Cindy, Naomi, Christy, Linda, Yasmeen, Claudia: The 90s supermodels who changed the fashion game

It’s funny what YouTube’s algorithms throw up. For some reason, watching Usher’s Super Bowl halftime show prompted the platform to suggest I might like a compilation of Yasmeen Ghauri’s greatest catwalk moments.

Now, those of you born in a year beginning with 20 might ask, “Yasmeen, who?” If this is you, please pause reading this article and click on the link below immediately. I’ll wait.

Let me just say that watching the video dropped me into a rabbit hole that led all the way back to clips from the late 1980s and early 1990s  ̶  an era that fashionistas will remember as the golden age of the Supermodel. A brief sunlit moment when all was bright and sexy and glamorous on the runway. When fashion giants walked the earth, and everything they created felt accessible and wearable even if you couldn’t have afforded a single button. When everything and everyone felt hopeful simply because there was just so much incredible beauty on show.

Much of this had to do with the new breed of models that came striding down the runway around that time. They were fresh, young and gorgeous. It felt like they had thrown out all the rule books and wrote new ones.

It seemed as if they were everywhere. On magazine covers, of course, including the serious ones, like Time. On TV chat shows, commercials and music videos. They wrote books, sang and opened restaurants.

They were known only by their first names, they were that famous. Some were more famous than others, though it was like Sophie’s Choice trying to decide which one was your favourite.

For me, it was Christy. That ethereal, once-in-a-generation beauty. Willowy, sultry and angelic depending on whose clothes she was wearing. Eyes that smized for days, long before Tyra swooped in and trademarked that move. A smile that was halfway between beatific and a midnight kiss. A woman at the absolute peak of her beauty and, thank God, someone was smart enough to capture it all in Catwalk, probably the best documentary ever made about that moment in fashion history.

What made the supermodels more than just pretty girls who looked good in expensive clothes was that they also always looked like they were having a lot of fun  ̶   though, of course, this wasn’t really the case. They worked so hard and we now know they had to put up with crap and abuse, but it’s a testament to how good they were at their jobs that we never realised any of that. They made it all look so effortless and cool.

They knew how to walk, too. Well, at least, Naomi did. Claudia always walked like she was wearing heels for the first time, but she got away with it because she looked like the offspring of Bardot and Deneuve. And no one really cared how Cindy and Linda walked because we were all too busy drowning in their eyes.

Then there was Yasmeen. She had it all. She really hit the genetic jackpot, Yasmeen did. From her Pakistani father and German mother, she got her height, her cheekbones, the eyes, the hair, the ‘come dance with me all night, baby’ attitude, and that impossible figure which always felt like it was missing a few ribs. And boy, could that girl walk.

A few years ago, Tyra described Yasmeen as having the Walk of Life. And she nailed it. The Walk of Life. That’s exactly how Yasmeen walked. Hard to describe what the Walk of Life looks like, though, and for all the drag stars and wannabe models out there, even harder to replicate in real life with that unique combination of hip swivel, Mona Lisa-smile, and that imperious glance to the left of the audience.

Which is all a rather long-winded OTT way of saying that there are no models like Yasmeen today, much less Karen, Tatiana, Carla, Amber and Kate. Any one of those girls could light up a Vogue page or a billboard even if she was wearing just a sad old sackcloth.

The hyperventilation that has greeted the return of the supermodels to the runways and fashion houses over the past couple of years is telling. Not one of the current generation of models has ever generated that kind of buzz or coverage.

The other day, I was out at lunch with my mother at Paragon and on our way to the restaurant, she stopped in front of the window ad of a big brand fashion house. “Well, she’s angry. She looks like she just found out her boyfriend is cheating on her!”

I paused and looked at the ad my mother was dissing, and realised that it had been ages, years even, since I’d stepped foot inside the store. And now, I knew why. The ad campaigns were putting me off. And not just this one. All the ads in the adjoining stores weren’t doing it for me either. And they hadn’t been for years.

It dawned finally on me that it was because the models all looked so unhappy. Not a single one of them was having any fun, despite wearing all those expensive clothes and jewellery. Sullen. As bored as school kids in detention.

I couldn’t help but wonder: What happened? How did it all go so wrong?