Daily Style Icon: Linda Evangelista

Images courtesy of WireImage, clockwise from top left: Dominique Charriau, Lalo Yasky, Tony Barson, Donato Sardella

I've decided to bring this feature back because we all need a little fun, fabulousness and music in our lives. I'm still loving on supermodels so today's icon is one of the legendary supemodels of all time, Linda Evangelista, aka "The Chameleon." This is the woman who hands down unknowingly coerced me into trying five different shades of hair color in the 90's.

Evangelista knew she wanted to be a model at age 12 and did exactly that. After being discovered by an agent at the Miss Teen Niagara Contest in her native Canada, she signed with Elite Model Management in New York City as a teen and quickly shot up the ranks to become part of "The Trinity" of supermodels, with best friends and fellow supermodels Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington at her side. Famously joking that she and Turlington wouldn't "get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day," Evangelista's career took a controversial dip when Julien D' Ys cropped her hair short at the direction of photographer Peter Lindbergh for a photo shoot, causing many runways and campaigns to drop her. When thousands of women began to copy Evangelista's close-cropped style and hair color, advertisers realized the goldmine of the even-morphing model's popularity and she became more popular than ever.

When I think of Evangelista's style, it's not fashion but beauty that comes to mind. Evangelista is a great lesson in beauty: create the perfect canvas of a face and it can become a signature of your own personal style. Not all of us can have her flawless bone structure, but there are certain keys that we can follow: perfectly arched brows and amazing skin can almost negate the need for makeup but can truly set you apart from the rest.


Makeup is dandy but a flawless face is the one of the keys to real style. One of my new favorite kits to get this gorgeous skin? Philosophy's Advanced Makeup Optional Skin ($98), which includes potent portions of some of their best skincare products in one amazing package: Purity Made Simple, The Microdelivery Exfoliating Wash, When Hope Is Not Enough Firming and Lifting Serum, Hope In A Jar SPF 20, and Help Me retinol treatment.

Evangelista continues to model to this day and I for one am thrilled to see her every time. One of my favorite Linda Evangelista moments is this video she did with her fellow supermodels in the early 90's for singer George Michael. It's time to pump up a little attitude with "Freedom 90." Linda, thanks for reminding us that with a little care our skin, our hair and our lives can be the true expression of our own personal style...and that as women we reserve the right to change any of them at any time.