Models of Influence

Nigel Barker profiles fifty of the most noteworthy models from the 1940s to the present, revealing how their look or way of modeling not only made an indelible stamp on the industry but also influenced fashion design, the popular way of dress, and notions of female beauty worldwide.

Each of the book's eight chapters focuses on a distinct period, from the postwar modeling boom, which ushered in an era of models who communicated a return to glamour, to the present day, with the emergence of media-savvy models who understand the power of branding themselves to the world at large. Each entry highlights the model's background and career, exploring her unique qualities and the secret to her staying power, whether it's her physical characteristics, daring approach to image making, transformative abilities, or a particular energy that captured or even redefined the zeitgeist of fashion and culture of the time.

To complement the text, Barker has personally selected more than one hundred full-color and black-and-white photographs from the archives of the world's top fashion photographers to assemble a collectible anthology of many of the finest fashion images from the last seventy years.