Transformation Of Top Model

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31380, 27 May 1967, Page 2

Transformation Of Top Model

A tall, thin girl and a young, black-haired man ran through the winter rain across Times Square and into the New York offices of America’s most august fashion magazine. “But they’re adorable,” cried the editor, Diana Vreeland, surveying the sodden pair. “England has arrived.”

So had the "Shrimp.” The diamond and candelabra era of big-time modelling was over for ever. The tangled hair and the dripping-raincoat could not disguise the fact that Jean Shrimpton had appeared at the right place and at the right time to turn the world of fashion on its ear. It was January, 1963, and the “Shrimp,” aged 21, had not appeared in the shrine of American fashion by some fortuitous accident She was there because the man at her side had planned it that way—as part of Jean Shrimpton’s astonishing transformation from a slightly above-average fashion model into the face and figure of the 'sixties. It was David Bailey, then aged 23, a product of London’s East End, who had dreamed up this coltish stance, the air of worldly, laconic innocence which was to give the word “dolly” a new and alarming meaning. Bailey thought of the “little girl look” and Jean Shrimpton, under his guidance gave it the breath of life. Voted Top They ousted the duchesses and debutantes from the gossip column. Jean became the only girl ever to be voted top model simultaneously in Britain, America and Europe. Bailey made photography the “with-it” art. Together, they made quite sure that the remote, gilded world of fashion modelling would never be as remote or gilded again.

Jean Rosemary Shrimpton was aged 17, five feet six, and possessed of a figure that someone once described as “a first-rate clothes-horse,” when she arrived in London in 1960 to take a secretarial course.

One night at a party, a photographer strolled up and casually suggested that she should become a model. The idea appealed: she packed away her typewriter and enrolled at a model schood. “She was the most gawky awkward thing I’ve ever seen,” remarks a photographer who took some of the first “Shrimp” pictures. But cameramen with more patience who could make the “Shrimp” relax and unwind, came away with some memorable pictures.

Had Ambition By 1962, her off-beat, natural manner had landed her the cover spot on the British edition of “Vogue.” The picture was taken by David Bailey, fast becoming the “whiz-kid” of international fashion photography. Superficially they could not have been more dissimilar. He was laconic, worldly, with tremendous ambition. She was a “country chick’’—Bailey’s description—more interested in horses than haute couture. But more than the camera clicked that day. Soon Bailey was showing her round the new world of fashion where trends were as urgent and transient as today’s newspaper. He knew his way around this world, but he had not met anyone quite like the ’Shrimp” and he knew that, with care, he could make her a legend. He showed Ihe way and she followed contentedly. He insisted that she concentrated on editorial features, playing hard-to-get with advertisers, and turning down any assignments with photographers he considered mediocre. She did what she was told. Later, she was to say, “I owe everything that I am as a model to David Bailey.” This was generous, but not wholly accurate. Behind the shy exterior was an unflappable, highly-professional model with extraordinary photogenic powers. “Jean is the only girl I know,” says a fashion editor, “who can change the whole mood of a

picture simply by moving her f00t...” The photographer, Richard Avedon, recalls that after one gruelling session lasting until 4 a.m. he finally put down his camera, to find that his model still posed as he wanted her, eyes wide open, was in fact, deeply asleep. Eyes Open "The picture turned out beautifully. No other model could have done that and got away with it” During 1962 and 1963, the “Shrimp” was everyone’s pinup. She appeared on 30 glossy covers. Four cosmetic firms festooned her face across their hoardings. But the personal lives of the photographer and his model were, on the face of it rather less glamorous. Any off-duty time they spent together was mainly taken up by eating sausages and eggs In cafes, strolling In the park, visiting an occasional French film. Sent on a magazine assignment in Florence they saw nothing of the city; their time was spent in a hotel room eating strawberries and watching television. Whenever possible, Jean flitted off to the country—to her father’s farm in Buckinghamshire. But she left her face behind—on. the posters and the magazine pages. Divorced In September, 1963, David Bailey divorced his wife, and friends waited for the inevitable marriage. But it never came. In 1964, they split up. Friends reported that she was becoming restive over the way he was directing her life. On the scene came Terence Stamp, an off-beat actor from

a similar East End background. Bailey adopted another protege, Susan Murray, a willowy, green-eyed blonde, said to be even more his creation than the “Shrimp.”

"She has this vague Indian quality, this eastern thing that adds up to a completely new face,” says Bailey. “She is more mysterious than Jean.”

Today the “Shrimp" is seldom seen in the modelling world. She can still earn £BO an hour—slightly more than “Twiggy,” the current darling—but turns down eight out of every 10 offers. She is said to hive rejected nearly £lO,OOO worth of work last year in order to transfer from page to screen. For with Bailey elsewhere, the world of modelling holds little appeal and the “Shrimp" is going into films. Her first part is in a film called “Privilege,” with the pop star, Paul Jones. “It is not a big part, and that’s how I want it. After all, I am still learning."

Film men report that she has star quality, that transition from top model to film star is only a matter of time—and the right film.

Whether she makes it or not, the face is there, on a thousand fashion plates, for the future to see and to remember that, through Jean Shrimpton, the “cool look” was turned from a fashion into a way Of life.