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Veteran New York City adman David Altman recalls paying Lauren Bacall less than $25 to pose back in the 1940s. Ten years ago, a top model in New York City earned about $5,000 for a day's advertising or commercial work. Today the superstars can make between $15,000 and $25,000 a day. Each of a tiny handful of the most sought after is earning in the neighborhood of $2.5 million a year. Perhaps 30 of the next in line earn around $500,000 a year. The managers reap a pretty harvest too. Agents receive 15% or 20% of the model's fee, though top stars use their clout to pay less.
Fame may come from the fashion magazines, but it is the big cosmetics contracts that bring in the serious cash. A top model agrees to represent a line of makeup for Elizabeth Arden, say, or Estee Lauder for a set time period. A major contract would be worth $5 million and run three or four years. Supermodel Crawford signed a four-year deal with Revlon in 1989 that is said to total around $4 million; Paulina Porizkova's exclusive long-term contract with Estee Lauder is probably worth more than $6 million.
As the most famous black supermodel, though, Campbell does not snare the same volume of advertising assignments as her white counterparts, nor has she been signed by a cosmetics company. "I may be considered one of the top models in the world," she says, "but in no way do I make the same money as any of them." Asian models find it especially difficult to get work, according to Rosemarie Chalem at the Zoli agency in New York City. "In every country," says Chris Owen, director of the British agency ElitePremier, "blond hair and blue eyes sell."
Advertisers pay the supermodels exorbitantly because they believe these faces can move their merchandise wherever it is sold. Says Noelle Duperrier- Simond, who works on the L'Oreal account at McCann-Erickson's Paris office: "These girls have the looks that work everywhere they're seen. That's what the client is paying for." The face of Isabella Rossellini adorns Lancome ads worldwide; Evangelista and Turlington push Chanel clothes in 23 countries.
THE MANIPULATION
"Sweetheart, I'm gonna make you a star." Models hear that kind of promise all the time, usually over drinks in a dimly lit room. But in a few rare instances, it actually happens. A select group of photographers and magazine editors has the power to turn a wallflower into a princess. New York photographer Steven Meisel became instrumental in developing Evangelista's chameleon-like ability to reinvent herself constantly as a model. (Jose Fonseca, a partner of the British agency Models1, calls her "the Madonna of the modeling world.") For example, first Meisel shot her with a broad smile, then somber; each time she looked different. Result: some 60 magazine covers for Evangelista in the past three years.