Local Model Has Paris Contract

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31384, 1 June 1967, Page 2

Local Model Has Paris Contract

Eliska Turina, a wisp of a girl with a waterfall of fair hair and deep-set, dark blue eyes, carries a crisp business card which identifies her as a “professional model.” At 17 she has been earning up to £3O a week in Auckland where she caught the eye of the French designer, Pierre Cardin, who has offered her a contract to model for his salon.

“Why aren’t you modelling for me?” Cardin demanded of her as he exclaimed in despair over the models provided for his showing in Auckland last February. “Skinny and flat chested, you’re just right—how would you like to model for me in Paris?”

“I didn't take him seriously, but he took me out to lunch that same day and said he really meant it. He took my name and address and the contract is being sent out for me to sign,” she said in Christchurch yesterday. Eliska will leave New Zealand for Paris in October and if Cardin does not require her to model for the coming season she plans to work in England and return to Paris next year. She is hoping to have her mother along for help and moral support.

“I do hope she will come because Paris is Paris—it’s all very exciting, but I’ve found modelling a rat race.” A complete professional and a perfectionist—Tn never satisfied and I put my work before a social life”— Eliska has gained her independence and standing by hard work and a little luck. Has Diploma At 14, when most girls are simply dreaming of being models, she was acquiring the technique and polish which has made her one of the most sought-after live and photographic models in Auckland. Trained in Christchurch by Marjorie Baird, she has a diploma for advanced modelling and photographic work and while still at school was modelling clothes for city stores.

After she left school it was decided she should try her luck in Auckland. Armed with letters of introduction and the courage of youth she broke into the tightly-knit fashion community and “has not looked back.”

Modelling has taught her to speak her mind and maintain her professional etiquette. “I found in Auckland they were prepared to pay for a good model. Seasonal work can pay from £25 to £35 a week and photographic from £5 an hour to £3O for a colour shot Much of her recent success has been achieved through a “wonderful” working partner-

ship established with Mr Desjj Williams, an. Auckland fashion ( photographer. t Partnership With her Instinctive ability 1 to relax and completely let t herself go in front of the camera she was able to inter- 1 pret Mr Williams’s instruc- 1 tions with ease. ; Once accustomed to his unconventional manner she “got along just fine.” “He would be yelling orders, leaping around all over 1 the studio, and the radiogram ] would be blaring. I’d never 1 know where he was going to i be next, sometimes I’d hear his voice saying: ‘Just hold it i there’ and he would be hang-1 ing from the big beams in i his studio," she said. i Living by her looks and her ability to project an image : has alienated Eliska from : many of her school friends,l; but she is philosophical about I

Jealousy, professional or otherwise, which she encounters. “It’s szd though,” she said. “I meet girls from school and know that once I knew them and now I don’t.” In the little free time Eliska has between jobs, she likes to indulge in her inclination towards the arte. Likes Ballet “I love ballet and the theatre, and to sketch and paint. Designing clothes is fun ton, and I sometimes redecorate my room.” Although she has had to give up a lot for her career, fashion excites her and with Paris ahead her horizons seem unlimited. “But there’s the uncertainty too. I know my luck could run out any time. Still, it’s la challenge, and I love a challlenge,” she said.