Wow, things are going good and time to open a shop! It had to be at walking distance from my place so no tiresome transports, enough space to have a room in the back where we could work and it did not take us long to find a wonderful looking place right around the corner of Rue de Douai where I lived: 22 Rue Fontaine-Paris 9eme. The thing I liked was that it had 2 windows opposite each other making a corner to the entrance, so they were really big and they had some mirrored pillars in them. We made very funny windows, like one window all in black and white and the other one in the same order but all in color or one window like it is a mirror of the other and so on, that was great fun specially because we did have 2 window dolls in my image to dress up. The shop itself was in a sad condition when we found it  but with the help of Salvador, physical as well as financially, we got it to look incredible, it looked more like a very cozy living room than a boutique.

 It was great, nobody seemed to mind it was right there in Pigalle, the Rolls Royces stopped right in front to have the rich and famous just dash into the shop. It was so funny for us to think where it was made and where it was going…

Painting Salvador did of me which was hanging in the boutique

Now with the shop being set up it was also time to explore America and the chance to do so came from friends in Holland who had a famous shop in Amsterdam called: Puck and Hans and we were in contact because they sold our tunics there. They were going to do the American Fashion Fair in NY and asked me if I would pose for them in their clothes,  ( I was still a model) in exchange that we could have a part of their stand to show our line. Now we only had to pay for our trip and stay so it was very attractive and Cooky and I  went…

 This poster collage I made for Puck and Hans and not long ago he (Hans) send it to me on Face Book and like I said, although we made tons of pictures, I lost them all so it was great to see this one. In the collage you can see Puck ( the statue) and Hans (with my dress on) and Cooky and me having fun in NY city. We also had a chance to visit American Vogue where we were so well received by Polly Allen Mellon and all her crew and they all bought our outfits and even made a picture with a little write up for Vogue and later Polly wrote me a very long letter saying how much she liked it. We also met with  Carry Donovan, famous fashion editor, who bought one outfit for her self and one for Diane Vreeland, in red of course, and later wrote me by hand a very nice letter telling me that Mrs Vreeland was very happy with the dress. Karl Lagerfeld took me out one night with Andre Leon Talley, and we went to the craziest nightclubs somewhere very downtown, was funny and as everybody  who is in the fashion business knows, the New York Fashion week is an exciting time.

 Some write up in The WWDaily and the NY Times..

Back in Paris lots of work was waiting again as we now had quiet some stores in America who had ordered, Henry Bendels and IF among others in NY, Maxfield in Los Angeles, in Texas, Chicago and nationwide in Saks and other Department stores. We were still struggling with all the work, the money and the legalities. We always had to pay up front but had to wait quiet a while before getting paid by the stores which were many now, all over France, specially in St Tropez and Cannes, in Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium and they are always in a hurry and then the re-orders came in and we had to think of new pieces to complete the line. Luckily we got help from a lovely girl, friend of Cooky, by the name of Sophie Bouchara, she was adorable and a great help.

 We made this postcard to send around                             ( Ph. Tony Kent, collage by Willy)

We had a lot of famous clients and saw pictures all over of people wearing it, we even made little ones for children and short ones like a shirt for boys and even Alejandro was wearing one..

 … and below a friend wearing it, Lara Koski, here in Los Angeles with her son Kaylan in around 1977

 ..and Pia Frithof my friend and lovely model, looking wonderful in the whole outfit, even  the skirt that went with it as well, no end to the way you could combine it..

Alejandro and Apple playing Cleopatra and Antonio, he wearing the Tunic and she the pants….

… some still have it and some still wear it or the daughters or grand daughters wear it… below is Ava Hervier of Lipstick Std  wearing it here and now, clicking on her name you can see her video and hear her sing.

 .. and myself here below, posing for myself a few days ago in the tunic a friend had kept and gave me, the pants were kept by my sister…, consider that it is not easy to push the button and then have 10 seconds to run to your place and pose… ha ha and of course a bit of Photoshopping…

We are in mid 1978 and something very important and different is happening…

I am pregnant…

LOVE AND PEACE

 

There is no place like home and although it had been fantastic staying in the country, it was great to be home again and have all our own things around. I had it clear what I wanted to do so I called my close friend Cooky Debidour as I knew she would be open to undertake something with me and explained the idea about the Tunic I had in mind. In my travels I had seen it in many different forms and from more than 2000 years ago till now women and men have been wearing Tunics so it must be OK. I always loved it because it looked so comfortable and colorful and now I wanted to do my own interpretation simply because I wanted to wear it myself. So this classic, interpreted by me, became a wide Tunic with open neck and a small Chinese collar always lined in a different color as well as the cuffs on the inside of the sleeves. The Tunic was not that long, more like an over sized shirt till the knees, apart from the sleeves which were not too wide and long because that is not comfortable. Then there was the pants which actually came in 3 or 4 sizes + a one size fits all but the fitting ones were great, very good cut I was proud of and very smart looking with just a T shirt. The Tunic was “one size fits all” ( it really did) and in at least 8 different colors and different materials which all would be possible to mix together. It came with a belt as well that was 3 yards long so you could wrap it around several times or use it for something different like a wash line to hang your laundry.

 We made this poster for all the shops that was selling our “Tunique Unique” and I am sorry I don’t have it in color, lost almost all the pictures and my press book full of newspaper and Magazine cuttings from all over the world, but I have a few to show you here.

 It was very hard work, first design and make up name-tags, look for the materials in different shops in Rue Goutte d’Or where it always smelled of heads of lamb they were grilling outside, negotiating for the best price because the same thing in an other store was prized differently. We found this lovely flowered materials from China in many wonderful colors and for the moment there was a lot of it. OK, now the pattern, which I made, also of the pants in my size but they had to be professionally sized in 4 different sizes and once that done we had to find an atelier ( workshop) where they would actually make them. Here came a problem because in every place we looked into told us we had to have them make a certain amount of pieces that was much too much for us and quiet impossible because we were starting small! We ended up, via via, with a small Atelier of Turks ( people from Turkey) that had no working permits but they could sew very well although they were all men and they would do anything we asked for a reasonable price. This place was in Belleville , a part of Paris not so Belle, and there in a small apartment they had a workshop set up with some sewing machines and tables to cut the materials and where they would sleep on at night. They would cook and fry on a tiny stove right there on the cutting table, with lots of grease and honestly we had to hang out the clothes and air them for at least a day before we could send them away because they also all smoked like trains and hardly ever opened a window. One time when Cooky and I went on inspection there I really literally fainted. We had to overlook all the time because they could make the most incredible mistakes like cutting the opening of the collar in the back instead of the front, which is not the same thing and since they were always cutting a whole bunch at the same time… We were wrestling with all that when the orders started to come in…

Anna Piaggi did this very nice thing in Italian Vogue and Tracy Weed (model that became photographer) made the pictures and between Ana and Karl Lagerfeld they organised these wonderful personalities as models and they each had a different take on it…

This is only a photocopy of a photocopy but I enlarged some here so you can see a little bit better how each one wears it her or his way… here are the links to all of them,       Tracy Weed, Heidi Moravetz, Emanuela Papatakis, Loulou de La Falaise, Joan J.Buck, Paloma Picasso, Anja Lopez, Jacques de Bascher, and below the pictures a bit bigger:

Emanuela Papatakis

Heidi Moravetz

Jacques de Bascher

Joan J.Buck

Loulou de La Falaise

Paloma Picasso

me

 Cooky and I packed our bags full and went selling to the model agencies, it was crazy we sold a lot even that it was not that cheap but everybody wanted it and so easy to sell because it would always fit, except the pants and if we did not have the size in stock we would make it up in a few days but it was mostly OK because all the colours looked nice together so if there was no blue in a particular size well, then green would do or yellow or red…

 with Cookygoing out to sell,

some pictures were taken for news papers… here in the elevator of our place,

and have to tell a lot more  but that is for the next post…

Its 1977 and I am 36 and Salvador became 29. 

This picture by Laurence Sackman in 1976 just for us with our own clothes…

I used to make or remake  blue Jeans and other pants for Salvador .…

oh, and don’t forget to check out Alegria’s blog to see what Salvador is doing…

LOVE AND PEACE

Being a model was great but I had and have many other interests and the modeling had become much less exciting for me, never worked with Helmut after he had a heart attack and now it had become like working for the money most of the time and doing jobs I was not really interested in.  It is hard to work with a photographer who shoots between 200 and 300 pictures for the same outfit and thought, because they booked me, they could make pictures like Helmut Newton. Also there were many new fresh beautiful faces around to fill the pages of the Fashion magazines and France is not that big to have a lot of work for all the models that were flocking to Paris. Everything changes and now I was doing more commercial jobs and mostly in Hamburg or Milan which meant a lot of flying and not being home much which I did not like and although the money was good that was not a good enough reason for me either. Loved to do the Fashion shows so I kept doing that still for years but slowly started to work less and think more of designing or making Fashion illustrations. Salvador was working very hard on his paintings and it was just so fantastic to be home and draw and sew. First I took a dress I had designed and made years earlier in Ibiza, remade it with material available in Paris and made pants to go with it and I got Pierre d’Albie, who had several shops that were doing great, have me make a small collection for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

left Ibiza 1971… right the version for Pierre d’Albie 1975

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It lasted a while and he sold it well but I had to compromise, like putting his name in the garment, (which is actually very common) and they started to tell me what to do and there it gets difficult for me…

I rather imagined beautiful coats of silk and velvet

Lots of things were going on, Salvador was very inspired and was painting all the time,

whether people were there or not, and Alejandro was now in a very nice “Montessori” boarding school so we had to buy a car, which is a crazy thing in Paris where we were living, impossible to park even then, so much easier to take a taxi or a bus or even the metro. In any case the school was a bit outside of Paris in Meulem as I remember well and so every Monday morning and Friday afternoon we brought and took him there in our new green VW. In the meantime I divided my time between modeling, drawing and sewing and of course taking care of the house and everything that goes with it.

It was a very exciting time because of what Salvador was doing and you can see all of that HERE, click!

Here some pictures of my favourite models Apple and Alejandro

and I also made plenty of pictures of Salvador which again you can see on Alegria’s Blog and except for professional reasons, no one took a picture of me except the photo-booth near Place de Madeleine,which made very good pictures, personally some of my favourites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo booth 1975

We are still in 1975 here and I am 34 and very conscious that life is full of choices one has to make, and the trick is to make the right one so as far as I am concerned I follow my heart and try to be true to myself, but who am I and what do I want?? For me that is the question worth investigating and takes a lifetime and for what? For me to be at Peace, because being at Peace will allow me to feel free, free from all the burdens that I accumulated in my head as well as the material ones. I am at a point where less is more and realise that I need little to posses, my eyes can take in everything that gives me joy and inspiration and just a flower can lift my spirits and of course I love beautiful things but prefer to create them…

yes, life is a trip…

Don’t forget to check Alegria’s BLOG with Salvador’s story
LOVE and PEACE

THE SHOW IS ON…

Something new was going on in the Paris Fashion world. Up till now the ” Haute Couture” Fashion shows were presented by the “House” models, beautiful girls with long slim bodies and a lot of patience who were there everyday to do the fittings, as the models were made on them and later when sold, would be made up in the size of the buyer. As far as I can remember Yves Saint Laurent was the first to have “photo-models” or “cover girls” to show his Haute Couture collection together with the House models. And I was one of the first to be invited to do so, maybe even the only one because looking at the pictures of the shows I only see the girls I knew where always there. One thing is for sure, I loved it. Then came the “Pret a Porter” and some great models started to walk the catwalk. When I first saw Jerry Hall fresh from Texas at YSL, I was very impressed by her beauty, still very young with that long blonde  hair that she was whipping while walking, Pat Cleveland full of energy and her very personal beautiful movements, Grace Jones was there too and many other beauties who were the “House models” that were there always, Nicole Dorier, Vesna Laufer, Mercedez, Ana, Violetta, Mounia, Khirat and others and of course the clothes were beautiful. At the same time many new young designers were coming up, Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Kenzo, Issy Miyake and even Jean Paul Gaultier was still in the very beginning when he was produced by a man from India and he could not afford to pay the models but instead gave us all an outfit from the show, the amazing thing being that many of the best models did it, me because I always believed in him. Then there was of course Karl Lagerfeld for Clhoé and also his own line and a little later Azzedine Alaiia with his first Fur collection. It is so funny looking at it now because then we were just there and saw it happen, the shows were getting more exciting and it became so popular that people would be pushing by the hundreds to get in, Bill Cunningham, now famous, was always there making street pictures, always good to see him, was a tradition almost. We were a few that were doing all the shows and remember running from one show to an other with Pat Cleveland and Ana ( I forgot her last name but she was always there) and arriving in a hurry, a bit late because we could not find a taxi, excitement, make up, hair, screams, nerves and ready to go as cool as if nothing had happened. In that time we were few and so we had to change 6 or more times and we walked how we felt best, now they have a lot of girls and they show one piece and they all more or less walk the same as far as I can see. From all the shows, something like 30 a season, I particularly liked to walk the shows of YVES SAINT LAURENT

 with Yves after a show

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The clothes, the music, the audience, it all made you feel beautiful. sometimes I was the first to come out and particularly remember the white suit (far left),which was actually light pink, I was opening the show and the music went” isn’t she pretty, isn’t she wonderful” and you see in a flash Yul Brynner, Mick Jagger or Catherine Deneuve looking…it felt great. Catherine Deneuve came once up to me after a show and said; Vous êtes très belle! so I said; Aprês vous! It was fun, it was great, the compliments, the applause, the after parties, the feasts.

There were also shows in Milan coming up and the very first Gianni Versace show was a big thing with days of preparation as it all was going to be filmed… He had chosen me to open the show coming down on a swing from the ceiling… there were many others but Dolce and Cabbana did not exist yet, neither did Prada or Gucci have anything going on but Missoni was there and…  back to Paris where the Fashion world was booming and each was doing his or her thing. You can read about it in the book written by Alicia Drake called ” The beautiful fall” or in the book of Susan Moncur ” They still shoot models my age?” Each and everyone has his or her story. There was “Castel’s” and “Regine’s”, clubs that were very popular in the Fashion circles and there was lots of alcohol and drugs and although we had our share of smoking hashis, we never went to any of those clubs simply because we were a family and most happy at home and did not do the hard stuff, except for an occasional acid trip or a bit of coke at a party, it was always there and always available… People would come and visit us constantly and sometimes there was a whole South American band practicing… For me there was no place better than home. Later “The Palace” was created in an old Theater, big and beautiful and there yes we did go regularly, we even were part of the “The Prive” The VIP part of the Palace. Wow, there were some great parties in the Palace, thrown by either Yves St Laurent or Lagerfeld or for no reason at all and everybody sooner or later passed through there at a point, I even met Francis Bacon there….

Karl Lagerfeld made me the Clhoé Perfume Girl and I received for years boxes full of Clhoé products and Yves sent me this picture,

” For my very very dear Willie, who gave me many times the impression of my dreams becoming reality” Yves

Wow, that is beautiful and very thoughtful. Monsieur Saint Laurent, as everybody at the “House” very politely called him, was a very special person, with lots of Poesy and humor. Then there was Anne Marie Muñoz, a very special woman as far as I am concerned, who had a very important position at YSL,( she was the directrice) as she had been with him since always and I just love her. For me she is one of these persons that opens your heart when you meet them and for no apparent reason, we became friends and shared many great dinners at her home and will come back to her later…

We are still in the first half of the 70-ties and Salvador is working very hard on his paintings

Here photographed by Tony Kent for French Vogue Homme

and I am still standing in front of the camera’s in Paris, Milan, London or Hamburg…    and check Salvador here ☛ CLICK

LOVE AND PEACE

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 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

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….

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.