Although Veruschka imitated style trends at the beginning of her career in the 1960’s, becoming identifiable with her big hair, hippie look, and bell bottoms, she was more than just a typical model. She took part in the creative direction and styling of her photoshoots– becoming an instant inspiration. Veruschka would set the stage for a new alternative style in 1960s being elegant, regal,exotic,dangerous, and sexually charged.
Style Icon
- Unconventional to 1960’s models
- Natural sensuality and mysterious image
- Participated in her photo shoots creative direction
- Fierceness that allowed designers to go more edgy, graphic and literal
- Mixing art and surrealism into the fashion world
- Animalistic Image
Verushka came from a rough background with her father being involved in a Hitler assassination attempt and being executed in 1944. She left behind a destitute family to create a new mysterious and alluring “identity”- Veruschka! She gained much attention in her brief performance in “Blow-up”, was heavily involved in Vogue, and later experimented with body paint photo-shoots and surrealism.
“Blowup” is a film by Michelangelo Antonioni created in 1966. “Blowup” is a cult film about a British
photographer and his accidental involvement in a murder; this movie is very significant to the rise of Veruschka’s career and is deemed as one of the
Veruschka dominated Vogue in the 60’s appearing on 11 covers. In 1975 The editor of Vogue,Grace Mirabella, wanted her to cut her hair and be more identifiable to women of the time.
“She wanted me to be bourgeois, and I didn’t want to be that. I didn’t model for a long time after that.”
~Veruschka
She went on to work with Salvador Dali and Peter Beard in body paint and animal photoshoots; she became a chameleon celebrating the wild beast instead of taming it. She transformed into animals, inanimate objects, the opposite sex — setting the stage for bending gender rules and questioning how different the human form is from natural forms.
“It is always an expression of something universal which is not about me, it’s about life, the disappearance of everything, how nothing really exists.”
“Camouflaging myself made me feel that the public could not trap me so easily. The photographs could reveal something new to myself and to others.”
CONCLUSION
Veruschka is a true style icon that influences current fashion trends to this day with designers like Michael Kors and Tom Ford finding her as an inspiration for their line. She is a fashion icon not necessarily for the way she dressed, but for what she stands for with innovation in the fashion industry.
Current Trends Influenced by Veruschka
- The tall slender modelesque body criteria
- Models and sensuality- being
desired - Androgyny and gender roles
- Art and Fashion
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