Do You Think Naomi Campbell is the Greatest Supermodel Ever?

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Despite her antics—and being knows more, these days, for throwing tantrums instead of fronting campaigns—PopEater's Ben Widdicombe says that Naomi Campbell is arguably the "greatest supermodel ever."

When Campbell appeared in the late 1980s, she immediately epitomized a slew of evolving and emerging trends. Her body was muscular in a way that spoke to the newly-aerobicized era, but also incredibly slender in the way that we now think of as normal for models. She excelled at both print campaigns and walking the runway at live fashion shows at a time when most models tended to specialize in either one or the other.

She also embodied the dawning Global Age—here was a black woman with an English accent who was a quarter Asian (on the side of her reputed Jamaican-Chinese father, whose identity has never been revealed). But most importantly for her success: Everything looked great on her. She instinctively realized that a model's job was to give personality to clothes, and garments that would have draped like sack-cloth on other mannequins became interesting and alive when interpreted by the young woman from Streatham, England.

And while other models—such as Linda Evangelista—may have been able to embody hundreds of different looks in front of the camera, Widdicombe says that "none had Campbell's total package." Not even Campbell's early-on BFF, the still-ubiquitous Kate Moss:

In the '90s, at the height of supermodel-mania, the power players were Turlington, Campbell, Crawford and Evangelista, plus Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer and Kate Moss. Of them all, only Moss can rival Campbell's enduring appeal as a working high-fashion model. But again, Moss's great strength as a print star was never combined with particular skill on the catwalk. One fashion insider sniped to PopEater, "It was a miracle if she could make it to the end of the runway."

What do you think? Do you think Naomi is the greatest supermodel of all time?
· In Appreciation of Naomi Campbell [PopEater]