The Good Buy is a podcast from Harper’s Bazaar in which editors Leah Chernikoff and Lynette Nylander invite celebrities, designers, models, and tastemakers to talk shop: what they buy, where they got it, and why it matters. Come down the fashion rabbit hole and take a peek inside the closets and shopping carts of the world’s most stylish people. Learn how they use style to tell their stories.
What better way to kick off the season of The Good Buy than with this month’s cover star, legendary supermodel Linda Evangelista? Famously known as the chameleon of the fashion industry due to her frequent hair and makeup transformations, Evangelista is among the most influential and accomplished models of all time, the longtime muse of renowned photographer Steven Meisel, and the former face of Chanel and Versace.
Evangelista’s ties with Bazaar go way back. In addition to gracing the cover a total of ten times now, she notably ushered in the “era of elegance” at the magazine through Liz Tilberis’s inaugural issue back in September 1992. Ahead of her 60th birthday, the modeling titan sat down with us to share everything from the origins of her love for menswear to the beloved vintage Chanel pieces she still has in her closet. Read on for the highlights and listen—or watch—the full episode here.
On her shopping philosophy:
“I have this rule. You’re not allowed to buy anything in the middle of the night, but every once in a while… I try not to hit that button in the middle of the night because I want to be completely lucid when I do it.”
On dressing:
“I don’t really dress for other people…Sometimes you see something on other people and you think, “Oh I want to be like that or I want to look like that, but it’s not really you.”
On her love of menswear:
“I never knew I liked men’s, and I never thought I would have, until Peter Lindbergh saw me that way. He didn’t want me in a dress and makeup. He just wanted me looking like a boy all the time…But I felt so comfortable in it, and then I bought men’s cowboy boots in the eighties. I remember being in Milano and I went into the Giorgio Armani Boutique and I walked around. And I was like, Get yourself something, Linda, and what did I do? I bought two blazers, one black cashmere—classic—and one camel cashmere—classic—with an A.P.C men’s shirt, my Levi’s, and an Hermés scarf. Somebody [had] introduced me to Hermés and they told me about it and how special it was. Yeah, that became my sort of uniform and I just feel comfortable in it.”
On individuality:
“You don’t have to drop everything in your closet for whatever is new. Look at the way the French women dress. Some have one piece of jewelry and that’s the one piece that they’ve been wearing for the last three decades, and it works. You don’t need more…I’m okay with shoes from last season and clothes from last season and from two years ago. I’m okay with repeating things.”
Shop Linda’s Good Buys:
HER FIRST BUY:
“My first biggest, hugest [buy]—and it would be big on today’s terms also—was a watch. I was living in Paris and I used to walk around Place Vendôme. I was just window-shopping and I was into watches and the technology behind them, like the mechanisms and the movements and all that. I studied gemology while I was working in this jewelry store and I fell in love with Phases of the Moon, and I fell in love with Blancpain, which was in Place Vendôme. So the first thing I bought myself was a white gold men’s with a leather strap Phases of the Moon.”
HER REPEAT BUY:
“I love a cashmere turtleneck or crewneck. I love J.Crew. I love Zara. I love the Row. Uniqlo does a good cashmere.”
HER DREAM BUY:
“The ‘70s Cartier Tank Américaine. I mean, I could dream higher. Like David Webb pieces or anything ‘60s, ‘70s—like major pieces.”
