In 2017, Donatella Versace held a fashion show in Milan which in turn was a tribute to the 90s supermodels that her brother Gianni helped make them who they were. This group of statuesque women, as famous as rock stars, who didn’t need a last name. Everyone knew who they were talking about if Claudia, Naomi or Cindy’s name was mentioned. For this show, Donatella managed to bring together Carla (Bruni), Claudia (Schiffer), Naomi (Campbell), Cindy (Crawford) and Helena (Christensen). Once the euphoria was generated after seeing all these icons once again tread the catwalk as they did in the 1991 Versace show the tribute referenced, the inevitable question arose: where was Linda?
Linda Evangelista (57) is missing: for years she hasn’t walked a single red carpet, attended any event, parade, party or presentation. No reunions with other colleagues, nor big fashion campaigns. In order not to appear, Linda Evangelista did not even appear in the photos that she uploaded to her own Instagram account. Unlike her professional colleagues, the Canadian seems to have been swallowed up by the earth. Ultimately, in September 2021, Evangelista decided to count what had happened to him in a long text on his instagram profile: She had had a problem with an aesthetic treatment that separated her from public life, “leaving her, according to her, completely deformed” and unable to exercise her profession. “Today, I take a big step in correcting a damage that I suffered and that I have kept to myself for five years,” the model wrote. “To all my followers, who wondered why I didn’t work while my colleagues’ careers were booming, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s liposculpture procedure, which did the opposite of what was promised. It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and permanently deformed me, even after undergoing two very painful unsuccessful corrective surgeries,” she wrote at the time. “They left me, as the press described it, unrecognizable.”
Linda Evangelista underwent a treatment called CoolSculpting or liposculpture, an alternative technique to liposuction, supposedly less invasive and without postoperative, which eliminates localized fat by freezing the cells, which has caused a disease called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, or PAH, for its acronym in English, as he would confess later in an in-depth interview with the magazine People. A problem that the manufacturer estimates only occurs in 1 in 4,000 treatments, but which, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in the United States, can occur in 0.72% of cases, or 1 in 138 cases. model assured that after these sessions she was “permanently deformed” and for this reason she sued Zeltiq, the parent company of the devices for this treatment, from which she demanded 50 million dollars (about 44 million dollars). euros) for damages.
Today, Linda Evangelista says she is “satisfied” after having solved the case of the CoolSculpting. This was communicated via his Instagram account, where he added that he was looking forward to starting a new stage in his life: “I am looking forward to the next chapter of my life with my friends and family, and I am happy to leave this matter behind. . I am truly grateful for the support I have received from those who have been close to me.” At the moment, the details of the agreement between the company and the model are unknown.
Sources close to the model revealed amid People that seems like the conclusion Evangelista needed to move forward: “With this deal and her recent Fendi campaign, Linda is ready to move on. After years of hiding, now it comes out again.” In this interview with the same medium where she revealed the reasons that kept her away from the world, she also confided how much she loved her job: “I loved riding on the catwalks, now I’m afraid to meet someone I know.”
For the moment, she has not participated in any fashion shows, but she has starred in the last campaign for Fendithat celebrates the iconic bag baguette, house icon. Upon her return, she surrounded herself with a good handful of friends and trusted people: photographer Steven Meisel, with whom she produced some of the most memorable campaigns and editorials of her career, and her friend Kim Jones, current artistic director of Fendi and Dior Homme.
In legend, the model announces an upcoming Fendi parade: it will be September 9, in New York, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the bag. Who knows if Linda, without a last name, will walk the podium again.