Perhaps the most famous image of Gia Carangi is the one captured by Helmut Newton in 1979. Leaning on a column in black and white, shirt open and suspenders visible, she offers the cigarette stuck between her lips to the woman in a business suit with short hair who leans towards her. Femme fatale of a photographer with a chic and lascivious lensthe one who has just celebrated her majority is for Newton a daughter of Eve with an aura of power. Everything in this shot resonates with personal life of the mannequin. Smoking cigarette between fingers, liberated sexuality, relationship with other women, manifest androgyny, Gia Carangi embodies an indocility that pleases to the photographer and to the world.
But she is a shapeshifter, a true chameleon for whom the camera is not scary. In front of him, she reveals herself where the others flirt. In front of him she shines, undresses willingly, plays with her pout. Elegant woman in a trench coat for Dior in 1979, bohemian woman for Lancetti in 1978, almost naked woman for Versace, Gia Carangi allows herself everything because she can. Only his gaze perhaps betrays his strength. Spotted at 17 at the DCA club in her native Philadelphia by Maurice Tannenbaum, while working in her father’s boutique, she joined the agency of the famous Wilhelmina Cooper and conquered fashion before the eighties do not show up. The future opens its arms wide, as does the darkness of the night.
Descent and hell
Success transforms her into an iconic fashion figure, and the city that never sleeps makes room to his escapades. Gia Carangi is a regular at Studio54, has her appearances at the Mudd Club, gets along with everyone in the community. No one can resist the charm of this newcomer, by whom photographers swear. She becomes the model the highest paid in the worldhis fees amounting to up to $10,000 per session. No one, at the time, could resist the artificial paradises whose powder invaded the clubs either. The model tries cocaine, then heroin.
In 1980, Gia Carangi lost two close friends, her agent Wilhelmina Cooper and photographer Chris von Wangenheim, who left behind a well-stocked portfolio of his work with her. The top gets into drugs. Where his rebellious spirit magnetized, his lack of discipline annoys. In the book Thing of Beauty de Stephen Fried, photographer John Stember recalls: “One day, she did a photoshoot (…) The team spent hours preparing for her (…) Richard Avedon Press the shutter button once. One click. Gia then said to him: “one second, I have to go to the toilet”. She goes there, climbs out the window, takes a taxi and goes home.”
But photographers love him and many give him second chances. Francesco Scavullo offers him one last cover for Cosmopolitan, during which he is struck by the abscesses on his hands and the nothingness in his eyes. His addiction is knownthe reason for her long sleeves too, she lives between rehab centers, her friends’ apartments and photo studios. In her diary, she even writes “get heroin” as an appointment. The one who always has a knife in her pocket gives interviews where she talks about her demons: “It’s hard to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not. Especially when you’re surrounded by vultures. It invades you, only those who have experienced it know”.
His career crumbling under the weight of addictionGia Carangi returns to Philadelphia, the city where she grew up in an unstable family where arguments were frequent. His life is now like an electrocardiogram. She treats herself, relapses. She began studying cinematography, but gave up. She moves to Atlantic City, is raped, comes back. She catches pneumonia, and during her hospitalization, she is told that she has HIVthe reaper disease of the time that she was convinced she had. His health deteriorated and AIDS took him away, silently, on November 18, 1986. No one in the fashion world will attend his funeral. Only Francesco Scavullo will send a condolence card when he hears the news.
A legacy
Despite a brief career, the model will leave behind a legacy more solid than many others. First openly gay model, she was also the first to pose playfully, to pose for many designers and to pose at all. If models pose like they do today, it’s thanks to her. Because long before Kate, Naomi, Claudia and Christy, there was Gia. Considered a pioneer in the world of modeling, she opened the way for super modelsincluding Cindy Crawford who for her resemblance to Gia Carangi was initially nicknamed “Baby Gia”. In 1998, a young actress named Angelina Jolie burst onto the screen in Gia, anatomy of a top modelmaking famous the story of the world’s first super model, a model with indomitable freedom, who died thirty-six years ago to the day.
