Carmen Kass has been a successful model since the late 1990s, when she debuted at the Chanel show in Paris and Versace show in Milan. She graced the cover of Vogue in 1999—and since then has hit the catwalk for several designers, including Balenciaga, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta, Fendi, and has been the face of campaigns for Michael Kors, Chloe, Salvatore Ferragamo, Versace, and many others.
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With her distinctly English rocker chic look, Agyness Deyn has been dubbed "the rightful heir to Kate Moss' legacy." She's been on the scene since 2006—where she debuted at Marc by Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, Zac Posen, and opened Jean Paul Gaultier's 30th anniversary show. Since then, the bleached-blonde model has graced countless covers and has served as a muse for Burberry's Christopher Bailey.
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17-year-old Karlie Kloss hails from St. Louis, but debuted on the catwalk in 2007, where she modeled for Calvin Klein, Chloe, Valentino and Viktor and Rolf—and appeared in several spreads in Teen Vogue. Since then, she's quickly sprung to the top of the modeling pool as the face of Marc Jacobs' fragrance Lola, and walked multiple Spring 2010 shows in Paris—including those of Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen.
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Alek Wek, who escaped the Sudan during its civil war as a child, was discovered in 1995. Two years later, she debuted on the runway from Alexander McQueen and Chanel—and has walked in multiple shows over the last decade.
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At 20, Chanel Iman, who combines Korean and African-American heritages, has already been a well-established name in the fashion world for five years. She's signed a three-year deal with Victoria's Secret, and during Paris Fashion Week in January, Iman walked for Christian Dior, Givenchy, and Valentino.
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Through the 1960s, the 6-foot-1 Veruschka was the archetype of the long-limbed German blonde model — the same look that made the careers of Claudia Schiffer and Heidi Klum decades later.
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The 5-foot-11 Polish model, now 26, has walked the runways from Prada to Yves Saint Laurent—she's even been the face of Lancome and was listed by Forbes Magazine as one of the highest earning models of 2007.
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Lisa Fonssagrives once described herself as a "good clothes hanger," but the sophisticated Swede (pictured here in 1949) married Irving Penn and was one of the world's first supermodels from the time she made her Vogue debut in 1936.
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Now that she is retired, the Canadian model Shalom Harlow admits that through her career in the 1990s, even she felt she was too thin. "I was working all the time, not eating at home," she told Vogue, "Spaghetti bolognese on planes."
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Kate Moss, Britain's waifish super-icon of the 1990s, always felt that she was made a scapegoat by the critics of skinny models. "The media had to put responsibility on somebody," she said, "and I was chosen." She was widely criticized last fall for saying that "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."
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Like Twiggy and Veruschka, Jean Shrimpton was another long, leggy product of Europe's fashion revolution of the 1960s. She once caused a stir when she wore a short white skirt to Derby Day in Melbourne, Australia.
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She's the mother of three, but the waifish Natalia Vodianova has walked in over 175 runway shows—and landed multiple campaigns, including Gucci, Chanel, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs. In 2007, Forbes ranked her the seventh highest-earning model in the world. "I shot the Marc Jacobs campaign with my belly out and everyone loved it and then, because I was so young, I just pinged back and actually I think my figure was better after I gave birth," Vodianova has said.
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Twiggy, the doe-eyed British model whose name came from her stick-figure, no-curve frame, came to represent everything that was swinging about London in the 1960s—and effectively became the first international supermodel.
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