CULTURE CORNER

The "Model" Model

Christy Turlington

Christy Turlington is famous in the fashion industry as one of the friendliest and most professional models in the business. In 1998, she became a part of a group of supermodels in 1988 along with Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour and Tatjana Patitz. Christy along with Naomi and Linda were frequently booked together and became known as the "Trinity".

Born January 2, 1969 in Walnut Creek, California, Christy is a British Salvadoran-American supermodel best known for representing Calvin Klein fragrances since 1987. She grew up in Danville, California, with a British father and a mother from El Salvador. She has also worked on various campaigns for Maybelline Cosmetic and Giorgio Armani.

More recently, she has become a partner in three successful business co-ventures: An ayurvedic skincare line, Sundari, and two clothing lines produced by Puma: Nuala* (stands for Natural Universal Altruistic Limitless Authentic) , a collection inspired by refined movement and the articulations of dance, and Mahanuala, a women's yoga-wear line.

*Year 2000, Saks Fifth Avenue's "Fashion Targets Breast Cancer" geared to raise awareness and research funding for the disease - as part of the roster of high-profile participants, a portion of nuala's sale proceeds benefited local and national breast cancer charities. This year 2006, Nuala supports The One Campaign, movement to raise awareness on the fight against the global AIDS crisis and for the end of extreme poverty. Limited edition Nuala key ring will be sold with 100% proceeds to The One Campaign. For more locations and products, please go to http://nuala.puma.com/.

On August 11, 2006, Women's Wear Daily reported that Christy signed a multi-year contract with Maybelline, marking her return to the company that made her famous with its "Maybe She's Born With It" ad campaign.

Turlington has been practicing Yoga for almost 15 years and is the author of Living Yoga: Creating A Life Practice. Owing to this interest in Eastern religions, she went back to school in 1994 and graduated cum laude in 1999, from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study of New York University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Comparative Religion and Eastern Philosophy. An ex-smoker whose father died of lung cancer, Turlington is also an anti-smoking activist, and a practicing Catholic .

On June 7, 2003, she married actor-filmmaker Edward Burns in a Catholic ceremony. U2 frontman, Bono gave the bride away. They have two children, a daughter, Grace (b. October 25, 2003), and a son, Finn (b. February 2006).