In an industry that prizes youth, it’s one thing for a model to have a long career—it’s another for her to transcend fashion altogether. Audiences may know Diane Kruger as the Marlene Dietrich–esque starlet in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, or as Marie Antoinette in Benoît Jacquot’s Farewell, My Queen, but before she lit up silver screens, Kruger enjoyed a successful career on the catwalk. Back in 1992, when the former ballet student Diane Heidkrüger entered Germany’s Elite Model Look contest, no one could have guessed what the future held. At 5 foot 7, Kruger was shorter than your average model, but there was no denying her beauty. The woman who would later go on to play Helen of Troy took home the competition’s top prize and quickly emerged as a face of the moment.
Fashion pushed Kruger into the spotlight, and though the majority of her work was in front of the camera, she still managed to make a splash on the runway. Whether walking alongside Stella Tennant and Helena Christensen at Dries Van Noten or sharing the stage at Marc Jacobs with Shalom Harlow and Naomi Campbell, Kruger held her own. Snagging several of the decade’s ubiquitous fragrance campaigns (Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Giò and Chanel Allure) took Kruger into modeling’s top tier and resulted in her face being everywhere from billboards to bus stops. These days, Kruger wears her high fashion on the red carpet when it’s time to promote her latest film. And as today is her 45th birthday, it’s never been a better time to look back at her days on the catwalk and to see just how far she’s come.
