“Pretty Women,” by Jonathan Van Meter originally appeared in the October 1990 issue of Vogue. For more of the best from Vogue’ s archive, sign up for our Nostalgia newsletter here . On a Saturday night in April, just before the winter collections in New York, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington were out with their usual posse of photographers and models at the Roxy, a huge nightclub in lower Manhattan, to swing—literally.
After a little coaxing, the two supermodels (whose best-girlfriendship has recently been made public on the cover of British Vogue and on the runways of Paris) climbed onto the Roxy’s infamous swing, which hangs from the ceiling down into the center of the dance floor. Linda got on first, then Christy mounted the swing, straddling Linda’s lap, her skirt hiked up to her waist. Face-to-face, the two women, pushed by clubgoers, sailed through the air in disco revelry, screaming and laughing to everyone’s delight.
It made the papers the following Monday in a way that would have made, say, Andy Warhol wish he had been there. “I’m still, today, hearing about the swing episode,” says Linda. “People come up to me on the street and say, ‘I saw you on the swing with Christy at the Roxy.
’ Everyone got a little too into it. If I had known it was going to be such a big deal I probably wouldn’t have done it.” Come on, Linda.
Of course you would have. That’s what being a big-time, ridiculously overpaid celebrity model is all about: maki.