The 1995 film “Catwalk” is a vérité-style documentary about the fashion world during its carefree, hedonistic glory days of the nineties. It explores this world primarily by following Christy Turlington, one of the era’s most recognizable and bankable supermodels. The film, directed by Richard Leacock, is shot largely in black and white, and it features the sort of footage, set to dreamy music, that might make modern-day viewers pine for the unencumbered glamour of celebrity in the pre-social-media era. Turlington and her cohort—fellow-supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, and Carla Bruni—are pictured in a constant state of air-kissing and waving ciao while gallivanting backstage at Fashion Week or on the set of a photo shoot. In one scene, a young Moss smokes a cigarette and sips what appears to be champagne while having her hair done. In another, the women sway to the music in a dark night club, grinning in bliss. When Turlington checks into a hotel in Milan, she peers out the window. “See? You don’t get that view at the Savoy,” she says.
At the time, “Catwalk” was panned by critics who dismissed its vapidness. “The models spend long hours admiring their reflections,” wrote Janet Maslin in the Times. “The Greeks had a word for this, but they never saw narcissism carried to the extremes that Mr. Leacock’s camera captures.” And yet even such a gauzy, allegedly two-dimensional film as “Catwalk” manages to hint, albeit lightly, at the internal conflict that seems to have plagued most models throughout history: a desire to be seen for more than just physical beauty. At one point, Turlington’s Italian driver is pictured complaining about the irrational power that supermodels hold. “Something is wrong in this society, that’s what I think,” he says, dismayed. In another moment, a woman asks Turlington if she’d rather be complimented on her intelligence or her physical appearance. “I think women should be all of…
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