The muse of now: Veruschka

As exotic-looking as her name suggests, 6ft 3in Prussian-born model Veruschka epitomized the newly liberated woman of the 1960s with her unabashed sex appeal. In 1967, Life magazine heralded her as “The Girl Everybody Stares At”, but while her beauty was – and still is – intensely hypnotic, it was her wild, Amazonian spirit that held a global gaze of desire.

Veruschka created some of history’s most iconic fashion images with many of the greatest photographers of all time, including Irving Penn, Steven Meisel, and Richard Avedon (who once called her “the most beautiful girl in the world”). Transformation was her talent and she soon began doing her own makeup, eventually progressing to body-painting, using her athletic physique as a canvas. By 1975, she retired from modeling and focused fully on art under an abridged version of her birth name, Vera Lehndorff. Collaborating with famed sculptor and painter Holger Trülzsch, she created a series of avant-garde nude self-portraits.

Last season, Acne Studios pulled off an unparalleled coup by persuading the fashion legend, now 78, to take one final foray into modeling and star in their Cruise 2018 campaign. The rest of the industry quickly took note, and for SS18, Veruschka’s uncomplicated glamour and sense of abandon were conveyed in the season’s long, flowing silhouettes and energetic mood. The icon once said that, “in the ‘60s, fashion was about liberation. It was about setting women free.” It seems like the perfect time to reclaim that spirit now.