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Why do models walk like that?

Thu., Apr. 12, 2007 5:19 PM PDT by Leslie Gornstein

Why do models walk like they have a neurological disorder? I saw one walking a runway and not only did she have her shoulders back and arms contorted to fully display her inner arm, but she hobbled around sort of knock-kneed.
—Ems, London

The B!tch Replies: Let's take a trip in time, children, back to the late '70s and early '80s, when Janice Dickinson still had her original lips and models dated rock stars because Leo DiCaprio was still too young to drive or get his own hotel suites.

Back in that day, this B!tch is told, models walked like everyone else. (Just watch the E! True Hollywood Story on that poor dead Gia Carangi to see footage of how this Jurassic-era supermodel walked. Like normal people, only on heroin.)

"I used to model in New York with Iman," says Galina Sobolev, designer for L.A.-based label Single. "It was a theater drama but not so much of the scissor-crossing of the legs you see today."

Then came the later '80s and the '90s, and models starting acting funny. Linda Evangelista cracked some comment about how she wouldn't wake up for less than $10,000 a day. Christy Turlington and Paulina Porizkova and Naomi Campbell started showing up on video sets, mouthing the words to George Michael songs on MTV and palling around with the more troll-like elements of Guns N' Roses. The kids went wild. Supermodels were interesting. Supermodels were all the rage.

Meanwhile, designers started getting younger, rowdier, more daring, and they delighted in surrounding themselves with models who could act as fabulous as they did. They wanted showier girls to match their wild clothes and newly revamped, rock-and-roll-laced fashion shows.

And so it was that models began getting cockier, competitive, looking for ways to stand out.

If Claudia Schiffer was going to, as the fashionistas put it at the time, "galumph" down a runway with her arms flailing every which way, then Naomi was going to slide or glide or what have you. And if people still didn't notice her, a model could lob a cell phone at anyone stupid enough to be sitting still.

Supermodels developed "signature walks" that looked ridiculous but also sealed their places in the industry as the superstars people wanted them to be. Besides, they made the clothes look really fun. In a $15,000 denim skirt kind of way.

By the time Gisele broke big in the late '90s, new models were expected to have their own unique gait. In Gisele's case, it was the horsey stomp you still see from time to time.

I suppose it's all part of what Tyra might call Era of the Fierceness. Now you'll excuse me. It's time to sign off. I don't boot up my computer for less than $10,000 a day.