Lauren Hutton embodies American style like no one else. Very early in her modelling career, she became the type of model that is indistinguishable from Lauren Hutton, the person. It happens rarely (Kate Moss comes to mind), but it’s that feeling of being unstyled, when the model’s essence comes so strongly through the photograph, to the point where it is unclear whether she’s being styled at all. In short: no one hires Lauren Hutton to look like someone else.

Always radiating tomboy-ishness and a carefree attitude, she is without a doubt my favourite model of all time. I remember falling in love with her in American Gigolo when I was, like, five years old. (Let’s just say my parents were very lenient on what I was allowed to watch as a kid—you name it, I watched it! Also, my mother explaining what “gigolo” means goes down as one of my dearest childhood memories—hello, awkward!). It’s a film I profiled in Screen Style and remains a true American sartorial classic. I’ve never seen anyone wear a t-shirt and slacks as well as Lauren Hutton’s Michelle. Up until then I thought fashion was Dynasty‘s big gowns, sequins and shoulder pads, and she changed all that. 

Much later in the ’90s, as she was enjoying her modelling comeback (if you can even call it that—she never really left), I started paying attention to her personal style in Vogue and Vanity Fair. In the era of glamazon fashion, her pantsuits and minimal makeup stood out. Again, Lauren Hutton was a style original.