Sixty and Still Super

by Percy T. Edwards 
 

At the age of 19, hailed by the Youth Quake’s fashion elite as “Super Chick”, the lissome, green-eyed fashion model Linda Morand found that Mademoiselle Magazine was confidently predicting that she would emerge as an influential trendsetter. A modern fashion pioneer and beacon of revolutionary style and beauty trends, Morand was a major face in the Mod Sixties. One of the top Ford models of the decade, her successful modeling career spanned over 10 years, first in New York and later throughout the fashion capitals of the world. Her modeling assignments included walking the catwalks of the major European haute couture designers including Karl Lagerfeld for Clohé, Christian Dior, Yves St. Laurent and Valentino.  She possessed a tall lean body, with slender, graceful arms and endless legs and an elegant closely cropped head set atop a long slim neck. Her face graced the covers of many magazines including Mademoiselle and Harper’s Bazaar.

Such an exhilarating upgrade – “from the superlative to the sublime” – as it were, was more or less inevitable for this naturally tall and slender Long Island Mod, who had wanted to be an artist but was encouraged by everyone to try her hand at modeling in the heady days of the London Invasion. While attending the Fashion Institute of Technology, she was often asked to model by fellow student designers and aspiring photographers.  After a year of test photo shoots and small modeling assignments she was offered a contract by Eileen Ford, the top model agent in the world. Upon seeing Linda’s cut glass cheekbones, wide-eyed ‘gamine’ looks and  show stopping smile, Eileen Ford declared she had the “formula face," a face you just could not get a bad picture of, in any light at any angle. She was groomed - under the masterful Ford touch, into a high fashion mannequin and likely candidate for top model status, including covers, cosmetic ads and national advertising campaigns. Her first major booking was for the cover of Teen magazine.  

A few years before the actual Moon Landing in 1969, the entire world was focused on futuristic fashion and Super Hero fantasies.  The young and talented editors at Mademoiselle outfitted her in the latest gear made of brand new man-made fabrics in shiny metallics and colorful plastic materials.  Linda was photographed wearing designer clothes from   Paraphernalia, the ultra-chic boutique which featured creative and affordable of such modish labels as Mary Quant, and Betsey Johnson.  She was a member of the hottest cover-girl “Brat Pack” including Lauren Hutton, Cybill Shepherd, Ulla Bomser, Jennifer O’Neill, Kathy Carpenter, Wallis Franken, Cheryl Tiegs and Dayle Haddon.

Her close-cropped hair with asymmetrical bangs hair was done by Vidal Sassoon.  She did her own make-up, inventing the pained on mask look for a ten page spread entitled “Super Chick Hits Our Town” featuring Linda as a super Hero from Saturn with super powers and a wonder wardrobe.

At the end of 1966 Linda was flown to Paris under contract to Paris Planning and Eileen Ford. Visionary designer Pierre Cardin immediately put her under contract and she modeled for several of his major shows helping to promote his futuristic Space Look.  Helmut Newton booked her for Elle magazine in an  editorial spread shot at the French National Space Center in Bretagne. She also modeled for Andre Couregges, Paco Rabanne, Jean Patou, and other Parisian Couture Houses.

As soon as she arrived in Paris, she was booked by the Carita salon.  They chopped off more of her hair giving it their distinct signature style esteemed by the society ladies of Paris.  Large posters of Linda were on display throughout the lavish salon which gently tended the tresses of international movie stars, titled royalty and the First Lady Madame Pompidou.  This led to Linda Morand’s look being copied by thousands of French women.

Becoming an ultra-chic and sought after model on the Paris-Milan-Munich fashion circuit  was hard work, but seemed predestined for the adventurous young lady with high energy and a thirst for knowledge London, Paris, Rome, Venice, St Moritz Cannes, Monaco and other glamorous European playgrounds became Linda’s terrain. Fluent in four languages, well informed about different European customs, the young New Yorker, displaying some pretty flashy credentials, was armed with a portfolio of tear sheets from Mademoiselle in New York.

She landed gigs for French and Italian Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and every French, Italian, German and Swiss fashion and beauty magazine many of them for covers. She realized that there were simply no top models left in these countries. There were tons of high paying modeling jobs but almost all the fabulous German, Swiss, French and Italian models were in New York or Paris. The few who remained behind were hopelessly over-booked. At first she was flown in on a per-assignment basis but after seeing a great untapped market, Linda decided to take advantage of the many opportunities.

Linda signed lucrative contracts with Fashion Model Agency in Milano, FotoGen Agency in Zurich and International Talents Agency in Munich. She was one of the first American models to set out to actually reside in these cities for months at a time, paving the way for hundreds more who would later pour in, seemingly by pipeline. She appeared on over 100 magazine covers in Italy and Zurich and in hundreds of catalogs. She would always return to Paris to appear on the runways for the Collections and pose for Elle or Marie Claire.

For several years she commuted between her smart Parisian flat near the top of Mont-Martre, in the shadow of the Sacre Couer, and the fashion capitals of Europe. It was sometimes lonely, always traveling, but she filled her time reading history and studying the languages and politics of the countries that she was working in.  She would peruse the current newspapers, take classes at the Universities of Paris and Berlin and tried to stay abreast of politics. She made friends in and out of the fashion industry in each city and was often the welcome guest of famed artists, writers, film professionals and industrialists. Her editorial and commercial assignments took her to Athens, Crete, Venice, Rome, and all over Italy and France and Germany, the Canary Islands, Sardinia and Tunisia. Whenever possible she made time to visit the monuments and museums, ever broadening her education with practical experience. She also visited East Berlin and Communist Budapest at the height of the Cold War.

Gossip columnists would issue dispatches about her romantic involvements with dazzling men like actor Lawrence Harvey, Prince Albrecht von Liechtenstein and the controversial French heartthrob, Count Philippe Forquet de Dorne, ex-fiancé of Sharon Tate. After a two year courtship they were married in Carmel California which and made possible a lifestyle of International travel and Hollywood glamour.  Philippe encouraged her to model less and concentrate on helping him in his career, which was pretty much standard in the pre Women’s Liberation days which were to follow soon.  They moved to Los Angeles for awhile where Philippe starred in a beloved mini-series called The Young Rebels. He became a teen-age idol and was seen in all the fan magazines and Linda dabbled in acting, but both preferred the East Coast and the Continental lifestyle.

They returned to Paris in 1972 where Linda signed with Prestige Modeling Agency in Paris. She had changed her look to a more natural, romantic style with long wavy auburn hair and clothes by Biba’s Barbara Halunicki and Yves St Laurent.  Linda’s stunning wordless presence was a crucial part of the exceptionally grand flow of visual imagery that is a fashion photo shoot. Vogue photographer Hans Feurer loved this quality and used her for several ad campaigns and booked Linda for many sessions in Italian Vogue.  She also appeared in the pages and on the cover of Italian Bazaar in a stunning take-off on Marlene Dietrich by Bob Krieger. Modeling for the great fashion photographers required an extraordinary kind of talent that not every tall, pretty girl had.  She worked with Marissa Barensen, Verushka, Lois Chiles, and other top models.

 

For an encore, she made an indelible impression on Helmut Newton as the quintessence of a young Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Newton dreamed up a tongue in cheek photo shoot with Linda portraying Jackie O, who was then the most photographed woman in the world.  They did a ten page spread in Vogue Française with paparazzi style pictures shot with a telephoto lens in the streets of Paris with real policemen in the background. The startling images were so convincing that even Jackie herself was fooled for a moment, but Linda’s name was mentioned in the text. Richard Avedon sent Linda and Helmut a telegram of congratulations and wanted to work with Linda in the near future. In later years she posed for Annie Liebowitz for Vanity Fair and Peter Beard for Esquire as the Jackie persona.

At the height of her success she became pregnant with her first child. She decided to give up modeling as a full time career.  She moved to Munich, modeling part-time as she continued her studies of history, art as well as natural healing and anti-aging therapies.  She eventually raised a family of four children.

Still stunning at 60 years old Linda Morand has the face of a much younger woman.  She attributes her ageless beauty to a combination of healthy eating and especially a program of facial exercise that she learned in France. As 50,000 Americans a day turn fifty years old, there is renewed interest in the fashion world for models of a “certain age” and Linda is returning to the modeling scene in New York.