Fashion Designer Mourns Era of Tall, Dramatic Ladies

by Liz Colville

In an interview with WWD, fashion designer Anna Sui wistfully contrasts the present era of the Eastern European model with the bygone heyday of the dramatic and demanding supermodel. Of the Naomis and Helenas and Mosses and the like, Sui says:

They would come in and look at your Polaroid board and count how many outfits they had, what order they came out in, and who were they next to. They would say things like, ‘She is taller than me, and I am not coming out after her,’ ‘How come she has three outfits, and I only have two,’ and ‘I want that outfit.’ They’d literally pull the Polaroid off the board and say they want to wear this.

Sounds awful. But actually, no!

There was a reason they were supermodels, though. When they put on an outfit, everyone was floored.

Sui says the supermodels were working even when they weren’t: they wore some of her early designs to a Chanel show before she’d even had a runway show, and suddenly Karl Lagerfeld wanted to know who she was. How does this work today? Well, celebrities, of course! You love them. [Via]

Photo by Jgro888 via Wikipedia