Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women

So when Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women was published in 1995, I was super excited and I think I read it cover-to-cover in one day. It’s really the only book that goes into the depth of modeling history way back when couture was modelled only by rich and thin society women. It wasn’t such a ‘rags-to-riches’ profession as it is now. They did it just for fun and considered themselves to be art patrons. Many have come claiming that they were the world’s first supermodel. Well, it wasn’t Twiggy, Janice Dickinson, or Cindy Crawford or whoever else made the claim. The term ‘supermodel’ was first used to describe a model (and later actress) Anita Colby after appearing on fifteen magazine covers in a single month! By 1945, she was making $100/hour while most other models were modeling ‘for fun’. However, by fashion insiders Lisa Fonssagrives is considered to be the original supermodel and has appeared in Vogue more times than any other model for three decades straight. After Lisa came Carmen Dell’Orefice, Jean Patchet and Suzy Parker in the 50s and Jean Shrimpton, Veruschka, Twiggy and Donyale Luna in the 60s. So it’s between these two for the first supermodel: