all, Elle recently devoted four different covers to four different Victoria Secret models: the consistently enviable Miranda Kerr, and her colleagues Chanel Iman, Adriana Lima and  Doutzen Kroes. They didn’t stuff those skinny divas onto one cover, oh no. Elleput those icons of sexy front and center — and may I mention that Kroes and Lima are two very curvy ladies. Supermodel Lara Stone landed that iconic French Vogue cover — you know the one I’m talking about: She’s squeezing her (gorgeous) breasts together right below eye level, but let’s be honest, no one was looking at her face. Names like Karlie Kloss, Lindsey Wixon, and Freja Beja are immediately recognizable — and if you don’t know their names there is no doubt you know their faces.

Celebs better watch their backs. Model appeal is based on their ability to be striking without ever having to say a word. They silently dominate the fashion world: mysterious, intriguing, endlessly sexy — people are compelled to watch them without the added incentive of a sex scene or a big explosion. Models move with the tide of fashion, in one moment edgy, in the next classic. In that way they’re like actors — dressing up and playing pretend — the difference is that their modes of costume are far more exciting and unpredictable: From those giant Victoria Secret wings to Alexander McQueen’s infamous foot attire, there are no archetypes on the runway. Models are full of surprises — and to a public bored to death by Lindsay Lohan’s continuing jail saga and the Kim Kardashian divorce “scandal,” the model is the perfect anecdote for the yawns.