History of the Supermodel: The Catwalk
We’re back with another segment of my “History of the Supermodel” series! This time around, we’ll be doing a deep dive into the history of the catwalk.
As a fashion connoisseur, the idea of the runway show has always fascinated me. From the lighting to the set design, down to the way a model walks and presents themselves, it is an artistic production in its own right. So the question to ask is… how did this come to be?
In my article, “History of the Supermodel: Who Was the First?!” I had covered that Marie-Augustine Vernet, the wife of English designer Charles Frederick Worth, can be loosely described as the first fashion model. However, she was considered a “human mannequin” who didn’t move and served as a still canvas for clients to peruse.
It wasn’t until another English couturier, Lady Duff Gordon, also known as Lucile, hosted the first fashion show in the early 1900s. Beginning her design career in 1890, Gordon made her debut in a seasonal fashion show by 1904, marking herself as the first to stage such a production. Consisting of curtains, music, spotlights, etc., Gordon’s new-age techniques can compare to those of today, unknowingly setting the tone for the way future designers present their work.
“Stage dressing demands accentuation!” Lucy quoted in Harper’s Bazaar, 1914. Taking her talents to Broadway, Lucile soon sent her models to perform “musical fashion parades, with proceeds going to relief funds for French war refugees” (Bigham and DeBauche). Due to her efforts in the fashion show, she soon found herself designing for prominent actresses and even assisted in establishing “the prototype of the American showgirl” (Bigham and DeBauche).
It wasn’t until around the 1940s, give or take a few years, that the catwalk began to reach a new level of popularity. Department stores in the US began to gather models locally to display brand-new designs on a physical body as opposed to mannequins.
In the midst of this, Fashion Week was created in 1943 in New York. It’s important to note, however, that the earliest points of Fashion Week began in Paris in the late 1800s before it made its way to America and other big names such as Milan and London. After reaching new cities, it officially became what we consider “highly publicized events in themselves” (Fashion Week).
By the 1960s, this grand idea reached the high-fashion scale and within two decades, became a staple in the fashion industry… a multi-trillion-dollar one at that. It has since set the course for, as I mentioned before, Fashion Week, or should I say the Fashion Months that occur in both February and September.
At this point, it also created a sense of exclusivity within the fashion space. With the high-fashion industry taking the world by storm with its shows, it became almost inaccessible to the general public. That is, until Thierry Mugler became the first to sell tickets to his show in 1984, opening doors to something that was otherwise closed off. Without social media, the designers still had the final say in what was “trendy” through their creations alone.
The industry remained somewhat closed off until the mid to late 2000s when social media began to rise. We, as consumers, now have a say to a certain degree in how fashion moves in this day and age.
With this, fashion shows have become more inclusive than ever before, not just for models, but for those who are being invited. Designers have since made a shift in inviting influencers to shows in person, live-streaming their newest collections, and even taking the liberty of posting on their own social media accounts for the rest of the world to see.
As for the shows themselves, by the 90s, they became million-dollar productions. Not much has changed in terms of budgeting; if anything, they're much higher. In recent years, however, we’ve seen many designers break away from the molding of traditional fashion shows, partaking in destination runways like Bottega or having models walk on water like Diesel.
We also have designers like Alexander McQueen, who have made controversial yet striking statements on the runway since their debut. Trailblazers like Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne, whom I’ve mentioned in my previous supermodel article, were the first to debut black models in their shows in the 60s. More recently, designer Willy Chivarria has made cultural and political statements in his shows as a form of protest, displaying the connection between the arts and our current events.
The model walk has also changed drastically over the decades. This is intended as such to transfer focus to the clothing itself. As the world progresses, so does its art.
Based on my opinion, fashion has evolved in a way that requires the models to evolve with it. From the music that is played on the runway to the tone that the designer is trying to set with their collections, it all factors into the walk. Are the ensembles cheery? Mysterious? Eye-catching? Jaw-dropping? Does it have a cultural impact? Is it couture or Ready-to-Wear? This all plays a role in what they want to be portrayed, who their target audience is, and the vision as a whole.
The domino effect that one decision can have on the future is something that I think about quite often when it comes to the fashion world. Of course, I wasn’t there, but I can imagine that these designers didn’t expect their innovations to have a ripple in the world and how we consume art today. I wonder how they’d feel about it, especially when the topic of fast fashion comes into question. I’m going off on a tangent here, but I just find it to be so intriguing, my Roman Empire, if you will. Maybe someone else out there feels the same.
Citations
Bigham, Randy Bryan, and Leslie Midkiff DeBauche. “Lucy Duff-Gordon.” Lucy Duff-Gordon – Women Film Pioneers Project, wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-lucy-duff-gordon/.
“Fashion Week.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Apr. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_week.
Klerk, Amy De. “The Fascinating History of the Catwalk Show.” Harper’s Bazaar, 24 Jan. 2022, www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/a35783366/history-catwalk-show/.
“What Is a Catwalk? The Basics of Catwalk Modeling.” MasterClass, 13 Dec. 2022, www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-a-catwalk.
