Style Icons: Male »Fabio

FabioWhy do I mention it now?

Because I happened across the photo of the fabled meeting of the man that I mentioned in my previous entry. Do enjoy!

Here's what I said back on 2/12/07:

My family and I actually met Fabio at a strip mall book signing tour he was on to promote his self written romances “Pirate”, “Viking”, and “Rogue”. And yes, I have a singed copy of each along with a photograph of me with the hunk.

I have to say, I saw Fabio in a whole new light that day as he stayed extra hours to make sure that every lady got a signature and a hug or kiss. Since then he's earned even more of my respect with his phenomenal album, Fabio After Dark, and his part in the sadly defunct oxygen show Mr. Romance.

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Posted on June 15, 2009

Style Icons: Female »Maxine de la Falaise

maxine de la falaiseMaxine de la Falaise's obituary reads like a dream: she grew up in a family that “were the highest of haute bohemia”, as a child in school, “her clothes – Rhoda's (her mother's) discarded Schiaparellis or bespoke oriental ensembles – were awesome”. Later, shipped off to the US to find a wealthy husband, “She hung around Vogue in New York, was introduced to Elsa Schiaparelli, whose couture house had reopened… as perfect in her lanky loucheness to wear and sell for the house in its last years, and she was also photographed as a model for Dior, whose rise finally eclipsed Schiaparelli.”

She counted Louis Malle and Max Ernst among her lovers before becoming “an influential hostess among the Manhattan creatives” and a food columnist for Vogue. She was great friends with Andy Warhol and I know her well from his camp classic Blood for Dracula. Yves Saint Laurent, who claimed her daughter Loulou as a muse, was also enamored with Maxine and she both modeled for him and acted as his licensing consultant.

She was a gorgeous and fascinating woman who left her own, unique stamp on the world.

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Posted on May 25, 2009

Style Icons: Female »Colleen Corby

colleen corbyYou may not be familiar with Colleen Corby's name if you weren't a teen in the '60s, but if you've ever picked up a vintage Seventeen magazine from that magical decade, you're sure to have seen her wide eyes staring back at you. She had looks, and specifically lips, that boys could dream about, but she also seemed like she could be your pretty best friend.

After years of constant work as America's then top supermodel sweetheart under the tutelage/iron grip of Eileen Ford she left the business to get married and hopefully eat as much pork chops as she wanted (she was put on a strict diet by Ford for most of her youth).

This site contains a very extensive photo gallery of her work, mostly from Seventeen Magazine, whose staff adored her as much as her fans and the young Oprah Winfrey (who referred to Corby as the model she most closely identified with as a teen).

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Posted on April 13, 2009

Style Icons: Female »Iman

imanA true icon of fashion, the statuesque Iman is the keeper of David Bowie's heart and muse to none other than the late, great Yves Saint Laurent, who referred to her his “dream woman” and used her in some stunning campaigns in the 80s.

Sure, she's quit the biz only to come back to plug products on reality shows (really Iman, you're cool shilling your wares on ANTM?) but she mostly works as a cosmetics mogul, a humanitarian and a devoted wife.?The two superstars have (at least, in the picture they paint in this interview) a dreamy love-of-their-lifetimes relationship where?she bakes him shepherd's pie and, “They even celebrate the 14th of every month, the anniversary of their first date.” Awwww.

She's also blessed with a healthy dose of ego-mania, having written a book about (you guessed it) Iman, but she's never thrown a phone at anyone and she's doing good in the world and, for all the nerds, she's even graced the Star Trek universe with her unearthly beauty.

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Posted on April 6, 2009

Style Icons: Female »Benedetta Barzini

Great Beauty

While recently going through my old Italian Vogues, I found a great photo retrospective about life time model and elegant beauty, Benedetta Barzini. Frustrated at not being able to read the accompanying article, I decided to find out what I cold about this sharp featured woman and found that she’s the kind of strong willed individual that blows the stereotype of a ditsy, shallow supermodel out of the water.

You might most recognize her today as one of the few models working with deep, well earned wrinkles but her career began back in the sixties. When starting out, after being discovered by the indomitable Diana Vreeland, she was once told (as she recalls in this 1977 People interview):

“Look—come to the parties, be nice to everyone, marry a rich American and you can stay in the U.S. That’s the way it works.”

Instead, she fell in with Warhol and had a highly publicized love affair with Gerard Malanga and she skipped out on her skyrocketing modeling career to act in Italy to became a feminist communist. This is probably why she is not a household name as she seemed destined to become and can be found no where near America’s Next Top Model’s judging table.

She can be found, however in the archives of the Sartorialist, making commenter’s wish for the genetics to look this good at her age.

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Posted on January 26, 2009

Style Icons: Female »Bettie Page

Pin Up Queen

Bettie Page became a star decades after the photos were taken that made her famous. Generations recognized her charm, effervescence and beauty once the times caught up to her racy career. She and her signature cute bangs were certainly an influence on me as a teen around the time that she was becoming a pop style icon dug up from the past.

She was 85 when she passed away this last Thursday.

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Posted on December 15, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Uschi Obermaier

German Groupie

Sometimes the zeitgeist amazes me. I was just telling you lot about Who’s Dated Who, warning you that lots of style icons were sure to come from it, and which lady catches my eye but the German sensation and raven haired beauty Uschi Obermaier (former girlfriend to Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, and Mick Jagger).

Next thing I know, I am flipping through Time Out and I read that there is a new fictionalized about of her life opening this very week called Eight Miles High. The article goes on to warn viewers that the movie has very little to say except to “Become a model, hang out with hippies, hook up with the Rolling Stones and then go globe-trotting with a mystic, mustachioed adventurer” and there isn’t much else I can add.

Obermaier was a lucky and stunningly gorgeous girl who happened to fall in with famous musicians and was outspoken about her sexual freedom… or so I thought.

I found out on further examination that Uschi Obermaier was also once a member of Amon Duul – the initial radical commune incarnation of (my beloved) Amon Duul II. Wow.

I think I am in love.

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Posted on July 21, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Penelope Tree

60’s It Girl

Penelope Tree is one of the most strangely beautiful faces of the ’60s. She looked like an elf (which makes her totally my type) or, as hot boyfriend and famous woman eater David Bailey once said, like “an Egyptian Jiminy Cricket”. They met when he was still with Catherine Denueve, who reportedly saw a photo of Tree and told him “You’re going to run off with her,” before they had even met.

Discovered to a degree by the fab Richard Avedon who (unlike Vogue at first) thought her look was “perfect”, Tree ushered in the waif look along with Twiggy and lived the lifestyle of a spaced out hippie chick. While living with Bailey, probably to the horror of the lovely Deneuve, she painted the rooms in their house black and purple. She also reportedly installed a UFO detector, but considering that such a thing doesn’t exactly exist, who knows.

She was rebellious, defying her parents (a bisexual MP and a political activist) to become a model, running off with Bailey at age 17, shaving her eyebrows because she wanted “to look more like a Martian than I already did”, and dropping out of the whole fashion world when she was finished with it.

While some can correctly criticize her for bringing on an era of super skinny models, (she admitted to suffering from anorexia during her career), on a positive note she also redefined beauty and defied tradition. She was weird yet lovely, innocent looking but kind of scary and she mostly refused to smile at the camera. She looked like no one else in the world and liked it that way.

She’s recently been seen back in front of the camera for Burberry.

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Posted on July 7, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Stephanie Seymour

Badass Supermodel

Of all the familiar supermodel faces that have been reemerging lately, I think I am most happy to see the kick ass Stephanie Seymour. She was once the rebellious teen who dated the much older modeling agency magnet John Casablancas and Warren Beatty.

Rumors of her romances reached my sister and my young ears and a fascination was born. A fascination that of course only grew when we saw her with her beau Axl Rose, beating up chicks in jealous bar fights and getting married looking like a sugar plum fairy amidst a bunch of Riki Rachtmans. She always had an almost scary edge with a regal face.

Now that she’s older, more established and settled in her eccentric life as the wife of a millionaire I find her even more fabulous. She’s a collector of eccentric art, including a gigantic duplicate of?Jeff Koons’ floral puppy in her back yard, an enviable collector of vintage clothing and generally has the kind of life that amazes. She dated Axl Rose, she had a part in a Law and Order(!), and now she struts around her manicured massive garden with her horse in nothing but heals and a full length fur coat? Brilliant.

Little wonder that Juergen Teller has called her one of his muses. The photos he’s taken of her are the best.

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Posted on May 26, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Veruschka

Iconic Model

Both literally and figuratively, the Amazonian model Veruschka is larger than life. From her explosive scene in Blow Up which rocketed her to world wide supermodel stardom, she was the modeling world’s most mysterious and alluring. So what if it was contrived – if she wanted to change her name and background to appear more enigmatic, the magazines paying her 10,000 a day didn’t seem to mind.

But Veruschka is in possession a creative and kind of bonkers mind. She was often allowed to art direct her own shoots and has continued with self portrait photography (often of herself in body paint as wild animals) since leaving the fashion world behind. She left because of a rift with new Vogue editor, Grace Mirabella, who unlike Diana Vreeland, couldn’t appreciate the exotic beauty of Veruschka. Mirabella suggested she cut her hair to have more mass appeal. Veruschka said no.

This is a woman who lives her life as a nomad, at one time recently, living in Dumbo with a lover and many cats, riding her bike around town veiled in her own raggedy Bohemia. She is not a woman who was going compromise her appearance to look more ordinary. And that’s why we love her.

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Posted on May 5, 2008