Jean Dawnay - Model Girl V&A Fashion Perspectives

MODEL
GIRL

JEAN DAWNAY

V&A PUBLISHING

First published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1956
Digital edition, 2016
V&A Publishing
Victoria and Albert Museum
South Kensington
London SW7 2RL

Princess George Galitzine (Jean Dawnay) 2016

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

EISBN 978 1 85177 918 5
Library of Congress Control Number 2016946843

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Transcribed by Jason Bow

Cover design by V&A Design
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CONTENTS

I: The beginning of it all

II: The bottom rungs of the ladder

III: Doing the rounds

IV: The Rag Trade

V: Paris, by way of Venice

VI: Working for Christian Dior

VII: The top models of today

VIII: Modelling all over the place

IX: Facing the camera with confidence

X: Touring Australia

XI: New York and frustration

XII: New York and success

XIII: From Lime Grove to Palm Beach

XIV: Beauty and fashion

XV: Coronation Year

XVI: Italy, Spain and the future

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL

April 1956 in Majorca was warm and sunny, but as we sat at lunch, the blinds of the yacht Deo Juvante, anchored off Formentor, were tightly drawn. I was the guest of Prince Rainier of Monaco, and his bride, the former Grace Kelly: all around us reporters, photographers and sightseers were milling with field-glasses, cameras and even telescopes. In spite of the weather, sunbathing was out of the question, so after lunch, we sat drinking coffee in the saloon. Princess Grace and I were soon deep in discussion about horoscopes and fate; she asked me when my birthday was, and told me hers was November 12. She said how different her life had been only a few years ago, when everything seemed to have gone wrong. As she spoke, I too began to think of the contrast of the past and the present. Now I was lunching aboard the yacht of the most publicized honeymoon couple in the world. Nine years ago in November 1947, I had been a hard up air hostess, looking desperately around for some other means of supplementing my income. It was then that somebody suggested I should try modelling. At that time there was nothing like the enormous amount of publicity given to models and modelling that there is to-day, so unless one knew someone in the fashion trade, one knew nothing whatsoever about it. I had never really registered the fact that the faces of the girls showing clothes in magazines belonged to real peoplethey always seemed like stuffed dummiesand it certainly never entered my head to become one; nor had I ever seen a model in real life and I couldnt imagine them leading normal human liveshaving to eat, sleep and clean their teeth at regular intervals.

The war had felt as if it would go on for ever. I was at school when it started and when I left it seemed rather pointless to have ambitions about anything, as everyone was drafted into war work of one kind or another. I drifted along through WAAFs and a parachute factory and various other things, with no idea of what I wanted out of life, except a restless ambition to be famousat what, I didnt know. I finally ended up as an air hostess with Westminster Airways, a private charter company, and by September 1947 I was living in London on 8 a week (my only source of income), which after my food, rent and tax were paid left very little for anything else. Being a private charter company, the work was very irregular, and sometimes there would be long, irritating spells of doing nothing. Secretly I began to toy with the idea of modellingI say secretly because I felt rather self-conscious at the idea of my being attractive and vain enough to consider it possible. Finally, my need for money got the better of me and I decided to have a shot.

I had absolutely no idea how to set about becoming a model, until I hit on the bright thought of looking up photographers in the London telephone book (I cant imagine now why I didnt ring up a fashion magazine). The first dozen or so were of no use whatsoever, being the type of photographer who takes machinery or weddings or babies on fur rugs. I was getting nowhere fast, when I had the further bright inspiration to look up studios, which were more to the point. Finally, one patient voice at the end of the line explained in answer to my request, Did they need any models?, that they got all the models they required through an agency, and my best policy was to join one. They then gave me the address of two. I hated the idea of ringing up strange people and asking for interviews, but I telephoned and made appointments to see both the agents.

The first was Pat Larthe, who asked me to bring any snaps or photographs that I had and told me where her office was. I dressed myself up and thought I looked fine, although I realize now I must have looked like a trussed chicken. I arrived at a depressing-looking building near Covent Garden, feeling sick with nerves, which were not at all helped by passing several self-possessed and, to my mind, over-made-up girls on the stairs. I had to sit in a waiting room with about ten other girls, all apparently waiting for interviews like myself. It was my first inkling of the number of girls who wanted to be models.

The interview was short and humiliating. I showed Miss Larthe my pictures (snaps, and one or two studio portraits, that up to now had seemed very glamorous). She barely seemed to glance at them before telling me I was too ordinary, that modelling was the toughest, most soul-destroying profession in the world, and that girls who had far more than I in the ways of looks and figure, got nowhere. Never having been told the frank truth about myself before, I had to try hard to hold back the tears of embarrassment and confusionI didnt succeed very well. Ones friends and relations are inclined to shelter one from the harsh reality about ones appearance: it needed the detached business-like view of a good agent to give a cold douche to my illusions. However, Miss Larthe ended by saying that if I was still interested, I could have a copy of her list of photographers and visit them to see if any of them would give me a test (whatever that was). She added that it was extremely unlikely!

I left the agency feeling crushed and dispirited. This was my initiation into the toughness and cattle-market attitude of the model world. When I look back on that interview now, with my experience of the profession, I realize that Pat Larthe was being an efficient agent in giving me a truthful picture of modelling; and although her judgment of me was harsh, it was nevertheless fairI was ordinary. My fair hair was fuzzy from cheap perms, my eyebrows ragged and ungroomed, my two front teeth were crossed and rabbity, my cheeks too plump, and my make-up did nothing for mealtogether I was just what an agent didnt need, at a time when the current type of successful mannequin was apparently tall, glamorous and ultra-sophisticated.