Claudia Schiffer: The supermodel is dead,

The age of the supermodel is over, according to Claudia Schiffer.

The 37-year-old beauty believes models can no longer achieve the kind of global celebrity she, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford enjoyed in the 1990s.

These days, singers and actresses are as likely to grace the covers of glossy magazines, preventing models from reaching star status, Miss Schiffer told an interviewer in her native Germany.

"In order to become a supermodel one must be on all the covers all over the world at the same time so that people can recognise the girls.

"That is, for now, not possible, not least because the advertising industry is very much taken nowadays by popstars and actresses. Supermodels like we once were don't exist any more."

There are so many beautiful models around, it is almost impossible for a handful to become real celebrities, Miss Schiffer added in the magazine Fivetonine.

The model, who has a home in Suffolk-added: "I can remember when I needed four bodyguards to get backstage from a Chanel show just to my car. And that wasn't only me. It just isn't like this any more."

Miss Schiffer believes the Brazilian Gisele Bundchen is one of the few women to have supermodel status today.

"Her face is well known, her name is recognised - but no other girl occurs to me that people in the street would recognise," she said.

[Source]

Claudia Schiffer - Glamour - September 2007