1/90. Aarons, Slim. Klosters, 1963.Today, Barbara Mullen is 90. She’s an extraordinary wo
1/90. Aarons, Slim. Klosters, 1963.Today, Barbara Mullen is 90. She’s an extraordinary woman who’s lived an extraordinary life — from a childhood in Depression-era Harlem, to success as one of the world’s top models, to starting over in Paris at a time when her contemporaries were retiring, to having a glamorous retirement of her own in Klosters during the resort’s Hollywood-goes-to-the-Alps heyday. Her adaptable features helped to reshape fashion’s definition of beauty, in images which have endured across the decades. Along the way she’s shared dressing rooms with Monroe, been led astray in Paris by Dior, played hostess to Princess Margaret, and turned down a job with Chanel. So, today, after four years of research (and more false starts than I care to remember) we’ve launched a campaign to publish her story.I’ll be sharing a picture of Barbara each day for the next 90 days, by 90 different photographers. First is Slim Aarons, who photographed her in Klosters in 1963. By then, Barbara’s first career, and first life — as one of the world’s most in-demand models, complete with picture-perfect Long Island marriage — had ended in heartbreak. She escaped to Europe, where she became one of the linchpins of fellow model Dorian Leigh’s new agency. But by the winter of 1957 she was unhappy, and exhausted. Never one to sugar-coat the truth, Dorian told her she looked awful, and packed her off to Klosters to recharge. The trip changed Barbara’s life; she fell in love with Fredi Morel, a local student drafted in to teach her to ski when his father fell ill. She moved to Klosters full-time, and opened a successful fashion boutique there. But from time to time, photographers still came to her - like Aarons, in town that season to practice his much-quoted mantra of shooting “attractive people in attractive places doing attractive things”. He shot Barbara outdoors - tanned, dishevelled, clutching skis and wearing one of the oversized Klosters sweatshirts that sold so well in her boutique. It was a relaxed, throwaway snap, which at some point in its afterlife was fancifully re-titled ‘Ski Siren’ #BarbaraMullen #TheReplacementGirl #Unbound #SlimAarons #Klosters #1963 -- source link