The Replacement Girl 6/90. Arsac, Guy. Paris, 1957. When Barbara Mullen moved to Paris in the
The Replacement Girl 6/90. Arsac, Guy. Paris, 1957. When Barbara Mullen moved to Paris in the mid-Fifties, she was faced with starting her career over again in a new country, and finding a place for herself within a new modelling hierarchy. Just as Manhattan had its Seventh Avenue showroom models, Paris had hundreds of rank-and-file mannequins, ensconced at the various couture cabinet in the 1st and 8th arrondissements. And it already had a cluster of big names — Bettina Graziani, Sophie Malgat, Capucine, Marie-Hélène Arnaud — who’d all risen from those cabines to front-page stardom.It was only to be expected, of course, that visiting American magazines would gravitate towards the safety of an experienced New York name, just as they did with fellow expats Suzy Parker, Ivy Nicholson and Dorian Leigh; apart from anything else, not having to fly in models from Manhattan meant a substantial saving on costs. But right from the outset, Mullen was kept just as busy by homegrown photographers. Amongst them was Guy Arsac, a successful freelancer whose work appeared regularly in Vogue and Elle, and who booked her in the summer of 1957 to shoot the season’s couture collections for L'Officiel de la Mode. It wasn’t a particularly vintage year in French fashion; Dior’s New Look was now a decade old, and younger rivals like Cardin were still finding their feet. But Mullen got to model some of the season’s most beautiful evening gowns - including a dramatic swirl of pale blue silk crepe, created by the embroiders at Lesage for Jacques Griffe. For added spice, Arsac photographed Mullen at the already-notorious Crazy Horse Saloon, the Wild-West themed burlesque club Alain Bernardin had opened in an Avenue George V cellar a few doors away from Balenciaga, complete with waiters dressed as cowboys and a doorman in Mountie uniform. Arsac wasn’t alone in his quest to add a touch of danger to the season’s shoots; the same month, Dick Avedon shot Suzy Parker in the same Griffe dress, floating through the Moulin Rouge, colliding a beautiful dress with a suggestive dash of naughtiness a la francaise. #BarbaraMullen #TheReplacementGirl #LOfficiel #GuyArsac #JacquesGriffe #1957 -- source link