20 Models Who Were Famous Long Before Supermodels Existed

In 1909, Audrey Munson was just a pretty young woman whom Beaux-Arts sculptors liked to see wandering the streets of Manhattan, and she soon became their go-to model. By 1915, however, newspapers claimed that three-fifths of the statues at San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition that year were based on her, though that figure was never confirmed. She also modeled for the Civic Fame statue atop the Manhattan Municipal Building and was associated with the Walking Liberty dollar design. Her image was everywhere, yet few people who admired these works would have known the woman behind them.

Dorothy Virginia Margaret Juba, known as Dovima, was discovered on a street in Manhattan in 1949. Throughout the 1950s, she was photographer Richard Avedon’s favorite model. She was so popular that she charged $60 an hour, the highest rate for a print model at the time. In August 1955, Avedon photographed her wearing a black Dior evening gown while standing calmly between two trained elephants at a circus in Paris. Published in Harper’s Bazaar, the photograph, titled Dovima with Elephants, became one of the most reproduced images in fashion photography, cementing her place in fashion history.

In 1900, when Evelyn Nesbit was 15 years old, she came to New York to pose as a model to help support her family. She was known in part as a Gibson Girl, a term popularized by illustrations from Charles Dana Gibson, and was famous in her own right. Not only did she pose for Gibson, but her image was widely reproduced in newspapers and advertisements. In 1906, Nesbit’s husband, Harry Thaw, killed famous architect Stanford White. The highly publicized murder trial that followed in 1907 only brought Nesbit more attention, further cementing her celebrity status.

Born Noelie Dasouza Machado, China Machado became a top model in Paris, earning $1,000 a day while working with designer Hubert de Givenchy. In 1958, photographer Richard Avedon brought her to New York, but when Harper’s Bazaar executives balked at publishing photos of a non-white model, Avedon threatened to quit. As a result, the magazine’s February 1959 issue featured several photographs of Machado taken by Avedon, making her the first model of color to appear in an editorial spread in a major American fashion magazine.

Suzy Parker’s older sister, Dorian Leigh, was a model when she introduced Parker to the fashion industry in 1947. Parker went on to grace hundreds of magazine covers and became a particular favorite of designer Coco Chanel and photographer Richard Avedon. By 1956, she was the first model to make over $100,000 in one year. Parker also had success as a movie star, starring in Hollywood films opposite Cary Grant and Gary Cooper over the next two years.

Alice Prin, better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, was a muse, collaborator, and occasional lover of American Surrealist photographer Man Ray. Born in Burgundy, France, Prin left her home region to escape poverty and found work modeling for artists in Paris. By the early 1920s, she had become a celebrated figure in the city’s artistic community, earning the nickname “Queen of Montparnasse.” Between 1921 and 1929, she appeared in many of Man Ray’s photographs, including the iconic Le Violon d’Ingres. But Prin was more than just a model. She was also a painter, a cabaret singer, and a writer who published her own memoir.

Born in Belgium but raised in Boston, Camille Clifford won a magazine beauty contest in 1903. Thousands of postcards were made from the contest photographs of Clifford, and her look became the height of fashion in the Edwardian era. Though she was never drawn by Charles Dana Gibson, Clifford’s enormous hair and corseted 18-inch waist made her the real-life incarnation of his creation, the Gibson Girl. She also achieved stardom in musicals such as The Prince of Pilsen.

Lee Miller was signed as a model by the publisher of Vogue, Condé Nast, after he pulled her from the path of a moving car, and went on to appear on the cover of the magazine. But Miller preferred taking photographs to being in them, and went on to study with the Surrealist photographer Man Ray in Paris. Miller documented the London Blitz, and later the 1945 liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, as a combat photojournalist for Vogue.

Discovered by designer Lucile, the almost six-foot-tall Kathleen Mary Rose, known professionally as Dolores, learned to strut the runway with what was called “blank hauteur”: proudly, and never smiling. That cold, distant manner has set the standard for runway posture ever since. Dolores was also a top-earning performer. In 1917, Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. hired her for the Ziegfeld Follies, dubbing Dolores the loveliest showgirl in the world.

Anita Colby was the first model to make $50 an hour, eventually raising her rate to the industry-high $100 an hour. She started modeling for the John Robert Powers modeling agency in the early 1930s, and at the height of her career, she landed 15 major magazine covers at once. A newspaper columnist dubbed her “The Face” at the time. Colby also acted as a presentation and fashion consultant to Hollywood actresses working for producer David O. Selznick.

Swedish-born dancer turned model Lisa Fonssagrives was discovered in 1936 in a Paris elevator. Her dance background influenced her modeling poses, and she went on to reign over fashion covers for three decades. In 1939, she posed hanging from the Eiffel Tower for Vogue. A decade later, she graced the cover of Time as the magazine’s “Billion-Dollar Baby.” She is one of several women sometimes referred to by historians as the original supermodels.

From the mid-1920s until 1931, Vogue featured Marion Morehouse as one of its principal models. Her bobbed hair and supple poses epitomized the flapper era, and her images with Edward Steichen helped to break fashion photography free from stiff, static studio photography in favor of conveying movement. Steichen thought of Morehouse as his best model because, instead of merely posing, she could bring a garment’s design to life.

In 1948, Mary Jane Russell signed on with Ford Models. Though she stood only five-foot-six, short for the modeling industry at the time, Russell quickly became a highly sought-after model thanks to her posture and poise. Both Louise Dahl-Wolfe at Harper’s Bazaar and Irving Penn at Vogue loved photographing her, with Penn selecting her for his most arresting fine-art fashion portraits. For more than a decade, she appeared on dozens of covers.

Dorian Leigh first started modeling in 1944 and immediately landed a cover in Harper’s Bazaar. Notable photographers Leigh worked with include Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. Her most memorable modeling gig was for Avedon’s 1952 Revlon “Fire and Ice” campaign, in which she was photographed wearing a silver gown and red cape. The ad went on to become one of the most successful cosmetics ads of all time. Truman Capote’s character Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was partly inspired by Leigh’s glamorous lifestyle in New York.

Helen Williams, encouraged to model by entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. and singer Lena Horne, got her start in 1954. Rejected by American modeling agencies for being too dark, she modeled for Jet and Ebony magazines before striking it big in Paris in 1960. When journalists publicized Williams’s experiences back home, the resulting clamor helped make Williams the first Black model to land campaigns with American mainstream companies, like Budweiser and Sears.

Barbara Goalen was the top fashion model in Britain after World War II, working with Norman Parkinson and Clifford Coffin for British Vogue and promoting Christian Dior’s “New Look” thanks to her 20-inch waist and calm modeling manner. By the early 1950s, she was Britain’s highest-paid model, charging previously unheard-of daily fees. She retired from full-time modeling in 1954, charting a career path later followed by supermodels like Twiggy.

In May 1948, Jean Patchett joined Ford Models, and she ditched the traditional studio smile for a cool, distant stare. On New Year’s Day, 1950, Patchett graced the Vogue “Doe Eye” cover. The cover shot by famed photographer Erwin Blumenfeld features only Patchett’s eye, mouth, and beauty mark. Later that year, Vogue published another Patchett cover shot by fashion photography icon Irving Penn. Penn took the photos in Paris, where he called Patchett “a young American goddess in Paris couture.” In all, she went on to appear on more than 40 covers.

Bettina Graziani was born Simone Bodin in Normandy, France, and moved to Paris after World War II. The designer Jacques Fath gave her the moniker “Bettina,” and by the 1950s she was the most photographed model in France. In 1952, she began working as head model and muse for designer Hubert de Givenchy when he launched his fashion house. Givenchy named his first collection after her and created a ruffled Bettina blouse that became a huge sales hit.

Carmen Dell’Orefice’s modeling career began when she was scouted on a Manhattan bus as a teenager, which led to a contract with Vogue that paid $7.50 an hour. Despite growing up in poverty with her mother, she roller-skated to jobs to save on the bus fare. At age 16, she appeared on Vogue’s cover. She has had the longest career in the industry, from Vogue covers shot by photography greats like Erwin Blumenfeld, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Cecil Beaton, to modeling right up into her 90s.

Elizabeth Siddal was a London milliner until the painter Walter Deverell discovered her in 1849, and she became his muse and creative partner. She was a model for the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of painters and poets that rejected the academic traditions of the time. Siddal also served as the muse for John Everett Millais’s painting of Shakespeare’s drowned Ophelia. To get just the right effect, Millais had Siddal sit for hours in a bathtub, kept warm with oil lamps. When the lamps went out during one lengthy sitting, Siddal fell seriously ill with pneumonia. She nearly died, but recovered, and her father threatened to sue Millais. Her face would become the Victorian ideal of feminine beauty in British painting.

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