Famous Supermodels From The '70s Who Still Look Stunning Today

While Janice Dickinson likes to claim that she created the term "supermodel" (per Entertainment Tonight), the reality is that the concept existed well before she strutted down a catwalk, going back to at least the late 1800s. But there is no doubting that Dickinson and her peers of the 1970s came to embody the phrase in a way no generation of models had before. In the era of disco and pet rocks, the fashion models became better known than many of the clothes and products they were hired to show off. As they turned into household names, they began to be paid accordingly, with Lauren Hutton, Margaux Hemingway, and Cheryl Tiegs becoming the first models to sign million-dollar contracts. 

The rise of the '70s supermodel began with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues, when the outlet's eventual senior editor Jule Campbell wanted to show off women who didn't fit the 1960s standard. She told the New York Times prior to her retirement in 1996, "The issue was started around the time of Twiggy, when all the girls were really skinny. I got my girls from California, and they were bigger and healthier. They looked as American as apple pie." Campbell also insisted on crediting the models in the swimsuit issues, ensuring that everyone would know them by their names and not just by their looks. And while these beautiful women of the 1970s may not appear in as many magazines as they did 50 years ago, they are still just as stunning as ever.

Jerry Hall owes her career to an allergic reaction to penicillin, which she was given after being laid up in a hospital due to a car accident. Just out of high school, Hall was paid $800 for the mishap and used the money to leave Texas and head to Paris. It was there that Yves Saint Laurent gave Hall her big break, and the rest is supermodel history.

These days Hall, who was in a relationship with Mick Jagger for over 20 years, babysits her grandchildren and embraces her age. Looking as fantastic as ever, she told Vogue in 2026, "I think we should be allowed to look 70. Why not?"

Rejected by a number of modeling agencies because of the gap in her teeth that would help earn her the title of the first supermodel, Lauren Hutton has appeared on the cover of American Vogue more times than any other model. She also became the first model to sign a contract instead of being paid by the hour, changing the game for everyone who followed in her footsteps.

Hutton continues to model in her 80s, appearing in campaigns for Saint Laurent in 2024 and Gant in 2026. And she still shows off the iconic gap between her teeth.

In 1972, Iman and her family were forced to flee their home in Somalia and become refugees in Kenya. It was there, while attending the University of Nairobi, that she was discovered. Iman initially agreed to model as a way to pay for college — she wanted to study political science — but by 1976 she was appearing in Vogue.

The supermodel married David Bowie in 1992, and stayed with the legendary rock star until his untimely passing in 2016. Now in her 70s, Iman continues to amaze people with her looks and her business acumen, and she previously ran her own cosmetics company for women of color aptly named Iman.

Patti Hansen was just 16 when she was signed to her first modeling contract in 1972. Before long, she was appearing in Glamour and on billboards in Times Square. In the late '70s through mid-'80s, Hansen switched to acting for a while, before returning to the runway in the 1990s for a Calvin Klein show.

In 1979, Hansen met Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, and the two have been together ever since. After already dealing with breast cancer, Hansen was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2007. She told Vogue in 2010, "One doctor said I had two to three years to live with this thing in me." She proved them wrong and, in March 2026, celebrated her 70th birthday. On an Instagram post by her daughter marking the milestone, Richards replied, "Hot in every decade." It's hard to disagree with him. 

The first Black model to appear on the cover of Vogue, Beverly Johnson had planned to be a civil rights lawyer before the world of fashion came calling in 1971. Before long, Johnson was an in-demand runway model and one of the stars of 1973's Battle of Versailles charity fashion show, which helped the American team of designers beat the French designers and lifted American fashion in the eyes of the world. 

As the decade wound down, Johnson turned to acting and entrepreneurship, starting her own lifestyle brand in 2012. She continues to model on occasion and, in 2024, debuted her critically acclaimed one-woman, off-Broadway show, "In Vogue."

Inspired by 1960's icons Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy, Cheryl Tiegs dreamed of being a model. It happened for her when she was a senior in high school and modeled for a bathing suit company. Editors at Glamour saw her ad and quickly put her in a photoshoot with Ali MacGraw. Tiegs made modeling history when she signed a $1.5 million contract with CoverGirl, and pop culture history when her 1978 pink bikini poster became a best-seller. While Tiegs found herself on the wrong side of a controversy in the mid-2010s, there's no denying that she still looks amazing in her 70s.

Pat Cleveland was making her own clothes at New York's High School of Art and Design when her sense of fashion caught the attention of an editor at Vogue. By 1970, she was living in Paris and working as a model with some of the biggest designers of the era. 

Cleveland became famous for her skills on the catwalk, which her peer Janice Dickinson elegantly described by saying, "When she moved, she painted the air around her with the clothes" (via the New York Times). Cleveland opened her own modeling agency in Italy in 1995, and continues to model herself, working with Gap for the company's 2026 Encore campaign. 

Rene Russo was bullied so badly she dropped out in 10th grade and started working at a factory. At 17, her agent John Crosby saw Russo walking out of a Rolling Stones concert and gave her his card.  She quickly became a premier model of the 1970s and '80s.

But, by Russo's own account, the work dried up, telling the Los Angeles Times in 1995, "I went from the cover of Cosmopolitan and Vogue to standing on the beach with a pillow over my stomach doing some piece-of-(expletive) pregnancy catalogue for a dollar an hour." Russo quit modeling and took up acting, which is what she is best known for today.

One of the most recognizable models of her generation, Grace Jones lived as a nudist and hung out with the Hell's Angels before moving to Paris in 1970, quickly becoming a sensation on the runway. With her androgynous style and intense stare, Jones became a regular fixture on the covers of fashion magazines.

Jones turned modeling into a successful music career and has appeared in several movies as well, most notably playing May Day in the James Bond classic, "A View to a Kill." In 2023, Jones came out of modeling retirement to join a Wolford campaign, proving that she hadn't lost her touch.