Author: willyvanrooy

MODELING IN PARIS – 3

THE MODELS I WORKED WITH
It was a wonderful time in Paris to be a model, the Fashion world was buzzing with new designers, photographers and models came to Paris from all over the world. I worked with some of them and often got booked with the same girls so you got to know them quiet well over the years, others you worked with once or twice, some I remember very well  even if I worked with them only once, others I have forgotten, some become friends. I certainly have seen my share of beautiful girls and my first encounter with a model of whom I had seen tons of pictures was Jean Shrimpton in the studio of Vogue in London,  I was very shy and she was very kind, did not work with her then, that was much later. Next I was booked with Donna Mitchell and I really liked her pictures and she was great, wonderful Beauty, very different, she had or has something very special. I was very impressed to work with her.

With Donna Mitchell for English Vogue,                                                           Ph. Treager

With Jill Kennington of whom I had seen many very nice pictures too, some by Helmut Newton. She was very beautiful but did not get to know her at all.     Ph. James Moore

Here with Kecia Nyman The first time I met Kecia was in Morocco on a shoot with Helmut Newton, this picture is one of them, but we became friends much later and we talk over the phone often. Kecia is the girl who made most Magazine covers ever, I think something like 2000.                                                                               Ph. Helmut Newton

With Benny, forgot her last name but she was very funny and Helmut Newton liked to book us together on several occasions. She has a model agency in her home country Denmark. We had fun.                                                                  Ph.Helmut Newton

With Gunelle, she was pleasant to work with, very nice woman and then the wife of Hans Feurer. We met up in 2002 at the farewell show of Kenzo in Paris, she had not changed much, that long straight shiny hair…                                           Ph. Hans Feurer


Ph. Hans Feurer
With Linda Morand. Did not hear from her or see her (of course saw her famous Jaqueline Kennedy pictures) until I googled myself on internet and found minimadmod60’s and there I was together with many other models of our time, all put together by Linda. We got in touch about 2 years ago and her website has grown and is wonderful and we became great cyber friends.

With Wallis Franken, Wallis was a lot of fun, very cheerful and we had some great times, especially if it was on location somewhere for a few days. We were often booked together and she became a friend for the time we were in Paris. She was a great model and very professional. So sorry but don’t know who was the photographer.

With Gunilla Lindblad. Don’t remember who was the photographer but this picture also came out in enormous posters all over the Metro and Paris and all of France I guess. Gunilla was the most commercial professional model around at that time, very beautiful, also smart and she got all the good commercial jobs. Saw her a few years ago in Amsterdam where she was scouting for a NY model agency, beautiful as ever, down to earth and realistic, I think she still occasionally models.

With Christina Steidten. We worked quiet a lot together but never got to really know her. It was always wonderful to work with her though and she was a very amazing model and always dressed very nice in her own style, yes she had style.

Picture: Francois Lamy.

Ph. Andre Carrara

With Eva Malstrom, Eva and I did many shoots together for Marie Claire and Italian magazines. She came, worked a lot and left, lovely woman and very beautiful…

With Jeannette Christianse Ph. Jo Francki
Jeanette was amazing and throughout the years we worked a lot together, I saw her blossom as a model and we became work friends. I was always happy when we were booked together and when she asked me to join the new Model Agency she and her boyfriend John Casablanca were setting up, I agreed. In a way I felt very guilty towards Models International who had been so super good to me and was a very good agency  but… Jeanette was a friend. I was like always not very commercial, I should have asked for 1% of the company as we were hardly 10 girls when “Elite” was born and there was nothing to show this was going to work except for the top girls they got to join… I still am in contact with Jeannette who is a painter in NY and their son is the lead singer of the “Strokes”

With Vibeke Knudsen andMargrit Ramme                                        PH. Hans Feurer

Both Vibeke and Margrit have worked with the greatest photographers and both are marvellous and wonderful, Helmut told me Margrit was very smart and I have seen Vibeke several times when we were living in LA some years ago and she and her husband have some of Salvador’s wonderful paintings in their collection. Great models.

Ph. Tony Kent

WithSusan Bottomly Always loved to work with Susan, we were and are great friends and to be booked with her were happy shoots, especially if it was with Tony. She is a very special wonderful person and you just have to click on her name to know more about her, love her.

WithLinda Evangelista Ph. Steven Meisel
Just have to say that it was a wonderful experience to work with Linda, for me she is the super super model going still strong after so many years, she is wonderful and very very professional and gorgeous.
There were others I don’t have pictures off but some stand out: Donyale Luna took my breath away and I gladly made space for her in front of the camera of Helmut Newton so she could do her thing, Jean Shrimpton, very funny, lots of humour and very pleasant and beautiful. Jessica Lange impressed me a lot, she stands out in my memories and not because she is a famous actress (and one of my absolute favourites) she was not that famous actress then but doing some modeling in Paris, she stands out because I felt she was a person true to herself and she has proven to me just that, love her. Angelica Huston is an other person I will remember working with because she was real fun and smart and for some strange reason we were booked together a few times, sorry to not have the pictures. Then there were other wonderful girls, wow, I have seen some beauties, the incredible eyes of Yolande Gilot, the sweet French beauty of Louise Despointes, the sexy personality of Barbara Carrera, in the street or anywhere we went all the men would follow her with their eyes, she was great fun too, the uniqueness of  Ingmarie Lamy, she is still going strong being beautiful, Susan Moncur, she wrote ” they still shoot models, do they?” available on Amazon …. Sometimes you were booked with other models but each had their pages so in the different studios you would meet different models and cannot remember every one right now. Also met some models that I never worked with or saw in the studios but that I liked, like Verushka who was the girlfriend of a good friend of ours and he brought her to our studio, liked very much meeting Donna Jordan in Italy, she also had her own mind and last but not least Eija Vekha Aho, so gorgeous, it was like she was made of marble. A wonderful model and inspiration to many artists like Antonio Lopez with whom she had a strong bond, as well as for my husband who made several portraits of her. She is a very very dear friend, very special and a great model. I only have a picture she did of me and Salvador in our studio.

 … and here my personal favourite model at that time: Alejandro


Well, I think that was a lot but still much to tell, more girls to meet when I take you to the Catwalk next time… and check Alegria’s blog and follow Salvadors story like always, they go together,

LOVE and PEACE

.. and remember to click on the highlighted names, it gives you a link to that person, it took me a lot to do this so please enjoy!

MODELING IN PARIS 2

Modeling is fun but also hard work. One has to be in shape and look good because a lot of people are depending on it. At times it meant taking the plane very early in the morning to arrive at a studio in Hamburg or Milan at 9 and be ready to face a rack of clothes that all have to be photographed within a certain time as everything costs a lot of money. On a commercial job you sometimes had to change clothes 20 or 25 times and mostly the clothes were not that exciting and at the end of the day you would be so exhausted that it was dinner and to sleep, get up early again… working through the day and fly home, arriving at night and the next day up early again for that booking at Elle or Vogue which were much more fun and relaxing but doesn’t bring home the bacon. There were some very good photographers around and the time in Fashion was exciting as many new talents were emerging, Thiery Mugler , Claude Montana, Gaultier, Alaiia, Isy Miyaki, Yamamoto, Kenzo and more but will talk about that in an other post. Also photographers with a different vision came up……

LAURENCE SACKMAN

This was part of a series called: <Artist and their model> ( see Salvador in my glasses)

Laurence Sackman ( he is English) had his very own taste and style and he knew precisely the effect he wanted to get so it was for me really like working together with him to get that effect, which was not always easy but always interesting and like he said himself “I only shoot the picture when I see it”. Always enjoyed working with Laurence and we did a lot of things for Marie Claire and also publicity. We were good friends with him and Remi, his wife and inspiration, and their daughter Apple who was very close friends of Alejandro.

♡HANS FEURER….

 Loved the pictures of Hans ( from Swiss) and liked to work with him although it was not always easy. If it did not work for some reason he would get really frustrated and you feel a sort of guilty because you think maybe it is you who cannot make it work but there are a lot of things that may influence the outcome of a picture that is to be published and judged by many. The stylist is very important, a good stylist can make the dreariest outfit look glamorous, the light is of course very important, especially when working on location outside where the light does what it wants, the surroundings and the mood you got up with are important too…

 love his pictures and he is a friend, his daughter Malin was also very good friends with Alejandro…

APPLE, ALEJANDRO and MALIN on a summer day…

♡TONY KENT….

Loved to work with Tony, always nice people around, relaxed atmosphere, good music and great pictures. We were very good friends of Tony and his wife Susan Bottomly and he often booked Susan and me together… They are no longer together but both still dear friends, so many memories together…

♡ANDRE CARRARA

Andre was very pleasant to work with, very professional and could make you look good…

♡ERIC BOMAN

 Working with Eric, who is an English photographer( working in Paris then), was relaxed and you could be sure to get a really good picture of yourself…

♡BARRY LATEGAN

 Working with Barry was great, he was very soft spoken and gentle and it was really easy…Think it is so funny that I am holding my own bag  in a Vogue shoot.

♡SACHA

Sacha is from Holland, working in Paris where she had a fabulous studio. She was one of the very few female Photographers around then. Like her pictures very much.

♡ALBERTA TIBURZI

 Alberta was a model herself before she became a professional photographer so she knew how to treat a model. She is from Italy.

♡OLIVIERO TOSCANI

 Always great fun to work with Toscani (also form Italy) as we have worked together so much from the time when he first started… if you think this picture is easy try it in front of the mirror and like me imagine there is a balcony you can rest your high heeled foot on holding on to a cord that is not really strongly attached anywhere and smile, click…click, HOLD IT… click click…

♡DAVID BAILEY

Working with David was always pleasant, he is very funny and down to earth, English that is. Since you knew he would make good pictures you felt good and confident. He had it very clear, what and how he wanted it, so you only had to fill in so to speak.…

♡JO FRANCKI

 Jo booked me quiet a lot for Elle or publicity and it was super easy and nice working with him and he often booked me together with Christina Steidten and going to work was like meeting up with friends and do something creative. Jo was French I am almost sure but writing all this I realize that most photographers I worked with were from other places, either working in Paris like Helmut and Laurence and Sacha or they booked me in London or Milan or… Bockelberg in Germany, very well remembered by all the girls hat were modeling at that time.. Francois Lamy, he made you look so good…  once I worked with Guy Bourdin and the picture he did won some award in a magazine, Jean Loup Sieff was also a wonderful photographer, his pictures were very meticulously prepared and actually one felt like an object, beautiful for sure but… and there were other fantastic studios in Paris, I can not put everything here but I even worked once with Patrick Demarchelier who just started out and Alex Chatelaine, Steve Hiett and others… of the girls I met and worked with I like to talk in my next post, the Fashion shows were taking off.. YSL needs a post apart too and oh, there are so many things going on…  also at home where Salvador is making some incredible paintings,➜ CLICK HERE to see his work on ALEGRIA’s Blog.

LOVE AND PEACE

MODELING IN PARIS- 1

HELMUT NEWTON.

Helmut Newton has a post apart because I worked a lot with him, from the beginning of my time as a Fashion model, and although he had already done some fine work for a.o. English Vogue, Newton still was relatively new too. One of my first bookings with him was the series of the plane flying over my head…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and immediately after that a 16 page spread for French Elle at the Montreal World Fair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember Mdm Lazareff ( Editor and owner of Elle, in that time there was only a French Elle) protested that he could not go so far with only one model, what if it does not work? But Helmut insisted and that series put me on the map. He booked me every day he could and it was when I was on a trip to Morocco with him that I met my husband and did not go back to London with the crew but stayed in Marrakesh. Months later I was invited to disclose my window display doll in London and worked again with Helmut doing the series of me and the dolls,

but I left again and this time for 3 years. When I came back to Paris in 1971 we worked a lot together again and did some great pictures for French Vogue,

Elle and others, but again I left. If I would not have disappeared trice I would have worked with him much more. He suggested once to put me under contract, something he said, he would never think of with any other model, but I am not a contract person and besides he would always have first option, which was not exactly true because if he would book me for 3 or 4 days for editorials and at the same time I could do a good commercial job, I would choose the latter unless it was not attractive, also there were many good Photographers in Paris I wanted to work with.

Now, here I was again 2 years later and was booked by Helmut Newton for French Vogue.  I was to be at the Vogue studio at 2 p.m., which I thought was a bit odd because usually one is booked from the morning and when I opened the door to the studio dressing room I saw 5 or 6 models there. I remember so well that image, I was shocked like, oh I am no longer the one! But once I got on the paper, dressed up, made up and incredible hair by Jean Louis David himself, things were clear, Helmut sent the other models home. This was an incredible session, all the people working at Vogue came out to look and Helmut was shouting : Marvelous, Marvelous! that’s what he used to say when things went his way. Yes, I was back and Helmut told me afterwards that he was scared that I had lost it on my travels and that is why he had asked the other models, to make sure.

This was the series… Well, part of it…
… in Salvador’s sunglasses..and love this fantastic series in Nova, Caroline  Baker was the name of the fabulous stylist

and the following series too… was fun

For me it was great to work with Helmut, he would never shoot rolls and rolls like some photographers, he would not click if it did not look good, he knew exactly what he wanted. It was intense, he would see everything”… that little finger on your left hand”… but it was exciting, something was happening between the camera and me, he sort of disappeared and gave me the space in front of the camera as if I was taking pictures of myself. It worked most of the time but not always, at times it was not right, the clothes, the light, the idea, something could frustrate him and then it was very difficult. This is one of those, I dislike it but did some Photoshopping and like it better that way,

somehow he wanted to get the American Pop thing… with the sharp shadow and the more I look at it the more I like it.

He was a gentle man and to me always very kind, he sort of understood me and so did June. Dear June, his wife( also an accomplished Photographer later) she was almost always there  and a great inspiration for Helmut as they plotted the ideas for the pictures together. We did quiet some work for publicity that were never published and sometimes he would give me original prints or slides ( that years later were stolen from my car in Madrid along with a lot of other precious belongings, probably by a junky who threw it all away). Salvador and I sometimes had dinner at their studio, I really liked both of them although we were never really close friends. When he had had his heart attack I never more worked with him and also he was not doing that much Fashion anymore but started his Nude series and photographing celebrities. In 2002, I was living in Amsterdam, when he had an important exhibition in Berlin and to honor him they had invited from each country the most prominent Photographer and from Holland they had chosen Paul Huf with whom I had worked decades ago but was a friend and when he told me he was going to Berlin I wrote a letter with some nice pictures of the family, a sort of photo shop collage and gave it to Paul who was delighted to give it to Helmut. When he came back he had a letter from Helmut for me in which he said that it was the nicest letter he had ever received  and he was very touched and there was a picture of him and Paul Huf in front of a big picture of me and I in turn was very touched. We went to his funeral celebration in Paris, he was a great photographer, making pictures was his love and passion, it was his life and I must say he left a big legacy.

June making a toast to Helmut at that special dinner that followed the funeral celebration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Salvador at the Dinner table with Christian Louboutin, the shoe designer and below Veruschka, me and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Almost every name in the Fashion world was there, Anna Wintour, Eileen Ford, Tom Ford, Lagerfeld and so on , was very impressive to see June after so many years…

This is an invitation to his latest exhibition in Berlin 2008-9

But we are still in Paris, it is 1973 and I had just turned 32!

 

PARIS, PARIS JE T’AIME

Ah, beautiful Paris in spring!

It is March 1973 and Paris looks gorgeous and inviting. Of course first things on the list were: find a place and let my agency know I am in Paris. At first we stayed with our friend Cooky Debidour and we checked the “for rent” lists, ideal would be an “Atelier de Artist” ( Artist Studio) and so we found an agent to look for us and they sent us to our first appointment that looked interesting because it was a little house surrounded by a garden. When we saw it we liked it although it was not very big, 2 floors and not very light but very nice,  so we thought to maybe take it. But then a young woman came looking at it as well and she fell completely in love with it and she begged us to let her have it because she had already seen so many places and this was the one!  We asked her if she had seen an Atelier d’ Artist and she said YES! 11 Rue de Douai, fantastic place, really good for you! We told her to hang on and went to see the address she had mentioned and we on our turn fell in love with that place when we saw it. A beautiful old elevator brought us to the 4th floor and we could not believe the beauty of it all, a big artist studio with an enormous skylight, an incredible wooden sculpted fire place so big you could stand in it, a grand entrance which was actually a room, a lovely kitchen, a very big bathroom and a very nice bedroom with  big French windows, very high ceilings and a white marble fire place, that did not work but looked good. Double doors would open to the studio which besides the skylight also had 2 big windows to the street so the light was impressive. The entrance and the kitchen had both big windows to the courtyard, OK! My heart was booming, what a place, unbelievable! But to our big disappointment the lady said NO, she did not want to rent it to us. That was a blow and we started depressed going down the stairs. She must have felt how sorry we were because halfway between the third and second floor she called us back and asked Salvador if he was a painter and when that was confirmed everything changed, we went back up and heard the story of her father who was a painter and had build this studio ( and the whole building) in around 1890 and the whole building was hers and she herself lived in an other part higher up that in the olden days had been connected to the studio and that’s why there was this beautiful stairs and balcony there.

Alejandro and his friend Apple Sackman on the balcony

Now we were so happy, finally our own place, right in Pigalle near Place Clichy ( Moulin Rouge). A very interesting area where a lot of artists had lived and still lived, easy walk to Rue Lepic with its marvellous market, walking distance to Gare St Lazare and the Opera. In short a great place! Now we only had to make sure we could pay the rent which was quiet a lot at the time.

Here you get an idea, I am sitting in the bottom corner on the left.

We had all our things, including our beautiful heavy Spanish table, beds that we had had made up, paintings, carpets and everything else sent from Madrid and when it all arrived and was put into place we were the happiest people on earth.

 

We stayed 8 years in Paris and did a lot of work so I have to divide that in several posts and honestly, at times it is difficult to remember exactly which year it was and I easily mix up 73 with 74 or 75 but that does not really matter I guess, It would be possible to do it exact but it would take a lot of time, so I hope you don’t mind.

Salvador started painting, it’s all he wanted to do, when friends came over he would continue working or make drawings of the friends,.

and made this wonderful painting of our bedroom.

Alejandro having a snack in the kitchen, look at that light!

Alejandro went to Ecole Bilinque in a beautiful place at Parc Monceau so he could learn to speak French and correct English. He spoke English already and Spanish but it was a good way for him to learn French. It was a very expensive private school and he was in the class with the son of Sophia Loren who I saw sometimes there picking up her son like other mothers. Alejandro looked so cute with his dark blue uniform and his big schoolbag. After a year or 2 when he spoke French fluently we thought it was ridiculous to pay so much money every month as he was already a full-blood Bilinque and the school was nothing special, just very chic and in a wonderful place, loved the Parc Monceau. Later he went to a Rudolf Steiner school and those, yes, are very special.

I myself was still with “Models International” and my first booking was with Helmut Newton for French Vogue….

FLOWER POWER

Canada felt nice, Vancouver was very cool and laid back. We had my 2 sisters, we had friends. Kecia Nyman, who was with me modelling with Helmut Newton in Morocco when I met Salvador, was living in Vancouver with her husband John Fluevog who had ( then one) a very nice shoe store where we bought shoes and started talking with John and I was a model? His lovely wife too and that is how we got to know Kecia was there, little did we suspect that a decade later John Fluevog’s stores would carry my shoe line. Was nice to spend time with them and Taj Mahal also passed by as he was performing there. We liked Canada and we even thought of becoming Canadian, like our family, Alejandro even had a Canadian passport and because Canada seemed friendly, independent and still quite new in many ways. We rented a nice house and since I was still recuperating, we took it easy. Wonderful days at home  where I took up baking bread. Someone had given me the Tassajara Bread book ( Zen cooking) and there are some incredible bread recipes in there, specially the Banana Nut bread. I became quiet good at it and baked my days away.

We were going to set up a small fashion business with a friend who was going to put up a store and sell our things. So I started cutting and sewing velvets and brocades we had brought from India…

Here we are in the photo-booth wearing the jackets we made.

… But soon there was trouble between him and his wife and it became too complicated . We had a good time doing what we did but thought that Montreal was a better place to try to do something. We got ourselves a used Volkswagen Bus, very pretty, dark green and cream

and set off for our trip Vancouver-Montreal with Salvador’s brother Diego who had come to visit us. But half way the bus broke down, probably because I had been driving as well when Salvador had to sleep and I did not know much about cars or had never really driven and there we were on that busy highway in a torment of rain so it was very hard to see and the car swaying over the road, Diego who was sitting beside me in the front threw his arms over his eyes afraid to look. Anyway, maybe I had left the hand brake on? There we were in the middle of nowhere waiting to be towed to the nearest Garage, it was very hot, hundreds of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and after waiting for a few more hours in the garage with nothing around, they told us the car was irreparable so we had to leave it there and even had to sell our Nikon camera to the garage owner so we could get a Hotel and  get to the station the next day  to take the train for the rest of the journey. It certainly was safer. We stayed a little while in Montreal where I had found an Agent and did some work

 But there was not much to do until one day I got that dream job to do a big catalog for Eaton department store in Toronto, 6 or 7 weeks booking, Wow! I never had a job like that simply because they never asked me for it but here they thought, why not? The clothes were dreadful, mostly really horrible and have to be pinned up everywhere and it was a lot of work to do your own hair every day and look different but on the other hand you are working all that time with the same people and sort of get to know them a bit and that is very nice. Anyway we moved to Toronto and the work took altogether more than 2 months because of rain or other inconveniences. Salvador wanted to go after a few weeks so he took off to Madrid to scout the situation. We were missing Europe and Salvador had family and friends in Madrid so that seemed the next place to go. Alejandro went to Pre-school while I was working. It was summer, it was nice and when the job was finished Alejandro and I left for Madrid as well.

In Madrid I could work a lot and I did

I had the luck to be liked by “El Corte Ingles” famous Spanish department store and worked with them a lot, had big Posters all over Spain and different ones all the time plus commercials, pictures, catalogs and so on, was a great time. The make up artist was Anthony Clavet and we became good friends, he was very good and very funny. I saw him for the last time in NY in the 80-ties but in 1990 he past away. He was wonderful.

Anthony Clavet, Pia Frithof, me and Margarita ( sister of Salvador)

Sometimes they booked me in London or Barcelona or a foreign magazine would come to Spain and it was also in Madrid that I did a show for the first time and that was for Loewe.

Soon I became the Loewe darling and did all their shows and pictures, all very chic!
 

 

 

 

 

 

All was well but it became a bit boring after a while even that Madrid was a wonderful place with it’s old Café’s and tasty tapas, strolling on a summer night with Salvador’s father who knows all the best places to stop and have a drink of wine and the best tapa’s, Gamba’s a l’ajilo. That was 1972, the atmosphere was warm and gay and busy but we needed a place where Salvador could paint and I could do my thing in the best way possible and Paris seemed the right place, at the right time. Paris was vibrating, like London in the 60-ties or NY in a different way in the late 60-ties.

Now Paris was calling…

 LOVE AND PEACE

MELLOW YELLOW

In the Tiger Balm Gardens ( Singapore). I am wearing a little vest I made of gold brocade and black velvet ribbons, lined with bright yellow satin, the blouse is of bright cyclamen (pink/purple) soft thin silk and the skirt remade from an original dark red hand woven satin silk and gold Indian skirt, 2 silver belts. Alejandro is wearing bright green satin pants.

In order to get our visas we had to stay a week or two in Singapore and found ourselves a wonderful old fashioned Hotel with beautiful rooms decorated with original antique Chinese furniture although it was not a hotel De Luxe, rather a “has been”, in the downtown part. Singapore was only the beginning of what it is now and the difference between the modern High-rises and the old old part, was striking. It was also very dirty under all the facades. It was here we celebrated the end of 1971 and stepped into 1972. It was very funny when on that evening we were sitting on a terrace and 2 good friends from Spain are passing by. Neither of us had any idea we were there. Alfonso O’Lasso and Kemal, still see the picture in my mind as it was very unexpected.

Drawing Salvador did of Alfonso there

On the other hand Alejandro and me got very sick, I mean very sick and I know why. One afternoon strolling the streets and markets we smelled that delicious smell of veggies frying in a wok and yes, indeed there was this little stand on the street corner, very common then and there, with a man frying veggies in a wok! We were hungry and ate it all… Whatever it was that caused it, it was there and it was serious, acute hepatitis, both of us, my poor Alejandrito.

extremely elegant

We had to go back to Delhi, had our return tickets and all our treasures there. Back in Delhi we stayed in a nice Hotel and Alejandro and I were so sick, in the heat with blasting fever, I could not move but saw him from my bed, he was so brave, I remember it well. At a point we could move and went to see a doctor who gave me enormous injections of Vitamins and that was very scary, they were so big and were they clean? And what was it?Looked to me like orange juice but I guess it helped and slowly started to feel a bit better. Alejandro recuperated much faster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here I am wearing one of this marvelous hand embroidered coats from kasmir and the golden brocade boots with snake leather I had made up in Delhi.

As soon as we could we took a flight to London where we stayed a few weeks to recuperate and get back from yellow to my normal color. We had sent all our treasures by boat from Delhi to NY. somewhere near the Canadian border as we wanted to go to Canada. It was a very interesting time in London, Tony and Susan Kent were there to produce a play with people they brought over from India and Rufus of the Living Theater was involved as well. Then there were our dear friends Dick Polak and his wife Edina ( Ronay) with whom we spend a lot of good times but by now our luggage had arrived at the other end of the world so we went. Wow, I don’t know how we did it, fly there take a  train to get our luggage and from there take the train to Vancouver(Canada) which took 3 days and 2 nights but it first had to cross the border, and that was scary because the Customs took us of all the people to be searched, and we had to open all our cases and as we had some presents for friends that were not allowed, we spent 2 scary hours that it took them but ( sigh of relief) we are on our way again in this long Double Decker train that shows us snow and more snow, snow on the Rockies, snow on the fields – It’s winter in Canada…

Love this drawing Salvador did of me in Singapore.

I AM

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where do I go? All unanswerable questions for sure but India seemed a place where they had thought about this for a very long time and where at least there was a different view of things. We read Sidartha (Herman Hesse), Krishnamurti who has a lot to say, Yogananda ( his autobiography) Mdm.Blavatski,   Alice Bailey and other different and great minds. India seemed more spiritual then many other places at that time. As a matter of fact many young people from all over the world thought so and some burned their passports when they got there and some got lost and confused. Here I am not talking about a 2 week holiday to visit some famous places and stay in luxury hotels, no, I am talking about people who went there to experience the real India which has so much beauty and at the same time so much poverty and the fact that you are in a completely different culture enables you in a small way to undo all the things that have been put into you as if it was the only truth and the only way. What blew me away was that even when the people had next to nothing they would be smiling and make the best of it instead of complaining.

As I have told you in Paris we had become good friends with Tony and Susan Kent and we left together with them via London to New Delhi. Helmut Newton could not believe I left again while I could be working every day in the glamorous city of Paris. In Delhi it was excruciatingly hot and after staying a while with Tony and Susan at Tony’s  Sitar teacher Kumar, we decided to head for a cooler place and took a plane to Kashmir. When we got out of the taxi that took us to Srinagar where we were going to rent a house boat, we were met by a crowd of hungry people that just had past a very cold and terrible winter and were now looking for ways to get by. Of course there is always one person who knows everything, and is known to know, so the taxi brings you directly to him as he also speaks perfect English. We rented a house boat of very nice people, a big family who had that lovely boat with which we could do what we wanted so we painted it all colors and all the pillars in silver, they were amazed. Every day the little boats ( shikara’s) they get around with on the Dall Lake, would crowd outside our boat trying to sell something, beautiful flowers, gorgeous fruits and veggies, Persian carpets, marvelous jewellery and Antiques. Since the English had been there for a long time in the 30-ties and 40-ties, they had a lot of things specially made for them in European style but with the Kashmir touch. I found the most beautiful embroidered long cotton coats and skirts and soon the boat was filled with carpets, some precious Persian ones. Eventually we got our own Shikara and could spend afternoons in the middle of the lake listening to our music ( took our loudspeakers and tape recorder) or peddle around between the Lotus flowers and the Kingfishers (beautiful blue birds). I enjoyed very much the shopping that came to you and all this beautiful jewelry unveiled for prices that are hard to imagine now, also they had a lot of fur and showed me the most amazing white fox coats in 40-ties style, which I love so much, so gorgeous to look at but not to have. The family we rented the boat from was so poor, they had nothing, would wear the same clothes every day and had some old pots and pans in a shack they called their house but they were never complaining, instead they were always smiling and being happy, we paid them to cook for us and take care of us in general, they were very much a family. I know, you like to know more and there is a lot to tell but there is not enough space here,  instead I show you a some pictures that survived our travels and moves.

 From Kashmir we went to Goa…

 We stayed for more or less 6 months in Kashmir and then went by train via Benares to Goa which is in the South, on the coast below Bombay and that was a whole different picture, the deserted beaches I had seen a decade earlier were now occupied by lots of young American and European people, it looked like Woodstock to me at first glance. Once you have a place to stay, in our case a wonderful house right on the beach, things look different and it was all quite wonderful. We could not stay too long in Goa, maybe 2 months altogether,  because our visa’s were expiring and already we had had 2 extensions so now we had to leave the country and get a visa elsewhere. Singapore seemed the nearest to go to and so we packed our bags and left for Singapore. We were sure to come back to India so left our things there, cannot remember where but we did recuperate them so… There are some hilarious stories in Goa but that is for an other time. What I can say though is that again we learned a lot….

Remember: to see the pictures bigger you have to click on them and then click back to get back to the page. Links are highlighted and when you click on it you get something about the person or thing I am talking about, here you can click off and you automatically get back to the page. I am saying all this because some of you may not be that computer savvy to know everything. I certainly am not but am learning.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN…

When we got booked for a few English magazine jobs in Marbella (1970-1971) it was a good time for us to leave Ibiza because we had decided to go to India & we needed enough money to stay there for a while…no plans as to how long or where from there, we just wanted to go. We left out treasures with friends as we planned to come back at a point…

Above and below some of the pictures by John Bishop in Marbella.

From Marbella to Milan, Italy, to do some serious modelling and I did, but have no pictures of that time. Ricardo Gay was my agent and I remember working a lot with Toscani and Aldo but…

Love this picture of Alejandro that Salvador took in Milan

and this one that he took on a trip to Morocco

We were booked for a photo shoot in Morocco with Tony and Susan (Bottomly) Kent, who had become good friends in Paris where we went after Milan and from where we planned to take off to India. Tony Kent was a famous photographer in Paris and I had met Susan before when I had come to Paris from London for work with Newton. I met her when I was sitting that spring morning on the Terrace of “The Deux Margots” ( beside the Flor) and I saw this incredible looking young woman crossing the street, short silky dress blowing in the breeze, high heel sandals, a little doggie in her arms and a raven black shuffled hairdo. She came straight towards me and set down beside me and introduced herself: Susan Bottomly. ( International Velvet of the Warhol Factory ) This was before I had met Nico in Ibiza but the 2 Factory girls both came up to me just like that, funny now that I realise that. Susan is still a good friend and she is still incredibly beautiful. Anyway we went to Marrakech for a photo shoot with Tony and Susan and we had a great time there while working and being together all of us friends, Paula Moore was the third model and Olivier Boelen , dear Dutch friend, kept everyone entertained.

Beautiful picture Tony Kent did of us.

We were going to go via Brussels to Delhi and had to buy the tickets in Belgium, but because we had an accident on our way from Brussels back to Paris, see Salvador’s story, we had to stay in Paris much longer then anticipated as Salvador had a broken ankle and could not walk. We rented a place and I worked with Helmut Newton almost every day  and also did some commercial jobs in Germany, a very busy time, cooking vegetarian meals which always took somehow a long time to make, taking care of Salvador who could not move much but could take care during the day of Alejandro as I was working a lot and sometimes had to take planes very early in the morning and come home tired but of course we were young and full of energy and plans…  My agency at that time was Models International, which was found by Simone d’Aillencourt and Christa Fiedler, (she is the mother of  Isabelle Marant), 2 incredible women indeed. They both had been very big models, especially Simone who was in all the magazines when I was still in school, always so elegant. They were good agents, like I said I worked a lot.…

Series for French Vogue by Helmut Newton ( with Alejandro).

 

 

Pictures by Helmut Newton for Nova

It was wonderful, we had a good time but now are going on the road again, see you in India!

IBIZA

Las Palmas

Via Madrid we went to Canary Islands to arrange Salvador’s papers and stayed a few months, first in Las Palmas  and from there to one of the other 7 Islands called Fuerte Ventura. This was an amazing ancient place which looked deserted with lots of sand and a few palm trees, incredible rocks that looked prehistoric. We lived in a wonderful little house overlooking the endless sea but that was it, there was not much more, one old cinema and some fisher men so after a while it started to feel lonely and after hearing some friends of ours were in Ibiza we decided to go there. Ibiza was known since the 50’ies as a place where artists went to find the peace and beauty they were looking for. In 1970 it was still quiet unspoiled and still quiet empty although already there were a lot of foreigners. Ibiza is a very special Island with marvelous farmhouses which one could rent or buy for next to nothing (not anymore) and of course the fact that many artists were there made it highly interesting.

In the year we spend there we made many friends who are still our friends unless they left this world. We designed clothes, baked in the sun, (never heard of sunscreen then) had full moon parties and vegetarian dinners and the daily morning coffee at the Montesol. Some photographers came there to shoot summer editorials or I sometimes was booked on a trip to Africa for English Magazines and I went to the Ivory coast and Kenya.

 the Ibiza market

I was loving all the herbs that grow there and collected them in glass pots which were later taken away by the police for laboratory tests to see if that was Marijuana, which was not the case but still I was taken to the police station and had mug shots done for nothing and it even haunted us all the way to Canada years later when we thought to become Canadian but could not because of our police record in Ibiza which like I said was for nothing… The fact that Salvador was Spanish in this whole group of foreigners made the police look after us extra hard. Our friend Nancy Mehagian had a vegetarian restaurant together with her friend Sharon, called the Double Duck and we spend many a day there. Nancy is still cooking and also wrote a book . Then there was Cooky Debidour who became my closest friend, Edina Ronay and Dick Polak, also very close friends still and Karl Ferris the photographer who immortalized that time in Ibiza and his wife Anke who made the best veggieburgers, Raymond Steiner who is a photographer and film maker and his lovely wife Maree, Birgitta Bjerke the all time Queen of crochet and others, Also there were visits of some outstanding people like Jony Mitchell, ( Salvador drew her portrait) and Taj Mahal the great Blues man with whom we are still in contact as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magazines came to photograph us, Italian Vogue and the American Look magazine wrote articles and Deborah Turberville passed by and made pictures of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not to forget Nico ( The velvet underground) and that was very special because when I was home sitting outside on the porch one day, Salvador was not there at that moment, when I saw from far away someone coming through the field of Almond trees, a blond apparition that when getting closer I realized was Nico, she had heard about us and came to visit, just like that all by herself. I have been a fan of Nico always and still am, she was very special and I was thrilled she came to visit so to celebrate I made a big joint of hashish, yes that was all part of it in that time, and we smoked until she fainted right there. It was a bit scary because I did not know what to do but thank heavens it did not last long and we could laugh about it. Anyway there are many stories but not to be told here, just want to show you pictures of the things we made, Salvador’s work you can admire( I do) in Alegria’s Blog who is writing all about Salvador and his work and some of the pictures he made of me and our son Alejandro which are among my favorites.

Picture by Salvador Maron

We designed these wooden sandals and had them made up by a local carpenter, than hand painted them in all kind of patterns and colours.

The sewing machine was in the house already waiting for me and since we had no electricity this was perfect, the suit Salvador is wearing was made by me as well.

Loved that coat, velvet with leather applications, the bag was also one of our designs

The leather vest on the right was a typical example of what I was doing, lots of applications of snake and gold leather on suede, wish I had it now!

The golden bra I found in a vintage store in NY.                                        family self portrait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

… and I would not go anywhere without my YSL platform sandals, never mind it was almost impossible to walk with them on that Ibiza roads. Only when it rained or had rained we wore our own wooden sandals which kept your feet out of the mud.

“>My leather T shirts, here in gold of course. OMG wish I could make them now.

Ok, we are leaving Ibiza and are on our way to Marbella, and then Milan…… but that I tell you next time.

A MODEL IN NEW YORK..


To be a model in New York in 1968-69 was very different for me then modelling in London, Paris or Milan, there I was just booked and here one had to go on “Go sees”, that is go to see the advertising agents and Photographers to see if they wanted to book you as of course I was not known here. When I first came to the Eileen Ford Model agency Eileen told me I should dress differently because to be more commercial one should look like a healthy all American girl “next door” and that was the last thing I looked like. She was right of course but I was not interested to project someone I was not, as for me the way I dress is very important and the only way I really feel good, I was always glad to get out of the clothes I was photographed in and happy to get into my own. Very seldom the clothes were exciting, at least for me with the exceptions of some Bazaar shoots. For my taste it was Bazaar

that was more modern then Vogue in that particular time as for the big magazines, like for everything else, it goes up and down and up again… The pictures I had in my book did not help either, almost all by Helmut Newton who had not yet explored America. Yet I worked with some very good photographers like Bert Stern or Scavullo but both made me feel uncomfortable, the only Photographer that was there at the time I really enjoyed working with was James Moore. He was good, knew what he wanted, super kind, spiritual and relaxed. Worked with him a lot for Bazaar and the Sunday Times colour magazine and whenever he could he also booked me for publicity (my eyes here above is one of them).

James Moore for Bazaar

I also enjoyed working with Cris von Wangenheim,( here for Bazaar)

Everything was different, here you could get booked by the hour,  which meant coming to the studio already almost made up and hair more or less done. Yes, yes, we did our own makeup and hair unless it was something special or for a big Magazine and those paid very little, it is prestigious to work for any of them and it will give you eventually more commercial work which compared to today was not that well paid either. To be a top model today is much more exciting then it was in those days, there are some marvellous Photographers around and the clothes have caught up too, everything seems possible now while then everything was quite restricted and a lot of things taboo. I remember going once on a “Go see” to a big advertising agency and I was led into an office where some one looked at my “book” and called someone and in no time there were about 20 people standing there in the doorway pressing to see better, all staring at me with open mouth as if I came from Mars, I was so surprised, thought that was so indiscreet and they never booked me. I never understood that someone in their position did not have the imagination to see you could portray anything, it was my job to be able to change into anything, I am also not that elegant lady photographed by Henry Clark or that Lady in a smashing evening dress and furs driving a Rolls (although that would be nice). The only American photographer I really wanted to work with was Bob Richardson, I liked his pictures almost even more then Helmut Newton’s but he only worked in America in that time so I never had the chance to work with him. Who can forget the beautiful spread he did for Bazaar or Vogue in Greece with Donna Mitchell? Those pictures blew me away and I still remember them. Later in London I worked with Donna and that was a thrill for me as for me she was the most exciting model around. One day I was booked by Richardson and I was all nervous but it was one of these hourly bookings for a publicity so nothing interesting about that except I met him and he liked to work with me, so some time later he booked me for Bazaar! Wow, that was totally different and I arrived happily at the studio, even more happy to see I was the only model for 8 pages and on top of that the clothes were gorgeous and very well styled, forgot the name of the editor but she was really good. Getting ready with hair and make up and then waited and waited till the editor came in to dress me and brought me to the studio where I got on the dark grey paper that was to be used as a background, everything ready but no Bob! After staying there for a while they took me back to the dressing room and took off the clothes again and told me to wait, so I waited and waited, getting a bit paranoid as the hairdresser left and so I was all alone sitting there in that dressing room for hours wondering what was going on… Ok Now it was serious so I got dressed again and again to the studio and indeed after waiting a while Bob came in but he did not look good and everybody looked worried but he started to take pictures although he was falling from left to right and so they guided him away and told me it was over. I was very disappointed but we laughed about it when he came with Angelica Huston to visit us in Paris. So to make a long story short, my heart was not in it, the modelling I mean, there were so many other things, the clothes we designed, the discovery of New York, our baby, friends and everything else.

After staying more or less a year in NY Salvador had to go back to Canary Islands to arrange his military, which was still obligatory in that time and he was the age (21).  So that was it, good bye New York, we learned a lot, saw a lot and it was time to go! 

Destination Las Palmas…