Christy Turlington – Supermodel

Christy Turlington Burns is an American model best known for representing Calvin Klein from 1987 to 2007. She has worked on dozens of modeling contracts with companies including Maybelline Cosmetics and Versace

During the 1990s, she appeared in Unzipped, a documentary about fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, and the fashion mockumentary film Prêt-à-Porter by director Robert Altman. Additionally, she was featured in Catwalk, a documentary about her life on the fashion runways by director Robert Leacock. She was presented on the November 1999 Millennium cover of American Vogue as one of the “Modern Muses”.

Turlington also appeared in two music videos. Fellow model Yasmin Le Bon got her husband Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran to feature Turlington in their “Notorious” video in 1986, at the age of 17.

In 1990, singer George Michael drew inspiration from Peter Lindbergh’s January 1990 British Vogue cover (which features Turlington, Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, and Tatjana Patitz) for his “Freedom!” video. The video featured all top 5 female models along with their top 5 male counterparts, lip-syncing the song. The video was shown during George Michael’s 2008 concert tour while he sang.

Turlington starred in her fashion documentary Catwalk and Isaac Mizrahi’s Unzipped. She was added on as the fourth model investor, after Elle Macpherson, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer of the now defunct Fashion Cafes.

Model Christy Turlington posing for PETA. The series of ads triggered criticism from feminist animal rights advocates. In 1993 she posed nude for PETA’s anti-fur campaign.

She has appeared on over 500 magazine covers and has been featured in several professional photobooks, including Peter Lindbergh’s 10 Women, the cover of Arthur Elgort’s Model Manual, Herb Ritts Man/Woman, and Karl Lagerfeld’s Off the Record.

In honor of Turlington’s fortieth birthday, W magazine put together a collection of iconic images from her career, from runway shots from the late eighties to today. In 2008, casting agent James Scully said in regards to Turlington:
“ The greatest model of all time! You could combine every model to this day into one person, and they wouldn’t come close (sorry, girls). Probably the biggest crush I’ve ever had on a girl. It would be a dream to have the opportunity of working with her on a show again before I retire, but that seems about as likely as winning the lottery.] ”

Turlington was one of the faces to land in one of the fourteen covers of V magazine September 2008 issue. Each cover boasts a head shot of a famous model, either from the new crop of leading models or the supermodel era, it was lensed by duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.

She was featured in the Bally spring/summer 2009 campaign alongside Oriol Elcacho.

In 2010, Turlington founded Every Mother Counts, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother. Every Mother Counts informs, engages, and mobilizes new audiences to take actions and raise funds that support maternal health programs around the world. EMC was founded after the completion of Christy’s documentary, No Woman, No Cry, a film about pregnant women and their caregivers in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and the United States. In 2013, she directed the documentary film, Every Mile, Every Mother which explores Every Mother Counts’ participation in long distance running to highlight distance as a barrier for women to receive quality care.

In 2013, Christy was one of 2013’s Glamour Women of the Year recipients, and in 2014 was named Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2014.