This is – and is not – a trick question. I suppose the answer is, a lot. They have a lot in common.
They are both in their fifties, for one; Kidman is 55, while Evangelista is 57. They are both among the most famous faces of their generation, having joined the ranks of the A list in the 1990s, when Evangelista was one of the original school of supermodel, alongside Cindy, Naomi and Christy, while Kidman married Tom Cruise, arguably among the most famous men in the world, in 1990.
I suspect they’d have a lot to talk about over tea, or coffee, or whatever. (If I were either of them, I think I’d exclusively drink gin.)
Of late, they’re in the headlines for a myriad of reasons. They’re women, which is always a great reason to talk smack about someone, but they’re also each on the cover of a glossy magazine, Evangelista on British Vogue and Kidman, resplendent in a hideous skirt? skort? shorts? on the cover of Perfect, a magazine I didn’t even know existed until she graced its pages.
Their appearances couldn’t be more different. Evangelista is swathed in oodles of fabric, draped and wrapped and, we find out in the article, taped, while Kidman strikes a power pose, muscles pulsing beneath oiled (and tanned, with the slightly orange tinge of an Irish teenager) skin.
And yet they are both examples of something that has never gone away: the obsession with women’s bodies, the reduction of women to the sum of our parts, the relentless focus on ageing and toning and nipping and tucking and God oh God WHEN will it end (is it only when we die?!).
Evangelista’s appearance is not just for the sake of style – thankfully, Miss Marple chic is not coming back any time soon, instead we’re getting low-rise jeans and more crop tops (don’t shoot the messenger) – but in an attempt to cover up the fact that she has been “disfigured” by a CoolSculpting treatment she underwent (for which she has since settled a lawsuit for a cool $50 million).
CoolSculpting, for the uninitiated, is a treatment whereby areas of flesh are frozen to a specific temperature, the “science” behind it claiming that the fat cells within are killed, never to return again.
I had the treatment myself, on a handful of flesh beneath my chin, in an attempt to give me the jawline of my dreams. It was complimentary, in exchange for my posting about it on Instagram. The end difference was minor, but noticeable to me, and so I thought it a success – although, to be perfectly honest, I would never have forked out the €1,000+, had it not been offered to me FOC.
Anyway. Evangelista’s treatment went wrong – she was among the 1% of patients to suffer a side effect whereby the treatment areas swell and harden. It is irreversible. In “after” photographs, the “brutally disfigured” (her words) model looks… well, like a woman in her fifties. She is beautiful. But she is also soft. Her skin has wrinkles. Her legs are no longer super smooth.
I do not blame Evangelista for feeling heartbroken about the results of her youth-harnessing endeavours. She simply wanted to look like Cindy, or Naomi, or even Nicole Kidman, who has not had any work done is the same age. Who could blame her?
As it happens, quite a few people could – starting with Yvonne Roberts in the Guardian, describing Kidman’s “frantic effort” to look half her age as “demeaning”. Sound, Yvonne, sound.
In the examination of each of these magazine covers, much has been said about the quest for youth and beauty; the lengths to which “these” women (as if they are all that different to “those” women or “us” women) will go to in order to hold on to them; the bizarre decision by British Vogue to drape Evangelista in yards of fabric, and by makeup artist Pat McGrath to tape her face back in order to somehow recapture the beauty of her youth, her supermodel heyday.
And it is bizarre. Edward Enninful, editor of British Vogue since 2017, has spoken much about his desire to revolutionise the fashion publication, to lean into racial diversity and female empowerment and ideas of beauty that expand beyond, well, the supers of old.
Yet here we are – Linda Evangelista, a woman who is, to be clear, still very beautiful (even outside of the notion that all women are beautiful which, let’s be honest, they’re not – and that’s fine, until we get to a point where we devalue beauty as currency we will never be free, in this TED Talk I will etc…), is trussed up a la Frankenstein’s monster in order to present to us a vision of supermodellian beauty that has been done so. many. times. They may as well have just put Kate Moss on the cover (for the 31st time, that is not an exaggeration) and been done with it.
As for Kidman, in a way the Perfect cover is the more honest of the two. Here is Kidman, age 55, showing us (as opposed to showing off) the results of an obviously gruelling workout regimen; a clearly restrictive diet; an unrelenting, Herculean effort to keep herself in the bracket of acceptable bodily aesthetics.
Suggested solutions to this overarching societal problem, that is bigger than Kidman and Evangelista and Vogue and CoolSculpting area:
stop buying fashion magazines – read Jessica DeFino’s anti-beauty industry Substack instead
be the change you want to see in the world! The next time you go to compliment someone on their looks, try to think of something – anything! – else. Their skills, talents, personality… something commendable they did recently. THE WAY THEY PARALLEL PARK. Anything.
stop watching The Kardashians. I’m speaking to myself here, too – having never watched KUWTK, I gave in and watched the latest season on Hulu and… nothing ever happens? And even when things do happen, they are incredibly dull? It’s also bizarre.
think a little about the content you are rewarding, on social media and elsewhere. The selfies I post – all the better if I am looking “good”, wearing makeup and “working my angles” – do so much better than almost any other photographs, no matter what the caption is saying. What message is that sending? (And is that the message we want to send?)
and finally: don’t beat yourself up over buying into the beauty myth. We all have to live in this world. If you’ve got a little CoolSculpting done, or you get your regular Botox because you hate your forehead wrinkles, or you go to the gym because you’re afraid of gaining weight or whatever it is, it’s fine! We’re all in this together. We’ve all been totally, utterly fucked over by patriarchal beauty standards. Even Nicole and Linda.
On the topic of Kim Kardashian, she’s white again! Just FYI. Gotta stay clued in, frenzzzz.
I just finished Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan (currently £3 on Kindle!). I stayed up til 1.30am finishing it, which isn’t necessarily an indicator of a great book, I don’t think, but I did enjoy it. It’s quite likely I bought it for the cover alone, don’t judge me.
I’m now reading I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, because I listened to this episode of Celebrity Memoir Book Club and, despite knowing everything that happens in the book, still wanted to read it. That podcast is weird (and great) like that.
What do Linda Evangelista and Nicole Kidman Have in Common?