Claudia Schiffer says social media has had a "huge impact" on the fashion industry.
Claudia Schiffer
The 50-year-old catwalk legend was one of the biggest supermodels in the world in the 90s and she is still working in the industry now with modelling, design and curation projects with Etre Cécile and Bordallo Pinheiro, whilst also being the face of Chanel's J12 watch.
Claudia has seen a lot of changes throughout her decades in the industry, the biggest being the impact apps like Instagram and Twitter have had on the business.
Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald, she said: "Fundamentally the industry is the same, it's just grown enormously. There are more collections, the pace is faster and social media has had a huge impact. It's been great for marketing fashion and beauty products, as well as providing a very effective way to manage your own exposure, which you see particularly with the big models of today."
However, Claudia - who has three children, Caspar, 17, Clementine, 15, and Cosima, 10, with her director husband Matthew Vaughn - does miss the days before social media when you weren't expected to share every detail of your life online with your fans and followers.
She said: "What was great in the 90s, though, was not to feel the pressure to share everything with everybody; you could still have a private life and create a mystique. I miss that clear line of the public figure versus the private one. However, I do love sharing fashion moments of my life on Instagram."
Claudia along with the likes of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Niki Taylor, Kate Moss and Helena Christensen were the most in-demand models in the world in the 90s and what the German icon remembers of that crazy time was that the girls were as famous as the world's biggest rock stars.
Claudia is also proud of the fact that the 'supers' all looked out for each other and used their collective power to ensure they were always treated well on shoots and jobs.
Recalling that decade, she said: "It was insane. Like being a rock star. You couldn't get to your car. We had security at every fashion show - even employed to guard my underwear! When I was out on the runway I'd come back and my underwear would constantly be gone.
"We were on the cover of every magazine and in every campaign. We lived and breathed it and we developed unprecedented control over our careers. Although we could be competitive, there was a lot of camaraderie between us too. We looked out for each other and we weren't afraid to speak up. If somebody had a bad experience, we would call everyone and say, 'By the way, this just happened.' We thought, 'We have the power all together and we should use it, because this is wrong.' We made things change."
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