The supermodel's artistic medium is assumption – reflecting it, shaping and defying it. They take on characters and tell stories without using dialogue, or leave enough room in their expressions for the beholder to project personalities on them.
Washington Post columnist Robin Givhan reminds us at the beginning of "The Super Models" that before the era when fashion was defined by four major names – Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington – models were the equivalent of hangers. They were called mannequins, and with a few exceptions, nobody knew their names or what they thought.
