Learn Your Supermodels: Nadja Auermann

Nadja Auermann wasn’t born – she sprang fully formed from the brow of Helmut Newton. Or so it would appear. Because she is fashion’s most surreal Valkyrie. A woman whose proportions are superhuman. Nadja’s famous legs are longer than her head and torso combined. That and her white hair, and steely blue eyes and granite cheekbones all come together to form Newton’s oversexed Teutonic ideal. Besides being the incarnation of Helmut Newton’s scary Aryan dominatrix fantasy, she also did the opposite and became one of the scrubbed bare faces of early grunge. Looking disheveled and natural in photos by Peter Lindbergh she showed a completely different side of herself. Avedon and Meisel loved her too.

with Amber Valletta and Kate Moss

Model of the Week: Claudia Schiffer

What can be said about Claudia Schiffer? She’s a living legend at this point. She’s an iconic face. Why is she so enduringly popular? It must be the guileless combination of Bardotesque sex appeal and Bavarian milkmaid goodness. It must be the way her assets – definitive blonde hair, curves like no other – balance out her relative shortcomings – noticeable overbite, average looking legs – making her seem like a realistic total package; perfect but not too much.

with Helena Christensen and Nadja Auermann

with Naomi Campbell and Karen Mulder

with Helena Christensen and Cindy Crawford

with Karen Mulder, Nadja Auermann and Shalom Harlow

(with Cindy Crawford)

(with Nadja Auermann)

(with Nadja Auermann & Julia Stegner)

Model of the Week: Kristen McMenamy

Every once in while a model will come along who is so outstandingly unique that her very career is like a miracle. Kristen McMenamy makes you question your ideals of beauty in a way no other model does. She is beautiful, no question, but she is not afraid to look unconventional. Not many models would ever allow themselves to be seen looking bad, or to be photographed in an unflattering way. For most models, even being seen without makeup is an act of courage. Kristen,  white-skinned,androgynous, bare faced, a little scary, and insanely compelling. She never had the name recognition that some of her contemporaries enjoyed, but few models have a body of work so vivid and artistic. She’s had a particularly rewarding collaboration with Jeurgen Teller, a photographer singularly uninterested in making people look good. I cannot post enough pictures of Kristen. Her capacity for chameleonlike transformation whithout ever losing her personality, her flair for drama, her charisma, her vanity-free dedication to her art; she is model as more than muse, she is model as an artist in her own right. She is really one of the greatest. She rivals Linda Evangelista in all but fame.

 

 

with Nadja Auermann

with Nadja Auermann