However otherworldly supermodel-dom seems to the majority of the world, Linda Evangelista quietly smashed that myth Tuesday night.
In a 92NY “Fashion Icons” talk with Fern Mallis, the Canadian-born beauty detailed her life and career with candor and wryness. With her soft voice, Evangelista had no shortage of colorful stories to share, but delivered them evenhandedly and chose her words carefully.
Interestingly, the 90-minute discussion was less about the international fame and Concorde-flying lifestyle and more about some of the personal struggles, especially health-related ones, that have jolted her. She has gone through lung surgeries, two bouts with breast cancer, CoolSculpting-induced paradoxical fat hyperplasia and the subsequent stay-at-home years. The 58-year-old also opened up about her relationship with her son’s father, François-Henri Pinault, and his actress wife Salma Hayek. She was less verbose about the new AppleTV+ docuseries “The Super Models” that she headlines and executive-produced with Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington.
Evangelista spoke more haltingly about her ex-husband Gérald Marie, the former Elite Model Management executive whose case of alleged rape and assault crimes was closed by French prosecutors last year, due to the statute of limitations.
One resounding takeaway was Evangelista’s certitude about modeling and getting the right shot. What other model would put a sweet in her mouth to have a baby chimpanzee kiss her for a Barneys New York ad or hang upside down from a ladder for a Gianfranco Ferré ad? Reminded that a bucket of water had been doused over her head for Marc Jacobs’ first Perry Ellis campaign, she said, “Did they do that to me? I remember sitting in the drawer of a dresser and stuff on the beach.” Told it was a one-shot take, Evangelista said, “Well, I’ll do anything for a great picture.”
“Somewhat of a tomboy” with an older and a younger brother, Evangelista’s extracurricular activities included tap and jazz, figure skating and accordion lessons “because we weren’t getting a piano,” she explained. When the dance school closed, her bookkeeper mother suggested modeling classes, but those were too expensive so she started out with self-improvement classes before taking the modeling ones. “I know how to set a table, walk down a set of stairs…I know how to do all of the etiquette,” she said.
Using the money she saved from working in a convenience store in Canada, she bought fashion magazines to tear out pages for her bedroom walls. Janice Dickinson, Joan Severance, Carol Alt and Kim Alexis were a few favorites. After participating in the “Miss Teen Niagara” pageant, an agent who had discovered Alexis offered to take photos of Evangelista for Elite, should she ever decide to model. Two years later she did.
A solo teenage trip to Japan for an assignment turned out to be a big mistake. The Tokyo agency was “not legitimate,” and suggested insistently (and mistakenly) that she wanted to do nudes, she said. “They were very aggressive with me,” she said, adding that she followed her mother’s advice and got out of Japan with help from the Canadian embassy. “The moral of life is, ‘Listen to your parents.’”
Although she “didn’t learn her lesson there,” Evangelista said her parents tried to stop her from getting married to Gérald Marie. More on that later.
Under her mother’s guidance, Evangelista’s second modeling attempt included relocating to New York and later a contract with John Casablancas, who asked her to lose five pounds. After limited jobs, she shipped out to Paris, where her hotel had bedbugs.
Evangelista described Karl Lagerfeld as a “a real night owl,” who would arrive at 4 or 5 p.m., have dinner and start working after midnight. “You would think you were done and he would say, ‘I just got these [Paul] Poiret pieces from an auction, do you want to try them on?” impersonating Lagerfeld. She continued, ”It just kept going, because he was enjoying himself. That was fine with me, because I enjoyed every minute of it.”
Evangelista first worked for photographer and friend Steven Meisel on a Vogue shoot in the Grace Mirabella-led days where bathrobe-clad models waited on sets with their hair and makeup done, hoping to be selected. At that time, film from photo shoots was flown to New York on the Concorde for editor approval. When photographers still used real film, “there was no post-production. Maybe they made it lighter or darker, but everything happened in that moment,” Evangelista said. “It felt better, more important and more real.”
“Reflectors could be used to hide bags under a model’s eyes and jackets were cinched in the back to elongate models’ legs for more of a fashion illustration effect. Today they just don’t want to be bothered. I seriously don’t think I’m needed on these photo shoots. Everything is, ‘We’ll fix that later.’ I will say, ‘The button just fell off.’ And they will say, ‘Don’t worry.’ [waving a hand dismissively.] AI is going to take it to a whole other level. But yeah, it’s a little scary.”
Gianni Versace “loved for their personalities to shine through” and “got us as people, humans and women rather than mannequins. Plus he was lots of fun,” Evangelista said. Other favorite designers were Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren, Azzedine Alaïa, Miuccia Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Anna Sui, Marc Jacobs, Isaac Mizrahi and more.
Another lensman friend, Arthur Elgort, recognized her enthusiasm and agreed to photograph her for her first French Vogue shoot. “He taught me that if you want a great picture, you have to make it happen,” she said.
Asked about her five-year marriage at the age of 22 to Marie, Evangelista said, “My parents said, ‘Please don’t.’ I should have listened. It was very unfortunate. I was young and naïve. He was, believe it or not, charming, but it was a lot to get out.” Marie has reportedly denied allegations of criminal wrongdoings against models in the ’80s and ’90s.
For Evangelista, modeling became an escape from the reality of her health issues. “It was such a joy to go off, be someone else and to create, and not have to deal with myself.”
Asked if she remembered being engaged to the actor Kyle MacLachlan, Evangelista replied “kind of” — to much laughter from the crowd. Evangelista described losing a pregnancy with another former fiancé, French soccer player Fabien Barthez, as “one of the really hard moments in her life” that she is “still grieving.” A few years later she gave birth to son Augustin James Evangelista whose father is François-Henri Pinault. “I didn’t think it was anyone’s business,” she said, of keeping the father a secret for many years.
Evangelista said that she has always had a great relationship with Pinault, as has their 17-year-old son. She said the same of Pinault’s second wife Salma Hayek who last Thanksgiving insisted on cooking for Evangelista, who was ill from chemotherapy, in New York. “I told her, ‘I want your Mexican chicken.’ I don’t want turkey. She put on a whole shindig all by herself…I do love her.”
The supermodel said her son’s lack of entitledness stemmed from raising him as she was raised. “It got easier after I came out of seclusion. I really only came out for him and for doctor’s appointments. I really believe in out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I could go anywhere and nobody knew who I was.”
In 1988 at the urging of photographer Peter Lindbergh and Vogue’s Anna Wintour, her ponytail was chopped off to reveal a now-signature jawbone-skimming haircut.
Told there is now a wig called “The Evangelista,” she said, “There is? I would have gotten it during chemotherapy had I known.”
Another breakout moment was the supermodels’ appearance in George Michael’s “Freedom! ‘90” music video. It was inspired by a British Vogue cover with Turlington, Tatjana Patitz and others. “It was the launch of, it was not my term, ‘supermodels,’” Evangelista said. “I don’t know where the term came from. There were lots of supermodels before us — Lauren Hutton, Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton.”
Michael “lined us up for this huge production with David Fincher and I didn’t want to do it. The reason was it wasn’t fashion. A video? What purpose does that serve? Finally, he wore me down and I shot the last day of filming. That morning in my kitchen, we bleached me blonde at four in the morning. Right, Garrin? [the moniker hair stylist, who was in Tuesday’s audience.] Then I flew straight to the video shoot and they were kind of surprised when they saw me.”
Recalling a Barneys New York ad campaign where male celebrities doubled as accessories, Evangelista singled out Tony Bennett, who let her sing. “Poor guy. I just kept thinking this guy must be deaf. It was wonderful.”
Evangelista also opened up about how 2017 CoolSculpting sessions left her disfigured and apartment-bound and required two invasive surgeries to try to correct it. As for why she went public with that plight, she said, “I got tired of hiding. I didn’t want to be miserable anymore. I just wanted to live again.”
She refrained from discussing “The Super Models,” as a sign of “solidarity with all of the SAG members. We are not able to talk about it or promote it — for a very good cause.”
Describing her battle with breast cancer, she urged the crowd to not skip annual mammograms. “Early detection is everything.” Evangelista said. Working with NYU Langone Health, she said she wants some of the proceeds from “Linda Evangelista Photographed by Steven Meisel” to benefit women who can’t afford wigs or prosthetics.
As for what’s next, Evangelista said, “I hope I get really old.”