Linda, Christy, Naomi and Cindy — new docuseries shows how the supermodels became more than famous faces

Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford: You know their faces because they were models, but you know their names because they were supermodels.

Now, a new Apple TV+ docuseries about the fashionable foursome who took the modelling industry to new heights in the late 1980s and early '90s is helping to shape their legacies. 

Larissa Bills, who co-directed The Super Models with Roger Ross Williams, says the women remind her of her coming-of-age — a period when the worlds of fashion, celebrity and pop culture collided, creating the conditions for the supermodel era.

"What these women represented to me at the time that I was a young woman was they were powerful," said Bills.

The four-part series covers a lot of ground — from modelling in their teen years, to the height of their celebrity, to their second coming as entrepreneurs, mothers and humanitarians. It also revisits their famous Vogue cover and the iconic music video for George Michael's Freedom 90!, in which they starred alongside the late Tatjana Patitz. 

The series has a lot to say, but it's just as interesting for what it doesn't say and instead shows: that part of the supermodel legacy is the ability to carefully craft a public image.

Being a project that depends on the audience's nostalgia for its subjects, The Super Models is polished and restrained. Though its oral history of the industry's uglier sides leaves something to be desired, it documents the highs and lows of the careers of these women.

Evangelista talks about regretting her famous remark that she "won't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day."; Crawford gets semi-candid about her failed marriage to Hollywood actor Richard Gere; Turlington talks about choosing professional freedom over a restrictive contract.

Campbell, a trailblazer who became the first Black model to appear on the cover of French Vogue, has a more complex story. She discusses her experiences with racism in the industry, and how her fight to get equal pay and more visibility led to a reputation for being difficult to work with.

"All I can say about this docuseries is that it was meant to be a celebration," Cambpell said in a recent interview with Women's Wear Daily. "I don't think it's the celebration that it started out to be."

Still, The Super Models doesn't include Campbell's history of physical assault convictions, and other supermodels of the time — like Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer and Tyra Banks — are seldom mentioned.

Bee Quammie, a Canadian culture critic and former model, says the strength of The Super Models is how it makes its subjects seem more human — like an emotional sequence where Evangelista describes getting a cosmetic procedure that she says disfigured her body. 

"I was still very aware of the fact that, [just] as these women were able to control their images so much in the '90s, I'm sure they did not let go of that skill and that capability with doing this docuseries," Quammie told CBC News.

"So I still think we were seeing it through a very curated lens."