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Marie Helvin
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Book
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Publisher | Phoenix | ||
ISBN | 978-075382415 | ||
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Reviewer
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Ann
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Synopsis
One of the original supermodels and international fashion icons, Marie Helvin has been an iconic image in every decade since the 1970s. She was a Hawaiian hippie child in the 60s, a magazine cover star in the 70s, a society supermodel in the 80s, a pioneer detox guru in the 90s and a reluctant reality TV contestant in 2006. In each decade she found herself in the company of the brightest and the best. Still at the forefront of the fashion industry, she is as much in demand as ever, most recently modelling for her seventh British Vogue cover. Marie's autobiography candidly tells the story of friendships with the rich and famous. She reveals the dark side of her own personality as she explains how, gradually, she came to believe in her own beauty and found fulfilment as an independent woman. Illustrated with photographs from many of the greats, including Bailey, Helmut Newton and Nick Knight, Marie Helvin's memoir is a remarkable story of our times.
Review
Marie Helvin, half Japanese, half American supermodel, best known to most of us for her enduring, exotic beauty and her association with the iconic photographer, David Bailey. Here she tells her own story.
From an idyllic, free, childhood in Hawaii to international celebrity, she frankly and disarmingly documents the highs and lows of her life and the people who were important to her.
While her beauty has proved to be her fortune, she also has brains, most obviously appearing in her love of literature and, less obviously perhaps, in managing to avoid the pitfalls of fame despite the drugs and affairs.
Its an interesting story at the high end of the fashion and social spectrum, plenty of famous friends and acquaintances but as a character she comes over as pliable, acquiescent (to use one her favourite words) and hedonistic. Her relationship with Bailey, as she calls him, was Svengali like and would have driven feminists to despair ! She does appear to have ‘found' herself in later life however, enjoying a resurgence of her modeling career.
Worth a read and, if she fancied another book, her parents life would be really fascinating!
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