Claudia Schiffer

Born August 25, 1970, in Germany, Claudia was discovered in October 1987 at 17 in a Düsseldorf nightclub by Michel Levaton, head of Metropolitan Models, and thrust into the orbit of elite fashion overnight. The 1989 Guess? campaigns made her a global star—moody, Bardot-esque denim shots that positioned her as a spiritual heir to Brigitte Bardot herself. Early in her career the comparisons were constant, the mystique deliberate.

Karl Lagerfeld chose her for Chanel in 1990, and she walked her first Chanel show that January, becoming his muse and collaborator for years to come. In 1992 she signed a Revlon contract worth $6 million a year for ten years, reportedly making her the highest-paid model in history at that moment, while commanding $20,000 per runway show—staggering figures for the era. She has appeared on more than 1,000 magazine covers, a Guinness World Record that stands as a monument to her consistency and reach. For 90s kids, Claudia Schiffer WAS the magazine rack—every trip to a newsstand was a chance to catch her face in a new guise.

Her peak-90s cultural moments: engaged to illusionist David Copperfield from January 1994 to September 1999 (a defining celebrity supercouple of the tabloid decade), and in 1995 she co-launched the Fashion Café restaurant chain with Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Elle Macpherson (not Cindy Crawford, despite the persistent misremembering). The restaurant venture collapsed within a few years. By the late 90s, the model era was already shifting—the dominance of the supermodel as cultural icon had begun its slow fade.

She married director Matthew Vaughn in 2002 and largely stepped back from the runway for family life in England, though she returned to high fashion in September 2023 to close Versace's Spring 2024 show, a full-circle moment for a woman who defined the look of the 1990s. The supermodel era ended, but Claudia Schiffer remained its most visible face.