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):
“Lookâcome 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.
But what do you think?