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Supermodels are no longer just pairs of wide-set eyes and endless limbs; they are becoming diversified corporations. "I am my own business," proclaims Campbell. "I used to fly to a country for a day and do another shoot somewhere else the next, but I don't do that as often as I used to. It takes a toll. I'm realizing that, now that I'm 24." Last Friday Campbell entered the presumably less stressful restaurant business. She and partners Claudia Schiffer and Elle MacPherson (who has landed a multipicture deal with Miramax) were on hand for the much-ballyhooed opening of their new Fashion Cafe at New York's Rockefeller Center. "It's our baby. We make all the decisions," asserts Schiffer, 24. "The difference between the girls today and models of the past is that we are not only interested in fashion; we are going in so many different directions at once. We work harder-at night and on weekends."
Also working hard to branch out is the waifish Amber Valetta, who just signed on as a correspondent with Fashion Week, a new TV show that premiered on the E! cable channel two weeks ago. It is one of four fashion-news shows that have sprung up in imitation of mtv's successful House of Style, starring Cindy Crawford. The paradigm for the supermodel-as-enterprise, Crawford is surely inspiring many of the professionally beautiful. Her various ventures-a TV show, exercise videos, contracts with Revlon, Pepsi and Kay Jewelers-earn her an estimated $6.5 million annually. According to a recent tally in Forbes magazine, she is one of 10 supermodels with annual incomes of $2 million or more.
Their ranks are sure to grow. As the old guard of Crawford, Evangelista, Turlington and others begins to age, a host of newer faces is ready to supplant them. Among the hottest is Bridget Hall, a 17-year-old Texan who already has a lucrative Ralph Lauren contract. Nearly as omnipresent is the platinum-haired, preternaturally statuesque German model Nadja Auermann, featured on the cover of this month's W. Fashion watchers in New York last week, meanwhile, could hardly miss Irina, a striking 21-year-old Siberian, who appeared on the runway for no fewer than 18 shows.
Supermodels owe their heightened visibility and success to a culture continually ravenous for new kinds of celebrities. Many observers argue that supermodels have topped movie stars on the fame hierarchy because they possess an ethereal allure missing since the '40s and '50s. "I couldn't ever picture Joan Crawford going to the supermarket to buy soap," notes Pauline Bernatchez, who runs the 24-year-old Parisian modeling agency Pauline's, "but I could easily envision Meryl Streep doing it with her children. Models seem more untouchable. People need glamour; they need to dream." Says designer Isaac Mizrahi: "When my mother was a little girl, she wanted to grow up and be Rita Hayworth or a ballerina. Now all the little girls want to be Linda Evangelista or Naomi Campbell. I don't think girls today want to grow up to be Jennifer Jason Leigh."