21/08/2026
New subscribers-only video: The rise and fall of the supermodel
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The supermodel was one of the strangest business phenomena of the 1990s. In this video, I break down how Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer and others became global brands—and why the economic system that made them enormously valuable eventually collapsed.
The rise of the supermodel wasn't just about beauty. It was the product of a powerful business ecosystem. Agencies like Ford Models became gatekeepers for talent, while publications like Vogue and Sports Illustrated controlled distribution. As television and magazines created a shared American monoculture, a handful of models could become familiar to millions of people at once.
By the early 1990s, that machine had created stars. Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and their peers weren't simply modeling clothes anymore—their names and faces had become brands. Campaigns, sponsorships and runway contracts could be worth enormous sums, while appearing in magazines functioned almost like a loss leader that generated attention for more lucrative opportunities.
But the same system that created the supermodel also made the business vulnerable. Fashion tastes changed, Kate Moss helped usher in a deliberately less polished aesthetic, and Hollywood celebrities increasingly competed for magazine covers. Then the internet weakened the magazines and other gatekeepers that had concentrated attention on a tiny number of people.
Instagram pushed that disruption even further. Models and other personalities could suddenly reach audiences directly instead of relying entirely on agencies, casting directors and magazines. Beauty went from something distributed through a handful of powerful institutions to something almost anyone could publish. The old supermodel model lost the scarcity that had made it work.
For me, that's what makes the rise and fall of the supermodel a business story. When your success depends on somebody else's distribution platform, a change in technology or consumer behavior can rewrite the economics underneath you. Whether that platform is a magazine, modeling agency, Amazon, eBay or something else, building entirely on someone else's gate can leave a business exposed when that gate disappears.
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