Christy Turlington | Steven Meisel | In Italy, Fearless Under Fire

Christy Turlington finds artistry in chaos, photographed in a womanly poses that resonate for the ages, by Steven Meisel for the July 2010 issue of Vogue Italia.

Wearing Louis Vuitton, Nina Ricci and Yves Saint Laurent, the Christy Turlington | Steven Meisel collaboration creates a modern-day goddess effect that anchors model Turlington in her surroundings. 

The tweets of today banter around the word “supermodel”, as if getting a modeling gig is all that is required to wear the crown. Grade inflation has come to the world of modeling.

Now we call them the “Big Six” supermodels: Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista, and Kate Moss. They are women who ruled as models, bringing their personalities to the runway and editorial pages of the worlds’ magazine with a star power that unsettled fashion designers.

One wonders if the backlash against model star power, one that reduced and redefined our cultural image of beauty, is as boldly overt as it appears now in the light of day. Thin by definition as models, the “Big Six” had womanly bodies and breasts and a healthy sensuality.

Although all are working today, they acknowledge not fitting the preferred definition of beauty by geniuses like Karl Lagerfeld, who insists that women have no hips or breasts — because he prefers an asexual woman and not one who utilizes her sensuality as part of her persona.

This season, the tide is turning again, as fashion moves to reclaim estrogen in a chaotic world looking for female principles in action.

The psychological terrain leading this Smart Sensuality excavation of womanly beauty has ancient roots in Italy and France and represents a rejection of purely Modern, essentially American values.