Supermodels

Supermodels are highly paid, high profile fashion models. These (usually female) celebrities, also known as cover girls, appear on top fashion magazine covers, in catalogues and in fashion shos.

The first model to pave the way for what would become the supermodel was Lisa Fonssagrives The relationship between her image on over 200 Voge covers and her name recognition led to the importance of Vogue in shaping future supemodels. Her image appeared on the cover of every fashion magazine during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s from Town & Couny, Lie and Vogue to the original Vanity Far.

Model Janice Dickinson has asserted that she was the person for whom the term was coined, as she popped the term herself while talking to her agent at the climax of her career by saying, "I'm not superman, I'm a supermodel"

In the 1980s, regulars like Gia Carangi, Carol Alt, Janice Dickinson, Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, Kim Alexis and Paulina Porizkova began to endorse products with their names as well as their faces, getting in front of everything from Diet Pepsi to Ford Trucks.