Linda Evangelista strutted her stuff during the Fendi show for New York Fashion Week, marking her triumphant return to the catwalk years after a botched fat-freezing procedure left her “disfigured.”
The 57-year-old model delighted the crowd in a spectacular Tiffany blue gown, which she accessorized with sparkling jewels and long silver gloves. Her fierce runway appearance came at the close of the Fendi show on Friday at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom.
The dazzling event also served as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the fashion house’s iconic Baguette bag. Evangelista grabbed a silver iteration of the bag that was also decorated with roses for her runway turn.
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A fashion mainstay of the ’80s and ’90s along with Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington, Evangelista made her modeling debut in 1984. She shot to the top of the industry, but the constant pressure she experienced as a model made her passed bill. his self-esteem. As a result, he underwent several sessions of CoolSculpting, a “fat-freezing” technique that he said left her permanently disfigured.
In a 2021 Instagram post, the stunning Canadian revealed that she suffered a number of rare side effects from the procedure, including paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which causes swelling and thickening of fatty tissue.
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“For my followers who have been wondering why I haven’t been working while my peers’ careers have prospered, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised,” she wrote.
“It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently misshapen even after undergoing two painful and unsuccessful corrective surgeries. They have left me, as the media has described, ‘unrecognizable’”.
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Evangelista filed a $50 million lawsuit against Zeltiq, claiming he was unaware of the rare side effects he’s had since then. She settled the lawsuit in July, just a month before it was revealed that she would be the cover star of British Vogue’s September issue.
“Those CoolSculpting commercials were on all the time, on CNN, on MSNBC, over and over, asking, ‘Do you like what you see in the mirror?’ They were talking to me,” she recalled. “It was about stubborn fat in areas that weren’t moving. It said no downtime, no surgery and… I drank the magic potion, and I would because I’m a little vain. So I went for it, and it failed.”
The feature, the article paired with a series of brilliant photographs, also sees the model speak openly about the years she spent hiding and keeping to herself in the wake of the botched procedure.
“Am I mentally cured? Absolutely not,” she said, adding that she still struggles to look at herself in the mirror and won’t let anyone touch her. “But I am very grateful for the support I received from my friends and from my industry.”
Source: www.nydailynews.com