Placeholder Content Image

“Dig a hole in my chest”: Supermodel reveals double cancer fight

<p>Supermodel icon Linda Evangelista has shared the devastating details of her cancer battle, after being diagnosed twice in five years. </p> <p>In a candid interview with <a href="https://www.wsj.com/style/fashion/linda-evangelista-steven-meisel-32909b7b?mod=style_lead_story" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>WSJ magazine</em></a>, the 58-year-old revealed why she chose to "keep it quiet" and only tell a handful of people close to her about her health battle. </p> <p>Evangelista was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018 after a routine mammogram, and decided to undergo a bilateral mastectomy: a surgical procedure to remove both breasts. </p> <p>"The margins were not good. [I chose this treatment] due to other health factors, without hesitation, because I wanted to put everything behind me and not to have to deal with this.</p> <p>"Thinking I was good and set for life. Breast cancer was not going to kill me."</p> <p>Four years later in 2022, Evangelista felt a lump on her chest and an MRI revealed cancer was present in her pectoral muscle.</p> <p>"I just went into this mode that I know how to do – just do what you've got to do and get through it," she said. "And that's what I did."</p> <p>"Dig a hole in my chest," she recalled telling her doctors.</p> <p>"I don't want it to look pretty. I want you to excavate. I want to see a hole in my chest when you're done. Do you understand me? I'm not dying from this."</p> <p>After another round of surgery, she was told the outlook was good for the future, but there is always a possibility the cancer could return. </p> <p>"Well, once it's come back, there's a chance," she recalled the oncologist's words.</p> <p>"I know I have one foot in the grave, but I'm totally in celebration mode."</p> <p><em>Image credits: Instagram / Getty Images</em></p>

Caring

Placeholder Content Image

Popular 90s supermodel makes iconic return to runway

<p dir="ltr">Vendela Kirsebom, a Norwegian-Swedish model, has made a stunning return to the runway almost three decades after she rose to fame.</p> <p dir="ltr">Kirsebom became the face of <em>Elizabeth Ardern</em>, appeared in seven editions of <em>Sports Illustrated</em>, and graced the cover of<em> Vogue</em> during the peak of her career.</p> <p dir="ltr">In recent years she chose to take a break from the spotlight, until now.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 56-year-old returned to the catwalk for <em>Sports Illustrated’s</em> Swimsuit Runway Show in Miami this week.</p> <p dir="ltr">She oozes confidence as strutted the runway in two different swimmers including a white one-piece with a plunging neckline, and a purple bikini set, both from her own brand Vendela Wear.</p> <p dir="ltr">Following the show, Kirsebom took to Instagram to thank her followers for their support.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Thank you for all the cheers, love and nice feedback,” she captioned the photo with the hashtag "embrace your beauty”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Her 119,000 followers flooded the comment section with a string of adoring responses.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Words can't describe how proud I am of you. Time stood still when you were on the stage,” wrote her husband, Norwegian TV celebrity Petter Pilgaard.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You are a fantastic role model for us adult ladies. You deserve a lot of happiness with your nice new collection,” wrote one fan.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You’re a superstar, you look incredibly great,” commented another.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Back on the catwalk, you look great,” wrote a third.</p> <p dir="ltr">Aside from her impressive modelling career, Kirsebom was also an actress who appeared in several movies including <em>Batman and Robin </em>in 1997, and <em>The Parent Trap </em>starring Lindsay Lohan in 1998.</p> <p dir="ltr">In 1996 she was rumoured to have dated the most eligible bachelor of that time, George Clooney, after the pair were spotted together multiple times.</p> <p><em>Images: Getty Images</em></p>

Beauty & Style

Placeholder Content Image

Iconic '90s supermodel dies at age 56

<p>German supermodel Tatjana Patitz, who appeared in George Michael’s <em>Freedom 90 </em>video, has died at 56 years of age.</p> <p>A family representative confirmed that her cause of death was breast cancer.</p> <p>Patitz started her career in 1983, after becoming a finalist in the <em>Elite Model Look</em> contest and is considered one of the "original supermodels".</p> <p>She has been featured on the cover of <em>Vogue</em> six times.</p> <p><em>Vogue </em>shared a <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/obituary-tatjana-patitz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tribute</a> to the supermodel, stating that she was "the quietest and perhaps the most intense of the original supermodels".</p> <p>In the tribute, Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of <em>Vogue</em> said that “Tatjana was always the European symbol of chic, like Romy Schneider-meets-Monica Vitti".</p> <p>"She was far less visible than her peers—more mysterious, more grown-up, more unattainable—and that had its own appeal," she added, describing Patitz's unique qualities.</p> <p>At the height of her career Patitz, alongside other models like Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington, starred in the <em>Freedom 90</em> video.</p> <p>They were recruited after George Michael saw the <em>British Vogue’s</em> January 1990 supermodels cover.</p> <p>Peter Lindbergh, labelled as "the fairy godfather of Patitz’s career," was the photographer who captured Patitz's natural beauty in the 1988 photograph <em>White Shirts: Six Supermodels, Malibu</em>.</p> <p>The Peter Lindbergh Foundation posted a tribute to the supermodel in a Tweet.</p> <p> </p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">We are deeply saddened by the passing of Tatjana Patitz, a long-time friend of Peter’s. <br />We would like to salute Tatjana’s kindness, inner beauty and outstanding intelligence. <br />Our thoughts go to her loved ones and particularly Jonah. She will be immensely missed. <a href="https://t.co/VGjAhLyC2C">https://t.co/VGjAhLyC2C</a></p> <p>— Peter Lindbergh Foundation (@peterlindbergh) <a href="https://twitter.com/peterlindbergh/status/1613208506697486338?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2023</a></p></blockquote> <p> </p> <p>The tribute read: "We are deeply saddened by the passing of Tatjana Patitz, a long-time friend of Peter’s. We would like to salute Tatjana’s kindness, inner beauty and outstanding intelligence.</p> <p>Our thoughts go to her loved ones and particularly Jonah. She will be immensely missed."</p> <p>Tatjana Patitz is survived by her son, Jonah, who has followed in his mother’s footsteps and is now a model.</p> <p><em>Image: Instagram</em></p>

News

Placeholder Content Image

Supermodel Kristy Hinze Clark makes super profit on Florida mansion

<p dir="ltr">Kristy Hinze Clark and her husband, American tech titan Jim Clark, have just sold their sprawling Florida home for a record-breaking sum.</p> <p dir="ltr">The couple’s 16-acre home in Palm Beach is expected to sell for more than $US 175 million ($AUD 253 million) in an off-market deal, according to <em><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-billionaire-bought-a-florida-home-for-94-2-million-last-year-now-hes-selling-it-for-around-175-million-11655323328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wall Street Journal</a></em>, in a deal far exceeding Florida’s current sales record of $US 130 million.</p> <p dir="ltr">Hinz Clark and her billionaire husband are set to make around $US 81 million ($AUD 117 million) from the sale, which was a “spur of the moment purchase” 15 months ago.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to <a href="https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/2000-S-Ocean-Blvd_Lantana_FL_33462_M57433-88058" target="_blank" rel="noopener">property records</a>, the oceanfront home was bought by the couple on March 8, 2021, for $US 94,173,300 ($AUD 136,580,949), when they thought they were going to live in Florida most of the time.</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Clark told the Wall Street Journal that, although they fell in love with the aesthetics and other features the home offered, they decided to stay in New York and enrol their two daughters there.</p> <p dir="ltr">“In the end, we sort of thought, ‘How much will we come down here?’” he recalled. “I knew there was someone who wanted it and I beat them to it so I thought, ‘Let’s see if they want it again’.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Boasting a total of 30 bedrooms spread across the 12-bedroom main home, two four-bedroom beachside cottages, the seven-bedroom Mango House, and a guest or staff house comprised of four studios.</p> <p dir="ltr">Other luxe features include a swimming pool, tennis court, golfing area, half-basketball court, fitness centre, and a spa, as well as access to a dock and pier on Lake Worth.</p> <p dir="ltr">The home itself has 360-degree views and is surrounded by 1200 feet of beach facing the Atlantic, and 1300 feet of frontage on the lake.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to the listing from its 2021 sale, the home is also within a “singular microclimate” created by the Gulf Stream, meaning it is treated to “refreshing breezes and warmer waters, even when cooler weather prevails in Miami”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“These unique conditions allowed for the creation of extensive botanical gardens that showcase neqarly 1,500 tropical species that replicate a ‘walk through the Caribbean’,” the listing reads.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Look, it’s a phenomenal property,” Mr Clark said. “You can’t find anything like that in Florida.”</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-edce07b8-7fff-9f42-4baa-b880783b24ea"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Getty Images, Realtor</em></p>

Real Estate

Placeholder Content Image

The story of the supermodel

<p>Women, fashion, and glamour are synonymous in the modern era – but in the mid to late 1980s this association intensified into one distinct cultural icon: the supermodel.</p> <p>While highly professional models with identifiable looks and personalities had existed since the 1950s, (Christian Dior’s favourite was called <a href="https://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&amp;ALID=2TYRYD7Y6O43">Lucky</a>) and celebrity models since the 1960s (think <a href="http://www.twiggylawson.co.uk/">Twiggy</a>), the 1980s version literally superseded their predecessors in stature, stardom, and – most importantly – earning capacity.</p> <p>The supermodels were an elite and exclusive group. Key figures included Americans <a href="http://www.cindy.com/bio">Cindy Crawford</a> and <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/biographies/christy-turlington-biography">Christy Turlington</a>, Brit <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/person/naomi-campbell">Naomi Campbell</a>, Canadian-born <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/biographies/linda-evangelista-biography">Linda Evangelista</a>and <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/biographies/claudia-schiffer-biography">Claudia Schiffer</a> from Germany.</p> <p>This grouping is not definitive and the term was applied to other high profile models of this generation including Australia’s own <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/person/elle-macpherson">Elle “The Body” Macpherson</a> and later notably English model <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/person/kate-moss">Kate Moss</a>. A list of very specific characteristics secured the pedigree of the original supermodels.</p> <p>First, self evidently, perhaps were their physical attributes. While each supermodel had a distinct “look” (Linda’s old world glamour versus Cindy’s girl-next-door) all of them had bodies of Amazonian proportions. Strong and lean as opposed to slim and diminutive they embodied a powerful, intense and indeed mythical vision of female beauty.</p> <p>Second, as at home on the catwalk as they were in editorials, a supermodel was a supermodel simply by virtue of her market value. Witness Linda’s quip to journalist Jonathan Van Meter: “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.”</p> <p>Finally real supermodels managed to transcend the world of fashion that had borne them and registered simply as celebrities with all that entailed, including dating movie stars, hosting TV shows, and becoming fodder for gossip magazines.</p> <p>The precise cultural circumstances that saw the celebrity cachet of models arise are difficult to discern but it is clear that a number of factors aligned.</p> <p>Big name celebrity designers such as Versace and Karl Lagerfeld became the figureheads for global conglomerate fashion, the worlds of entertainment and fashion merged through internationalised media networks, and, in Paris, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10196149/John-Casablancas.html">John Casablancas</a> of Elite Model Management championed a new brasher version of the modelling agency.</p> <p>One of Casablancas’ key strategies entailed marketing his “girls” as a group. This ploy dovetailed nicely with a genre of fashion photography that had been developed in the 1950s – the large cast fashion shoot.</p> <p>Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s high-end fashion photographers including <a href="http://www.peterlindbergh.com/biography/">Peter Lindbergh</a>, <a href="http://www.vogue.com/voguepedia/Steven_Meisel">Steven Meisel</a>and <a href="http://www.herbritts.com/about/">Herb Ritts</a> developed compelling editorial spreads that featured groupings of supermodels lined up next to each other wearing variations on a theme. In these somewhat disarming images each model seems to trump the beauty of the next resulting in a giddying excess of glamour.</p> <p>The supermodels faced the 1990s optimistically appearing en masse on the covers of the world’s most influential fashion magazines and attracting lucrative make-up endorsements. But meanwhile the fashion clock was ticking. Not only was grunge replacing glamour as the fashionable ideal the whole image of the supermodel with her perfect beauty was attracting critique from various quarters.</p> <p>Despite the fact these women were without exception naturally beautiful they became emblematic of an idea of falseness and artifice often associated with fashion. Moreover the fact that they traded on their appearance, and made previously unheard of amounts of money for merely “being beautiful” was frequently interpreted as morally corrupt.</p> <p>Finally and most ironically, as the “reality” of their lives was exposed through increased media exposure (failed marriages, bungled career moves, and the like) their very humanity seemed to work against them.</p> <p>The real treachery however came from within the industry.</p> <p>In the March 1996 edition of US Vogue, an article entitled “Supermodels, the Sequel” was busy promoting four new younger “faces” who were keen to distance themselves from their slightly more experienced counterparts.</p> <p>While all the interviewees agreed that the supermodels had played an important role in the industry (from which they now profited) none of them wanted to be associated with prima donna behaviour or vacuous self promotion. Aligning themselves instead with notions of reality and groundedness, there was a sense they wouldn’t let the market value of their beauty go to their heads.</p> <p>For me perhaps the clearest sign that the reign of the supermodel was well and truly over was when <a href="http://www.thebodyshop.com/services/aboutus_anita-roddick.aspx">Anita Roddick</a>, founder of The Body Shop, launched the highly successful “<a href="http://www.printmag.com/editors-picks/the-body-shops-honest-ad-campaign/">honest advertising</a>” campaign in 1998 with the byline: “There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only 8 who do.”</p> <p>While the campaign won widespread support and turned Broddick’s fortunes around, I find it unfortunate that its logic comes at the cost of ostensibly pitching eight of the world’s successful and beautiful women against the rest.</p> <p><em>Written by Kathleen Horton. Republished with permission of </em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-the-supermodel-26388"><em>The Conversation</em></a><em>.</em></p>

Beauty & Style

Placeholder Content Image

Supermodel Kirsty Hinze-Clarke becomes first female yacht owner to win Sydney to Hobart

<p>Former supermodel Kristy Hinze-Clark has made history as the first female yacht owner to win the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in Australia. </p> <p>After two days, eight hours, 58 minutes and 30 seconds, her boat, Comanche, crossed the finishing line to the 71st Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race for 2015.</p> <p>Hinze-Clark, the co-founder and co-skipper of the American boat, steered the yacht to victory, where her husband Jim Clark was waiting for her at Constitution Dock.</p> <p>“I just got more wet then that I did the entire race,” she laughed, when showered with champagne on her arrival at the finish line.</p> <p>Skipper Ken Read praised Hinze-Clarke, saying, “First time out in the open ocean. She has been out in plenty of boats but has never done anything like this.”</p> <p>“And she was as tough as nails. There was no babysitting involved and [she] did some driving and she is one the grinders and everything else. She as very impressive.</p> <p>Although damaged the first night, Comanche was a favourite in the race after returning from repairs. </p> <p><strong>Related links: </strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="/news/news/2015/12/foods-that-mess-with-sleep/"></a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/health/eye-care/2015/02/health-clues-from-eyes/" target="_self">5 health clues from your eyes</a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="/news/news/2015/12/foods-that-mess-with-sleep/"></a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/health/eye-care/2015/03/how-to-avoid-eyestrain-computer/" target="_self">How to avoid eye strain when using your computer or tablet</a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="/news/news/2015/12/foods-that-mess-with-sleep/"></a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/health/eye-care/2015/03/state-of-world-eyesight/" target="_self">Some interesting statistics on the state of the world’s eyesight</a></em></strong></span></p>

News

Our Partners