Published by L'Officiel St Barth
Edition N°3 Winter 2017/ Summer 2018 (Pages 146-151 and Advertorial on Page 102)
By Mathilde Berthier
 

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Marco Glaviano Cindy Crawford (St Barth), 1991

This photo was taken from the limited edition Fine Art Book "Marco Glaviano 50"

Thirty years after her career took off, the American supermodel Cindy Crawford is shining again. Regarded as a legend during the last Versace fashion show, she shared the stage with her own daughter, Kaia Gerber, 16, who is already as charismatic as the greatest models. Study of a myth.

Cindy and her children in 2015.

(Photos Instagram, Getty Images, DR)

The entire Gerber clan poses for the watchmaker Omega.

(Photos Instagram, Getty Images, DR)

Twenty years later

The adventures starts in Milan, on September 22th. Donatella Versace allows the world to see an exhilarating image: Cindy Crawford and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Kaia Gerber, together on stage to pay tribute to Gianni Versace who died twenty years before. The young model got the ball rolling and her mother closed it alongside Noami Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Carla Bruni and Helena Christensen, as if they came back from a time when fashion was daring. Seeing Kaia Gerber at the Versace fashion show is seeing what Cindy Crawford was and what fashion used to be. You can't help smiling when remembering the 90s world of fashion and its flashy events, high and narrow Byzantine podiums, sacrosanct models, baroque and arty prints on tight dresses. Guess what also made us smile: remembering the legendary Versace campaigns by Richard Avedon, the one who designed the first Crawford cover for American "Vogue" in 1987. Among them, we think of the Crawford image for the winter 1994 season (Donatella Versace drew her inspiration from it for the show's finale last September), the scandalous trio for the winter 1995 season, on which Crawford poses in a red suit alongside naked Marcus Schenkenberg and Eric Etebari. How could we forget the famous "baiser" photographed by Marco Glaviano on a beach in St Barts, a few years earlier in 1991? "This is a simple and iconic picture which highlights another facet of Cindy's personality. We did hundreds of photographs together in St Barth, but most of them were shot for her swimsuit calendar, they were too sexy... the "baiser" (kiss) makes me smile and fell good" Glaviano explains. His impressive portfolio inspired retrospective in St Barth.

Cindy Crawford and her famous "Cindy Kiss" ("Baiser") by Marco Glaviano, taken in Saint-Barth in 1991.

This photo was taken from the limited edition Fine Art Book "Marco Glaviano 50"

A Golden Family

At the time of the Cindy Kiss "baiser", Cindy Crawford was reaching the peak of her career and she was married to Richard Gere, with whom she shared her life between New York, Beverly Hills, and the Caribbean... until they got divorced in 1995. After that, she had an affair with actor William Baldwin, until she met Rande Gerber, the ex-model who had become the Gerber Group CEO - and owned dozens of hotels and clubs around the world, including The Paramount in New York - and who was one of George Clooney's best friends. Crawford and Gerber got married in 1998 and their first child, Presley, was born a year later. Kaia, their daughter, was born in 2001. As pure millennials, Kaia and Presley grew up just like the Hadids (Gigi, Bella and Anwar) - who are now a real phenomenon - that is, surrounded by technology. Kaia created her Instagram account in December 2012 when she was 11 and her Twitter account two years later. Presley didn't wait long wither to post selfies with his siter or his friends Jordan Barrett and Lucky Blue Smith, photos of his parents, of the family villa or shots of his holidays in Africa, Peru, or Anguilla. In their own way, they kept the Gerber golden family myth going, regularly getting on board of private jet for a few days of lazyness in St. Barts or Cabo San lucas - their other favorite spot in Mexico. There, in-between two surf sessions, Rande Gerber and George Clooney decided in 2013 to create their own tequila brand. There again, Cindy Crawford celebrated her 50th birthday in 2016.

Cindy Crawford by Marco Glaviano, in St Barth in 1991.

This photo was taken from the limited edition Fine Art Book "Marco Glaviano 50"

Model... Models!

Luxury, calm and voluptuousness: not a word more. To 6 million fans, the Gerber clan and mostly the Gerber kids, reflect shiny and polished privileged living. That's enough to make them dream and increase the kids' aura without coming even close to intrusion. Behind the scenes, Cindy Crawford and her soulmate keep their eyes open.  If they allow their kids to have a public life before coming of age, they won't allow indiscretions that go with it. The ex-supermodel has developed an entire career plan for her children - no photoshoots or fashion shows are allowed if it isn't supervised by the couple. That is why for her first fashion campaign in 2012, Kaia posed for Versace, a brand the family knows well. The same rigor was applied when the Gerber kids signed their contracts with the Omega watchmaker for whom Cindy Crawford has been regularly working for since 1995. Every time Kaia and Presley make an appearance, you can feel the same - almost strict - professionalism which echoes what their mother used to be - and what a decade if castings in the streets, of "strange & freaky cultures" in modelling almost wiped out -: a legend on a pedestal, a literal vision of what a "model" should be, supposing that models are a kind of human god on Olympus living on ambrosia. Time will tell us if, once maturity has come, the kids decide to write their own legends as pioneers intheir own time.

Cindy Crawford by Marco Glaviano, in St Barth in 1991.

This photo was taken from the limited edition Fine Art Book "Marco Glaviano 50"

Limited edition Fine Art Book "Glaviano 50" captures a retrospective of Marco Glaviano's 50 year career of iconic photography, including photos of Cindy Crawford. Available at Space Gallery St Barth, Miami and Monaco.

For more information on 

Marco Glaviano's photography work of Cindy Crawford

 contact: info@spacestbarth.com 

spacegallerystbarth.com