60 years ago today, in Cronulla, a residential area 20 kilometers south of Sydney, Australia, Elle Macpherson was born. “The first time I walked I was 7 years old and I did it with my aunt, who was a model. I hated it. I never wanted to be a model, I wanted to study law and have a stable job where I would have enough income to allow me to grow,” she recalled last November in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. It was a year before starting law school, when he was 17 years old, when he decided to take a sabbatical that would forever change the course of his life. She ended up in Aspen, Colorado (USA), where a representative from the Click Model Management agency noticed her and suggested that she move to New York. She accepted. After that yes, she became one of the top models that marked the decades of the eighties and nineties and that, today, do not need a last name: Claudia, Naomi, Linda, Cindy and also Elle. Although in her case, more than her name, she is recognized by her nickname: The body.
On the occasion of her 60th birthday, we review some of the milestones that marked the life of a legendary model and one of the most important women in the fashion industry.
The body
“I realized very early on that I was never going to have the fashion-thin body. She was 1.83, had a 36 hip, a 90 bust, and broad shoulders from having swum all my life,” Macpherson herself said in 2019 in Vogue Australia about the beginning of her career, in which it was difficult for her to fit in: she was a young woman with an athletic build that distanced her from the usual body of the mannequins that dominated the catwalks of the time. Some time later, thanks to Sports Illustrated, everything changed. She starred in the magazine’s iconic swimsuit special up to five times. In fact, the Australian monopolized the cover in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1994 and 2006, breaking a record that to date no one has surpassed yet. After three consecutive appearances in the publication in the eighties, in 1989 the magazine time He dedicated an extensive report to it, as well as its cover. It was the prestigious American publication that precisely coined the nickname by which it is known worldwide: The Body.
Reading it for the first time, Elle Macpherson saw the perfect opportunity to build her own brand. That’s why she didn’t take long to register the name herself. “It was a funny slogan. Then it went on and on and I turned it into a business,” he told journalist Jonathan Ross in 2010. “My nickname has never bothered me; not even when it started. Being The body has not been restrictive for me because it helped me make a living, so… thank you!” said the model herself in 2012 in an interview in SFashion.
A brief acting career
While her career in fashion was taking off, she also made the occasional foray into the world of film and television. And not by anyone’s hand. In 1990, she appeared (very briefly) in the film Alice by Woody Allen, although everyone would remember her for her role in the film Mermaids (1994), by John Duigan, where she appeared completely naked. She also had a role in the film Batman and Robin, by Joel Schumacher, in 1997. But, without a doubt, the character that gave her the most popularity in the world of acting was that of Janine Lacroix, the roommate and fleeting partner of Joey Tribbiani in the popular Friends. It was common in the series for many actors to make cameos (Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Danny Devito, Brooke Shields…), but Macpherson participated for five episodes. And there could have been more: apparently, the producers gave him the opportunity to lengthen his character, but he refused to participate in more episodes because he was living in London at the time.
Why did you stop acting? She herself answered this question in an interview with the Australian edition of the magazine Vogue in 2019: “I knew that in 10 years I would say one of two things: ‘I wish I had made this movie or I wish I had spent more time with my son.’ One of those things was going to hurt me a lot; the other, not so much.”
Business vision
According to CelebrityNetWorth, Macpherson has a fortune estimated at 95 million dollars (just over 87 million euros at the current exchange rate). Virtually from the beginning of his career, Macpherson had great business vision. In 1994, she founded her own company, Elle Macpherson Inc., with which she launched a calendar series and a series of exercise videos. They were a success because, who wouldn’t want to know the sports routines from The Body? In addition, she launched herself into the world of lingerie, creating Elle Macpherson Intimates, which was a success in the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2005, she launched a cosmetics line, called Elle Macpherson The Body, which no longer exists.
To all this, we must also add her role as presenter between 2010 and 2013 of the talent contest Britain & Ireland’s Next Top Model (where she also served as executive producer) and, in 2012, the first season of Fashion Star in United States. In 2014, she in turn co-founded the dietary supplement company WelleCo, whose flagship product, The Super Elixir, has Kate Moss among her biggest fans.
Among his business adventures there is a notorious failure: Fashion Café, a restaurant that opened in 1995 with other supermodels, following the idea of Planet Hollywood, and that did not survive until the two thousandth birthday.
20 years sober
In September 2023, Elle Macpherson surprised her followers on Instagram — where she has 734,000 followers, a far cry from the millions accumulated by her colleagues Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford — by posting a photograph of an Alcoholics Anonymous badge with which she announced that she was wearing 20 years sober. Recently, in an interview with an Australian media outlet, the supermodel decided to open up about her decision to stop drinking, which she “does not regret.” “I stopped drinking in 2003 because I felt like it wasn’t fully present in my life, and it was a wonderful springboard to getting to know myself on a deeper level,” she admitted; “Although it took discipline and perseverance, the bottom line is that you can’t be well if you’re not present, and alcohol doesn’t help that. It is very difficult to know yourself if you are numb.”
Your son follows in your footsteps
As a result of her relationship with the French financier Arpad Busson, her children were born: Arpad Flynn Alexander, who came into the world in 1998, and Aurelius Cy Andrea, born in 2003. Due to the professions of their parents, they both grew up between New York, London and Bahamas. And also in the backstage from many fashion shows. Maybe that’s why Cy, the youngest, has been bitten by the fashion bug. At 20 years old, he has already appeared in various fashion publications (such as Glamor, Inside or the magazine elle, where she appeared with her mother), in addition to starring in some advertising campaigns and having signed with a modeling agency. Even so, for him, as for his older brother, the important thing is his studies. And although he enjoys playing his mother’s profession, the truth is that young Cy has followed in his father’s footsteps in his studies: currently, he is also a finance student, according to what he puts on his LinkedIn.
A penultimate parade
Elle Macpherson has returned to the catwalk in 2024 after her last appearance, 16 years ago. It was during the parade Triumphant x PayPal Runway which was held within the framework of Melbourne Fashion Festival, last March. The model herself wrote a message about that moment on her social networks: “How good to be back home supporting Australian designers.” She thus joined names like Claudia Schiffer, who walked for Versace in September 2023, during Milan Fashion Week, or Linda Evangelista, who did so in September 2022, with Fendi. His was a less talked-about return, on a smaller catwalk, and more for a good cause than in the search for a great return. The truth is that The body does not need to return anywhere, because it never completely left. He just stopped being where the spotlight was pointing, and settled, in a very lucrative way, behind them.
