How marvelous is this photograph...

by Richard Avedon of Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn?


Fred's character in Funny Face was based on Avedon, and Audrey's role was loosely based on 50's model Suzi Parker.

Click her to see the fashion scene from "Funny Face." It's a classic.

First Super Model

Janice Dickinson likes to claim she is the world's first supermodel. To me this statement has always seemed a bit laughable. While La Dickinson WAS striking in her time and quite exotic looking, there were other models during her era who made equal or larger impressions on the world stage.

Cheryl Tiegs. Lauren Hutton. Veruschka. Penelope Tree.

Twiggy, who preceded Janice and is regarded the first waif model, arrived on the scene decades before Kate Moss made waifs fashionable again. Twiggy's image still crops up everywhere in 60's culture coffee table books and, as we all know, she replaced Janice as a judge on America's Next Top Model.

But the first super model, in my opinion, has been largely forgotten. Her name was Suzi Parker and she died in 2003.

She was famed photographer Richard Avedon's muse, and apppeared on numerous Vogue covers during the 1950's. According to legend the movie Funny Face was inspired by her professional relationship with Avedon, though the link I've provided relates a different story. Suzi played a small role as a model in that movie and went on to make several more films, which have faded to oblivion.

So every time Janice mentions she's the world's first supermodel, I snigger a little and think of Suzi Parker. She was by all accounts strikingly beautiful and could care less about fame and glory in her later years.