People

She was born in Rheinberg near Düsseldorf (Germany) and is celebrating her 54th birthday.

Thanks to her, as well as Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Yasmin Le Bon, Kate Moss and Christy Burlington, a handful of hand-picked models have graced the covers of the biggest magazines and walked the catwalks of the most prominent fashion houses. It was in the glorious 90s. They were no longer simple models, but rather 'super models'. Having become the mother of three children, Claudia Schiffer transformed herself into an actress, first playing her own character (notably for Robert Altman's strange 'Prêt-à-porter' in 1994) and then sometimes emancipating herself towards character roles (as in Richard Curtis' 'Love Actually' in 2002). For the past fifteen years, however, she has felt more comfortable in the shadows and has taken on the role of producer, especially for her husband's works, the Englishman Matthew Vaughn, whose latest film 'Argylle' (with Dua Lipa in her first real role) caused a stir when it was released on Apple TV. In the collective unconscious, Claudia Schiffer will always remain the muse of her compatriot Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. Let's put aside her meeting in Paris with the photographer Helmut Newton at the age of 17 and her tumultuous relationship with the magician David Copperfield to focus on a certain Chanel spring-summer 1994 haute couture collection that was presented at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. It was a dress that Claudia wore that caused the uproar. Fortunately, without the amplification of social media that simply did not exist at the time, the scandal was fly-by-night. But what happened? The German top model wore a pretty bustier embroidered with Arabic characters. Not just any, since they were borrowed from a surah of the Koran entitled 'The Cave'. A crime of lèse majesté, then. It should be noted that five years earlier, the supreme guide of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, had sentenced the English writer Salman Rushdie to death for supposed blasphemies that were barely more serious. The house of Chanel therefore quickly stated that the model produced, the preparatory drawings as well as all the photographs and negatives had been destroyed. Karl Lagerfeld himself apologized publicly, an exercise to which he was not accustomed to. He indicated that he had been inspired by the photo of a detail on the dome of the Taj Mahal in Agra (India) in the caption of which was written: love poem. Neither Karl nor Claudia were therefore condemned. Phew!

(MH for AK / Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)
Photo: Claudia Schiffer at the closing of the Versace Spring/Summer 2024 show on September 22, 2023 in Milan, Italy (© Catwalkpictures)