Nostalgia for its own sake

Susan Damato in the Washington Post is upset that models are not unique or memorable anymore.

Sasha, Natasha, Milana, Magdalena: Could anyone other than a bookings editor tell the difference between these women? Yes, I know about Agness Deyn and Chanel Iman. And of course, superstar models a la Linda, Kate and Christy don’t pop up every season (or decade, even). But where are the Karen Mulders and Yasmeen Ghauris — those girls who were hardly household names, but who nevertheless managed to make the clothes their own?

The purpose of a fashion model is to display how clothing looks on a body. Few models have proven that they have much interesting to say or do besides look nice, so it seems a little illogical to expect that they be distinct personalities. This isn’t to say that I endorse the fashion industry’s revolving door of Eastern Europen models who starve themselves to get underpaid by the designers. Maybe if models were still valued as individuals, this practice would go extinct, but I cannot help but think that it is silly to miss the days when models used to get attention for being insane.