The Bittersweet Lessons of the Most Beautiful Women in the World

Models, Naomi Wolf () theorized 33 years ago in , are “the heroines of adult women’s mass culture,” the embodiment of everything girls are taught to aspire to: physical perfection, discipline, the appearance of strength, silence. The same year that was published, five of the most beautiful women in the world appeared on the cover of British , in an era-defining image shot by the photographer Peter Lindbergh. Tasked with finding a model to represent the New ’90s Woman, Lindbergh declined to choose just one; beauty was changing, he reportedly , and couldn’t be categorized so easily. Of the models he chose, one was blond, one was Black, one had Italian heritage, one was half-Salvadoran, and one was a brunette from the Midwest. He dressed them in Levis and close-fitting bodysuits, as if to cast off the power suits and angular ambition of the