"I have been really lucky," Linda Evangelista says. "I know what it feels like to have made it to the top of my career...it's about knowing that you were the best." Known as one of the five original supermodels, along with Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell, Linda is regarded as one of the few, true supermodels who changed the face of fashion in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Linda, Naomi, and Christy comprised a trio that was affectionately dubbed "The Trinity" and is commonly credited with sparking supermodel mania.

Linda was born on May 10, 1965, to Italian parents and raised in a working-class, traditional Catholic family in St. Catharines, Ontario. She always wanted to be a model and convinced her parents to let her put college on hold for a year. They gave her a year to see what happened, and lucky for her and us, they saw. "I didn't actually have a plan B if my modeling career didn't work out," she explains. "I'm sure I would have come up with something if I'd had to, but modeling was what I always wanted to do."

Discovered by a talent agent at the Miss Teen Niagara Contest, Linda started getting modeling jobs in earnest, but she says she still had "no illusions that my career would be any longer than three years tops." Yet when hairdresser Julien D’Ys cut her signature long chestnut hair into a boyish crop in 1987 at the command of her favorite photographer Peter Lindbergh, the risky haircut became her look and catapulted her into stardom. "I thought I was finished when they cut my hair," she says. "Eighteen out of 20 clients dropped my bookings. I rang [photographer] Steven Meisel in tears. Within two months, I made the grand slam: covers of American Vogue, Italian Vogue, British Vogue, and French Vogue."

Not only has she graced an enormous number of magazine covers around the world, but Linda has also appeared in advertising campaigns for Alberta Ferretti, American Express, Anne Klein, Barneys, Bloomingdale’s, Calvin Klein, Chanel, Chloé, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan, Gianni Versace, Hermès, Perry Ellis, Ralph Lauren, Jil Sander, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, and Christian Dior to name but a few. She was also named one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World, and she was honored with the VH1 Fashion Awards' Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Despite her supermodel counterparts' ventures into other businesses, Linda likes to keep her résumé minimalistic. She has appeared in a few films as herself: Unzipped by Isaac Mizrahi, Prêt-à-Porter, and Catwalk, a documentary produced by Christy Turlington. Most famously she appeared in two George Michael videos: "Freedom," featuring the other top supermodels, and "Too Funky." However, she insists, "I love being a model. I have never wanted to act. I didn't go into this so I could sell burgers or whatever."

Today Linda is pleased that she is still earning a living in an industry where people are so often finished with their careers at 24. "Designers and photographers still want to work with me, and I'm grateful for that. I don't know how long I'll carry on—as long as they'll have me," she says. "I don't get cast for every job, and I understand that. But, you know, I've done Italian Vogue recently, and it's just as exciting now as it always was.

"When I started in the business, I was told I had three good years in me," she says. "Every year, I heard that clock ticking and was conscious that it could be my last. I'm not dumb—it's going to happen one day. But it hasn't yet, and I am not going to surrender."

Linda uttered the now notorious quote, "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day,"  in a 1990 Vogue interview, commenting on how she and a few other models were changing the industry by commanding better and better salaries. Linda dislikes the way this quote has followed her. She says is sorry now that she ever said it, blaming naive conceit. "I said that a long time ago, and I would hope that today I am a different person," she says. "Now I get out of bed for a much better reason: I'm part of a team that raises millions of dollars and raises awareness of HIV and AIDS all over the world."

Linda maintains that "when you've enjoyed your life as I have, you should give something back to people." And she is true to this. Linda uses her fame to help causes that she believes in, notably raising awareness for breast cancer research and AIDS. One of her big projects was to be an ambassador for M.A.C. makeup, promoting the company’s Viva Glam lipstick, the entire sales revenue of which goes to the company’s global AIDS fund. She's returning a favor, too. When Canadian-born Linda was a young model, the Toronto-based company used to give her free supplies. "I couldn't afford much makeup then. I'm really proud of M.A.C. for doing something about AIDS. They've raised $50 million so far, which you've got to be impressed by," she says. "I lost one of my first bookers to AIDS back in the eighties, when I didn't even know what the disease was, and since then, I've known a lot of people who have been affected." Rather than getting into statistics and figures about the global AIDS epidemic, however, she explains, "You know what? My part in this is to do the thing I really know I can do well—and that’s to sell lipstick."

At the age of 41, Linda gave birth to her first child. Her son, Augustin James Evangelista, was born on October 11, 2006, in New York.

When asked who the top model in the world is by an interviewer, John Galliano instantly replied, "Linda. Without a doubt. She is a true pro, and that's what I call maximum modeling."