Fashion is totally ageist: its allergy to the older woman is so strong, it simply refuses to consider her needs, for clothes or otherwise. As we all know, women do not become old dogs when they reach 30, 40 or 50, but if you paid any attention to the ad campaigns and catwalk shows, you would be forgiven for thinking the industry did not have the slightest interest in talking to anyone who was no longer a child.
But there are enemies within. Right now, one of fashion’s greatest paradoxes is that Linda Evangelista, who is (whisper it) 39, has been embraced once again by the fashion world with the sort of fervour it normally reserves for 13-year-old schoolgirls on the bus from Croydon. Her career kick-started by a comeback US Vogue cover in 2001, Evangelista is now the face of Fendi, Mac Viva Glam V, Nars cosmetics and Oscar de la Renta and is back on the catwalk for both Dolce & Gabbana and Hermès. With her cat-like eyes, gravity-defying cheekbones and a certain kind of glamour that comes along perhaps once in a generation, hers is a welcome face among a sea of unsophisticated teenagers. Evangelista has had her ups and downs. That famous remark about not getting out of bed for less than $10,000 has stalked her career and linked her indelibly to the crassness of the money-grabbing 1980s.
“That was a big mistake,” she admits, crossing her Amazonian legs in her suite at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris. “And I regret it, of course. But I wasn’t the only model who lived the 1980s like the 1980s. We were all a little full of ourselves and we flaunted what we had — luxury goods, Rolls-Royces. Nobody was hiding their wealth, and ‘more’ was what the 1980s were all about. But I now see that I was throwing my good fortune into other women’s faces and that is just so unfair. I’m much more sensible these days. I’ve made my mistakes, but I feel I’ve learnt and am wiser.”
The “mistakes” include a disastrous marriage in 1987 to Gerald Marie, who was the director of Linda’s model agency, Elite, in Paris. “It was a mistake to marry him and it sure was a mistake to let him take control of my affairs,” she says bitterly. “But my life restarted when I walked away from my husband. I’d learnt an important lesson: your love interest, whoever he is, is not there to take care of your money. He’s there to take care of you. I was taken advantage of and I certainly didn’t walk out of it with all my earnings. But I just remind myself that there are no victims in a relationship, only volunteers.”
Five years later, she was divorced, and soon began a high-profile relationship with the actor Kyle MacLachlan, which proved as disastrous as her marriage. Since then, there has been the French football star Fabien Barthez and, most recently, the Italian millionaire Ugo Brachetti Peretti. And now? “There’s no guy at the moment,” she says firmly. “Hey, I’m travelling with my mother — doesn’t that say something? But I’m not giving up hope. I still dream of having children [she had a miscarriage in 1999], but I don’t worry about it. I’ve learnt to live in the moment, something I never used to do. I was always regretting the past, worrying about the future, driven to go on working, taking every job. I grew up the day I gave up modelling. I realised that what I wanted was a normal life with a routine. But then, after all the hard work and pressure — listen, I used to take Concorde like people take the bus — I became really idle, and that didn’t work for me, either.”
Evangelista was born in Ontario to an Italian immigrant family; her father worked in the foundry at General Motors. Her upbringing was strictly Italian. “It was traditional, even old-fashioned,” she says. “When I was a teenager, I had to choose whether to go out on a Friday or Saturday night. Never both. And we always had proper meals. I used to envy my friends who had TV dinners. But I always wanted to be a model because I’ve always loved clothes. I got a job selling magazines in a convenience store just so that between customers, I could flick through the pages and dream. I didn’t have a boyfriend, so nobody told me whether or not I was beautiful.”
Her career began when she was 13. “My mum sent me to a model school to learn grooming and manners. They taught us how to pose, how to do runway, but there wasn’t any real work. There was one fashion show a year and maybe a couple of newspaper ads. Whenever I got work, my mother had to take time off her work to chaperone me. I got $8 an hour and $20 for a show, including rehearsal time. I was definitely not an overnight success,” she laughs.
“Even after I moved to New York, it took three years for my career to get going. I went to see photographers more than once, usually with a changed portfolio, but the answer was always no. Eventually, Peter Lindbergh gave in and used me. Don’t ask me why — I think he just got sick of seeing me,” she says.
The beginnings of a modelling career are never pleasant. When she was 16, Evangelista won a contract for summer work in Tokyo and travelled there alone. “When I got there, I freaked out,” she says. “It wasn’t what they’d said it would be. They wanted nude and funny stuff. They asked me to strip to take my measurements, even though they had them already.” Put up for the night in an apartment, she escaped and walked the streets, looking for a phone booth. When she told her parents that a man had helped her and she was phoning from his apartment, they went crazy. She returned home after a day and a half. Even so, her mother let her have another try. When she finished school, Evangelista went to New York, on the condition that she would come home every weekend.
“One of my first jobs was in Italy and that’s where I saw cocaine for the first time,” she says. “There was a murder in our group that weekend. I decided then and there that I would never do drugs. I have anxiety attacks, so there’s no way I could do them. I have this great fear of people — not when I’m on the runway, but backstage. In a room full of people, I really suffer. I sort of go into a tunnel and I feel very removed. I get so tense, I can’t swallow, and my heartbeat goes way up. It still happens now, although I’m better at controlling it.”
What she does find hard to control is her clothes habit. In her not-so-small New York loft, an entire floor is reserved solely for her wardrobe — and her Manolos. “I’m a clothes obsessive,” she admits, rather stating the obvious. “It really is out of control. I can’t stop shopping, though I can’t even wear what I’ve got. I see something and I have to have it. Walking on the runway, passing people, I think, ‘I want it. That’s got to be mine.’”
In fact, she’s not entirely indiscriminate. Her shopping list includes Chanel, Lanvin and Dior, and she is always delighted to be given clothes, although she orders and pays for the majority. “Usually,” she explains, “if you’re given something, it’s a used sample. I don’t necessarily want a used sample. But nobody throws the whole collection at you. I like good jewellery as well. That doesn’t fall from the sky either, so I buy my own.”
The clothes might come naturally, but, she admits, her weight doesn’t. When she gave up modelling, she took up cooking, or “eating and getting fat”. “Cooking is one of my favourite things — from going to the market, bringing the stuff home and preparing it, to cleaning the kitchen afterwards. I’ve lost my figure a few times. There have been moments when I’ve overeaten, for comfort. But with discipline and hard work, you can get your figure back.”
Now she is healthy to a fault. “I accept that keeping in shape doesn’t come naturally, so I work hard. I hit the gym every day: Pilates, yoga, weights. I used to love wine, but I’ve stopped drinking. I quit smoking and I’ll never start again.” But at 39, she thinks she may soon need some physical help. “I’m certainly thinking of plastic surgery,” she confesses. “I’ve already been Botoxed, like all the models. And I’m happy to admit it. If you don’t tell, how do other women feel they have a chance when they see the pictures? Models are not superhuman. We grow old. I really want to grow old and I don’t believe that age is ugly.”
She certainly seems calmer nowadays, more in control. “I don’t struggle with things like I used to. It’s all part of being in charge of my life. That’s what makes it good to be the age I am, looking forward.” An advert for growing older if ever there was one.
