Growing up in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, Linda Evangelista was obsessed with fashion for as long as she can recall. As young girl, pleading with her mother for more fashion, and later as a teenager admiring the top cover girls of the moment, decorating her bedroom walls with pages torn from fashion magazines that she bought with her after-school job salary—all the while dreaming of someday possibly becoming a model. After participating in The Miss Niagara Pageant, fate arrived in the form of a model scout who approached Linda suggesting that she should consider a career in front of the camera. Upon finishing high school, Linda embarked on the arduous pursuit of modeling, first in New York and then Paris where for 3 years she worked happily for catalogues and little seen editorials. Then in short order Linda caught the attention of three of the most influential photographers of her career: beginning first with Arthur Elgort who photographed Linda’s first images for Vogue Paris—the first of many subsequent Vogue appearances. This led to Peter Lindberg, featuring Linda in her first Vogue editorial for Vogue Italia, which was followed by her first meeting with Steven Meisel who captured Linda for Vogue US, and suddenly her childhood dream of being a working model and appearing in Vogue magazine had come to fruition.
Over the course of her storied career, Linda has taken not only fashion devotees but audiences worldwide on a visual journey. With more than 700 magazine covers to her credit, Linda has appeared in a plethora of the most iconic advertising campaigns and editorials ever published and walked countless runways for the world’s most celebrated designers. In the ‘90s, the term “supermodel” was created to describe the global phenomenon that Linda, along with a select group of colleagues including Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington, found themselves at the center. Appearances in two George Michael music videos, “Freedom ‘90” and “Too Funky”, only cemented the fact that Linda’s celebrity was rooted not only in her ever-changing hair color and runway prowess, but for her devotion to fashion and her ability to elevate modeling into an art form.
After several years out of the global spotlight, in 2022, Linda returned at the urging of Fendi’s creative director Kim Jones in a campaign for the luxury brand and an appearance on their runway—her first in 15 years. The following year, Linda and her close friend, the legendary Steven Meisel, curated and co-authored a collection of their favorite collaborative images—a celebration of their careers with the Phaidon-published coffee table book Linda Evangelista Photographed by Steven Meisel. This was followed by Apple TV + “The Super Models”, the critically acclaimed docuseries chronicling the groundbreaking careers of Linda and her “supermodel” sisters.
As one of the world’s most recognizable women, Linda has long been unwavering in using her celebrity to advocate for and support a variety of causes, most notably breast cancer (Linda is a two-time breast cancer survivor) and AIDS/HIV research and awareness. Linda is equally passionate in her support of racial equality, body positivity, and of the LGBTQ+ community.
With a career heralded by so many, Linda continues to inspire—not only fashion veterans, but a new generation of photographers, designers and creatives.