Why the Fashion Industry Erased Karen Mulder

In 2001 she named names on French TV. The tape was erased, and within weeks she was in a psychiatric clinic. Karen Mulder came from Vlaardingen, a port town on the edge of Rotterdam, and was picked up by Elite Model Management's Look of the Year contest in 1985. By the mid-nineties she had nine Vogue covers, a Victoria's Secret contract, runway work for Chanel, Versace and Dior, and a Hasbro doll with her name on the box. The press called her the real-life Barbie. Then, on Halloween night 2001, she sat down on Thierry Ardisson's show Tout le monde en parle and made allegations against agency executives, police officers, politicians and a member of a European royal family. The segment never aired. What followed was a psychiatric commitment, a retraction, an overdose, a surprise hit single called "I Am What I Am," and a reputation as the supermodel who went mad. According to The Independent, one of the men she had accused, former Elite Paris head Gérald Marie, paid for her clinic stay. Marie has always denied every allegation against him. Then other women started coming forward about the same agency, the same city and the same era. Linda Evangelista, Carré Otis, a French investigation closed by the statute of limitations, the Epstein files, and finally a 2026 Vogue Germany cover where Karen Mulder explains, in her own words, how that retraction was obtained. Subscribe for more stories about the women behind fashion's most famous faces. #KarenMulder #Supermodel #FashionHistory