Marketing Beauty and The Bucks

By Barbara Rudolph

They're beautiful, that's obvious. But they have something else: presence, or maybe allure, fascination or magic. Whatever it is, it hits the instant one sees Naomi Campbell in a yellow totem gown, a Nefertiti of the '90s. Or Linda Evangelista looking like a Scottish schoolgirl on the cover of Vogue. Or Christy Turlington gazing serenely from an ad for Calvin Klein's Eternity perfume. Naomi. Linda. Christy. They're everywhere. Vogue, Elle, feature pages, ad pages, gossip pages. Selling couture and catalogs, soap and sportswear. And during the fall fashion shows these three have sashayed their impossibly sleek, improbably long-legged frames down the runways in New York City, Paris and Milan.

They're the supermodels, and they're hotter than a curling iron. Whenever Evangelista, 26, dyes her trademark bob -- and that's often -- it's news. The fashion world quivers as her hair goes from dark brown to platinum blond to Technicolor red. Campbell's life and loves are chronicled as much as her face; her reputed affair with Robert De Niro has become a staple of the celebrity gossip pages.

Today's pretty women represent a new breed: mannequins with sex appeal, as glamorous as cinema legends, as visible as the designers whose clothes they parade. They earn spectacular loot from their spectacular looks. Because, more than ever, modeling is about money. At a time when spending is down, top mannequins can still make consumers buy, so they are paid millions. The worldwide recession and tough times in the advertising business have made the top models one of the few reliable sales tools.

The supermodels invest salesmanship with a class and seductiveness no longer found in movie stars who dress down in blue jeans and prefer environmental preservation to nightclubbing. The top mannequins -- among them Cindy Crawford, Elaine Irwin, Karen Mulder and Claudia Schiffer -- always seem perfectly coiffed and coutured, manicured and made up. Says Jerome Bonnouvrier, head of the Paris-based Glamour agency: "Modeling has become the new Hollywood."

The supermodels are something of a social anachronism: who they are is how they look. Yet feminism of a sort has come to modeling, at least behind the scenes. More and more top stars have learned how to exploit themselves rather + than be exploited by someone else. If anyone is going to control the product and the profits, they are. Says Turlington, 22: "We realize the power we have. We're making tons and tons of money for these companies, and we know it."

No matter that everyone in the business still calls them girls. These are women who involve themselves in every aspect of their careers. They have a hand in directing the mechanics of a photo shoot -- the lighting, the makeup, the poses and postures -- whatever it takes to make their pictures perfect. They decide which assignments to accept and reject, which exclusive contracts are too binding and which are too rich to pass up.

THE MONEY

Veteran New York City adman David Altman recalls paying Lauren Bacall less than $25 to pose back in the 1940s. Ten years ago, a top model in New York City earned about $5,000 for a day's advertising or commercial work. Today the superstars can make between $15,000 and $25,000 a day. Each of a tiny handful of the most sought after is earning in the neighborhood of $2.5 million a year. Perhaps 30 of the next in line earn around $500,000 a year. The managers reap a pretty harvest too. Agents receive 15% or 20% of the model's fee, though top stars use their clout to pay less.

Fame may come from the fashion magazines, but it is the big cosmetics contracts that bring in the serious cash. A top model agrees to represent a line of makeup for Elizabeth Arden, say, or Estee Lauder for a set time period. A major contract would be worth $5 million and run three or four years. Supermodel Crawford signed a four-year deal with Revlon in 1989 that is said to total around $4 million; Paulina Porizkova's exclusive long-term contract with Estee Lauder is probably worth more than $6 million.

As the most famous black supermodel, though, Campbell does not snare the same volume of advertising assignments as her white counterparts, nor has she been signed by a cosmetics company. "I may be considered one of the top models in the world," she says, "but in no way do I make the same money as any of them." Asian models find it especially difficult to get work, according to Rosemarie Chalem at the Zoli agency in New York City. "In every country," says Chris Owen, director of the British agency ElitePremier, "blond hair and blue eyes sell."

Advertisers pay the supermodels exorbitantly because they believe these faces can move their merchandise wherever it is sold. Says Noelle Duperrier- Simond, who works on the L'Oreal account at McCann-Erickson's Paris office: "These girls have the looks that work everywhere they're seen. That's what the client is paying for." The face of Isabella Rossellini adorns Lancome ads worldwide; Evangelista and Turlington push Chanel clothes in 23 countries.

THE MANIPULATION

"Sweetheart, I'm gonna make you a star." Models hear that kind of promise all the time, usually over drinks in a dimly lit room. But in a few rare instances, it actually happens. A select group of photographers and magazine editors has the power to turn a wallflower into a princess. New York photographer Steven Meisel became instrumental in developing Evangelista's chameleon-like ability to reinvent herself constantly as a model. (Jose Fonseca, a partner of the British agency Models1, calls her "the Madonna of the modeling world.") For example, first Meisel shot her with a broad smile, then somber; each time she looked different. Result: some 60 magazine covers for Evangelista in the past three years.

But a photographer can take a model only so far. She must still impress the fashion-magazine editors, who make and break careers. Though the magazines offer next to no money -- models get less than $300 for a Vogue cover -- they provide cachet and prestige. Among the dozens of fashion publications, Vogue (U.S. circ. more than 1.2 million) is the most powerful. The magazine maintains its hold on the market, says Grace Coddington, fashion director of the U.S. edition (there are nine Vogues around the world), in part because its top photographers do not work for competitors of Conde Nast, Vogue's parent company.

Everyone in the modeling world may call everyone else "darling," but it is a bitterly competitive business. Take the battle between the Elite Model Management agency and the long-reigning giant, Ford Models Inc. Back in 1977, John Casablancas, Elite's owner, opened an office in New York, having previously confined himself to Paris, and lured a number of top models away from rival agencies. Six months ago, the Fords -- Eileen runs the business with her husband Jerry -- opened an office in Paris, headed by their daughter Katie. The Fords scored a major coup in July when they announced that Naomi Campbell would be represented by Ford for all her Paris work; Elite will continue to handle her New York assignments.

When Elite learned that Ford France had booked Campbell for a coveted SPORTS ILLUSTRATED assignment, though, the battle raged anew. Casablancas and New York president Monique Pillard contend that Elite was entitled to handle the job since the agency represents Campbell in New York. At one point they even fired their star model, but soon reconciled. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this," fumes Pillard. "I spent three years trying to shove Naomi down S.I.'s throat." The Fords insist that since the photo shoot was in Europe, Ford France was entitled to handle the assignment.

THE MODELS

Some things don't change. Any fresh-faced 16-year-old who hopes to blossom into a supermodel must meet certain minimum requirements. Elite's Pillard reels them off: she must be at least 5 ft. 9 in., bone thin, have full lips, high cheekbones, large eyes, long legs and a straight, not too prominent nose. Models today are taller and fitter than those of previous generations, with fuller lips and bigger breasts. "The models are still skinny," comments Susan Moncur, 41, a semiretired Paris model, "but with big tits -- real or false."

Everyone tells the models they're gorgeous, but as long as they work they must guard against imperfection -- the bloodshot eye, the puffy face. They diet rigorously, and smoke to keep the weight off. Even on good days, models fret that they are not perfect enough. "A girl comes to a shoot with a pimple, and everyone's mumbling about her," says Kevyn Aucoin, a New York makeup artist. "She feels like she should commit suicide."

Curiously, great beauties do not always make great models. Connection to the camera is key. When photographer Arthur Elgort meets a young model for the first time, he wonders if she will "transfer" onto a photograph. "She's cute in her little jeans," he explains, "but when we pile the Givenchy and Ungaro on this 20-year-old, the girl could disappear before our eyes."

Whatever the type, many supermodels behave like prima donnas. Though the leading photographers and editors praise Evangelista's professionalism, there are those who say she can be the most difficult of all. A member of her hair- and-makeup brigade is asked if she is as much of a prima donna as people say. "She's worse," he replies. "You've seen the movie All About Eve? Enough said. It's Eve Harrington all over again." Says Susan Quillim of the Wilhelmina Models agency in New York: "Linda has been lavished with everything, and now she thinks she's fabulous." Mulder is also getting a "little bit too big for her boots," says Vogue's Coddington.

As supermodels assert themselves, many resent the industry's lingering sexism. "I hate it when they call us girls," says Crawford. "Most of us are not girly, and we don't run our careers like girls. When I walk away from this, I'll have the luxury of doing what I like."

That luxury could come after all too short a time since there are few models over 28, and the industry is always hungry for a new face. Says model Gabrielle Reece: "The younger, hotter, fresher girls are always coming along." Campbell must keep an eye on Beverly Peele, 16, who some are calling the "next Naomi." Crawford, 25, is said to have not one but two rivals nipping at her heels: Shana, 21, the Guess? jeans model who is starring in Calvin Klein's ads for his new Escape perfume; and Niki Taylor, 16, who has a mole on her face just like Cindy's. Says Crawford: "People think I'm jealous of Niki Taylor. But I got my 15 minutes of fame, and when you get it you realize it's not what it's cracked up to be." But quitting has never been easy for these coddled darlings. Says ex-model Moncur: "You exist through others' eyes. When they stop looking at you, there's nothing left."

Now listen to Niki Taylor, the lovely Florida blond, the model many say could represent the next generation of superstars. She has had 42 magazine covers since she started working two years ago, and is the youngest model ever to snare a big cosmetics contract. "I'm just playing it day by day and seeing how it goes," Taylor says. Does she want to be modeling at 25? "No," she says, and then her voice drifts off. "I don't know . . ." What she is probably thinking is, Twenty-five! That's so old! Who can think so far ahead?

With reporting by Anne Constable/London, Leonora Dodsworth/Milan and Edward M. Gomez/Paris