1280_KaiaCredit: Getty Images

If there was ever any doubt Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber is poised to be the next American supermodel wunderkind, it was dashed as she walked the red carpet at the Front Row Fashion Los Angeles Awards.

In 1995 – and at the height of the CC cultural phenomenon Crawford created – Forbes magazine named the 51-year-old the highest earning model in the world with an annual salary of AUS$8.5 million (or AUS$13.2 million today). Now, her empire is currently still expanding with the Cindy Crawford Home collection grossing over $250 million annually, as reported in 2015.

The supermodel has set a high bar for Gerber but with the (hereditary) golden ticket already admitted into the land of models, designers and big brands, her daughter has everything she needs (minus the beauty spot) to be this generation’s Cindy. Here’s why:

SHE’S GETTING INTO THE GAME YOUNGER
When a local photographer took a photo of a young, unknown Crawford picking corn and put it in the local newspaper, you know how the end of this anecdote goes. Reactions were favourable and although Crawford was the valedictorian of her high school and had a scholarship to study chemical engineering at university, she knew there was a life in modelling beyond the cornfields. Moving to Manhattan, she signed to Elite New York model agency in 1986, aged just 20-years old. But it appears her daughter is seven years ahead of her. Gerber was signed at 13-years-old with IMG in 2015.

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Credit: Getty ImagesSupermodels Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer at a Revlon luncheon in 1988 at the Four Seasons.

 

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She scored her first cover at 14-years-old

Crawford’s first cover was Vogue in 1987. While her career started later than Gerber’s, it certainly took off more quickly on the newsstand. But we must consider on one hand, Gerber is just 15-years-old and not suitable for big mastheads alone while Crawford was not only older but began modelling when the magazine front-spot was saturated with only models, unlike today’s celebrity covers. (Dig a little deeper and you will find Crawford’s first cover was actually a college newspaper titled DeKalb Nite Weekly!) By comparison, since her IMG signing, Gerber’s smart and steady ascent into the modelling world saw her land her first cover with her mum in Vogue Paris in March 2016.

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Kaia Gerber at the Daily Front Row Fashion LA Awards in 2017

HER DEBUT DESIGNERS ARE STRONGER
While Crawford walked for Chanel, Dior, Versace, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Valentino, Ralph Lauren and the likes, (and built the majority of her wealth via long-term global contracts with Revlon, Omega and Pepsi) her first runway show was Donna Karen’s Spring 1991 show, five years from signing to Elite. Gerber started out with Alexander Wang and Versace within twelve months of signing and was the face of Marc Jacobs beauty at 15.

GettyImages519512182Credit: Getty ImagesChanel Runway Ready-to wear Spring/Summer 1993-1994

 

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