WHY "SUPERMODEL" DOESNT MEAN WHAT IT USED TO

Today, almost anyone with a successful modelling career gets called a "supermodel." But there was a time when that title belonged to a remarkably small group of women, and it changed fashion forever.

We throw the word around so casually now that it's easy to forget it once meant something very specific.

The modern supermodel wasn't simply someone who wore beautiful clothes. She sold them. She had name recognition, cultural influence and the kind of celebrity that extended far beyond the runway.

A lot of people trace that shift back to Gianni Versace.

Instead of treating models as interchangeable, he kept casting the same women season after season. Naomi. Linda. Christy. Cindy. They became familiar faces rather than anonymous models walking a runway, and eventually people were turning up to see them just as much as the collections.

The moment that truly cemented it came in 1991, when Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington closed Versace's Autumn/Winter show together, lip syncing George Michael's Freedom. It wasn't just a runway finale. It became one of fashion's defining pop culture moments.

Around the same time, Linda Evangelista delivered the quote that followed her for decades, saying she and Christy Turlington "don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day."

Whether people admired it or rolled their eyes, it completely changed how the public thought about models. They weren't just clothes hangers anymore. Their names, personalities and earning power had become part of the story.

When people talk about the "Big Six", the exact line up is still debated. But names like Elle Macpherson, Tyra Banks and Helena Christensen are consistently part of the conversation around fashion's original supermodel era.

Elle Macpherson became "The Body" and transformed that image into a global business empire. Tyra Banks broke barriers that mattered, becoming one of the first Black models to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit and walk as a Victoria's Secret Angel at a time when representation looked very different. Helena Christensen crossed into mainstream pop culture through Chris Isaak's Wicked Game, proving models could become celebrities in their own right.

By the early 2000s, fashion had become so culturally dominant that Zoolander could exist.

A comedy about a clueless male model only works if the audience already understands the world it's parodying. Fashion wasn't niche anymore. Models had become household names in the same way actors and musicians had.

Today, many of those women are still shaping the industry in different ways. Naomi Campbell continues to walk major runways. Christy Turlington has dedicated much of her life to maternal health through her nonprofit work. Cindy Crawford's daughter, Kaia Gerber, is now one of the biggest models in the world, carrying part of that legacy into a new generation.

And that's probably the biggest difference between then and now.

The women of the '90s became famous because they were models.

Today, modelling is often just one part of a much bigger ecosystem. Some models arrive with millions of social media followers. Others have famous parents before they book their first campaign. Celebrity, influence and modelling now feed into each other in ways they simply didn't thirty years ago.

That doesn't make today's generation any less talented.

It just means they're playing a completely different game.

Maybe that's why the word supermodel feels different today.

In the 1990s, it described a tiny group of women who became global celebrities through fashion alone. Today, fame often comes first and modelling follows.

The industry hasn't lost its talent.

It's simply changed the rules.

Which raises the question: will fashion ever create another Big Six, or was that a moment that fashion could only produce once?

With love (and frankness),

Bea x