So maybe it’s not so surprising that Ireland, who graced the Swimsuit cover three times, displays such business acumen? As the Forbes feature details, Ireland has built a mega-business out her mega-modeling-brand. Last year alone, she moved an astounding $2 billion worth of licensed products at retail, making her a bigger licensor than the formidable Martha Stewart. Ireland’s empire spans home furnishing solutions from leather furniture to cabinet tops and ceiling fans, all the way to signature Kathy Ireland socks and wigs. The 48 year old entrepreneur has also also added ‘self-help guru’ to her brand portfolio, producing bestselling workout videos and penning motivational titles such as Powerful Inspirations: Eight Lessons that Will Change Your Life.
Like fellow top-earning models Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, Elle MacPherson and Heidi Klum, Ireland has parlayed her youthful success in a notoriously fickle industry into a booming international enterprise of her own. The past 15 years have seen the statuesque supermodels of the ‘80s and ‘90s disappear from the catwalks of New York, Paris, and Milan, replaced by wan teenagers from Eastern Europe. Actresses like Halle Berry and Natalie Portman have long since replaced models on the cover of Vogue or in lucrative cosmetics campaigns. The few still-active models who qualify as household names, like Gisele, Heidi, or Kate, have been working for well over a decade, and even today’s busiest models are scarcely known outside the industry.
Put simply, models no longer have the cultural cachet they once did.
