Or to be more precise, 'Ninety-FOUUUURRR'???? 

That's what Barbara Mullen shrieked when I called the other day. 'My birthday? Oh God, I forgot all about it. NINETY-FOUR. That's DIS-GUST-ING. That means I'm going to be a HUNDRED soon.' (Which is why she's staying put at 85, as she has for the past nine years.)

Ninety-four years since June 3rd, 1927. Barbara was barely a week old when Charles…

It's been a while. 

Seven years, six months and eighteen days to be precise, since I first met Barbara Mullen. And nine years, two months and twelve days (give or take), since I first saw Lillian Bassman's portrait of her, photographed at La Grand Véfour in Paris in 1949; an impossibly long streak of arm and neck, slicing across the frame - and a face twisted away from the camera's glare, disappearing…

It's the most clichéd of clichés, but sometimes life just gets in the way. And so, for most of the last six months, thanks to an obstacle course of different events - work, family, health, Brexit - The Replacement Girl has been on hold. 

But we're back. And having hit the 85% mark during the hiatus, it's beginning to feel like we're on the home stretch - wrapping up interviews, agreeing…

20 cities, in 4 time zones, in 4 weeks: it's been an action packed August for 'The Replacement Girl'.

It's been quite a while since my last post - largely because, for the last month, I've been in the US to finish researching 'The Replacement Girl'. Starting and finishing in New York, the trip took in Connecticut, Washington DC, Maryland, West Virginia, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Texas…

Yesterday was Barbara Mullen's 91st birthday. Or it would have been, if Barbara hadn't decided (very sensibly, quite some time ago) to stay put at 85. 

It was also the first anniversary of our Unbound campaign; a full year since we started to finally assemble this long-in-the-making project, and a year since we began in-depth interviews with a whole host of Barbaras' contemporaries - fellow…

From Cote d’Azur beauty pageants to animal rights protests, and from couture salons to encounters with royalty and movie stars, Liat Sandys’ modelling career was — at the very least — never boring.

I’ve been living with the stories of most of the women I’ve written about for the best part of five years. But a few weeks ago, out of idle interest, I ran a Google search for ‘top fashion model…

Jean Dawnay, 1957

Most of the women whose lives I’ve featured (both here, and — in more condensed form — on Instagram) had neither the profile or the platform to share their perspectives. Jean Dawnay was the exception; a household name with a glittering career, who seized the chance to tell her side of the story.

In what’s perhaps the most famous picture ever taken of her, Jean Dawnay…

Renée Breton, 1956

It seems only fitting to be writing about Renée Breton in Paris, in the springtime. Three weeks younger than Barbara Mullen, she spent most of her career as one of Christian Dior’s most treasured muses. She embodied midcentury French elegance — and her career was in many ways the antithesis of that most top-flight American models enjoyed.

    Renée Breton hated change…

Barbara Mullen spent two years as a department store mannequin before getting her first break at Vogue. But some women would spend their entire careers working in ready-to-wear showrooms and couture salons — none more famously than Hartnell model Dolores, who reigned over London’s fashion scene for two decades.

She wasn’t Norman Hartnell’s first Dolores. That honour fell to Norine Schofield…

2018 sees research for ‘The Replacement Girl’ shift to Barbara Mullen’s later career, in London and Paris. And so the second group of stories to be told are those of Barbara’s French and British contemporaries — women like Anne Gunning, perhaps the first real British supermodel, who took America by storm a decade before Twiggy and the Shrimp.

    ‘She has been everything that girls dream…

It’s been just over eight months since Harper’s Bazaar published a book to celebrate their 150th anniversary. For its cover, out of all the iconic images produced across the magazine’s long history, they chose a spectacular Lillian Bassman portrait of Barbara Mullen in Dior; Barbara’s first Bazaar cover, as it happened, in almost sixty-five years. And that same month, at a star-studded party thrown…

    For some, modelling was an end in itself. But for Liz Benn, it was a springboard — one that catapulted her from a humble Canadian upbringing to life at the helm of the Caribbean’s most glamorous resort.

    It’s hard to imagine Liz Benn ever having an awkward age. From the very start, her pictures radiated a commanding presence; skin glowing, stance confident, profile always perfectly tilted…

For much of the Forties and Fifties, American models dominated the world of fashion photography. The countercharge, when it finally came, started in Paris, where women like Sophie Malgat led the way from couture salons to magazine covers.

Whenever France’s midcentury models are discussed, the name that inevitably leads the pack is Bettina; the redheaded, freckle-faced girl from Brittany…

    Joan Pedersen grew up dreaming about dancing. But fate led her to modelling instead, and to a successful career that flew largely under history’s radar. 

    World’s Oldest Living Cover Girl. It’s a title that rests lightly on the shoulders with Joan Pedersen Coleman, an elegant, chatty 93-year-old, who first graced the cover of Vogue seventy years ago — and did so in some style, appearing…

    Howard Hawks promised he’d make her a star. But Katherine Cassidy decided to go her own way, and chose modelling — and money — over the movies.

    “It’s fine while it lasts,” Marie Icide yawned. “Like many models, I hope to be either a dress designer or an actress.”

    It was the summer of 1945. And on a Paramount Studios soundstage, Icide — a precocious half-Irish, half-Romanian teenager…

Ronnie Compton was one of the most glamorous models in America. Vera Lee was a merchant seaman’s daughter from Southampton. And Veronica Minette was the doomed widow of a Belgian count. But it would be decades before anyone realised that all three were the same woman.

Ronnie Compton died twice — once in the London Blitz, and once in a Northern boarding house. The first time (as with so…

    Barbara Mullen chose a modelling career; Jeanne Florin tried to avoid it. But despite that, she became one of the most sought-after models in Paris — and, with her husband William Klein, would form one of photography’s most enduring partnerships.

    It’s one of fashion’s great love stories. It even comes with a beginning straight out of an MGM musical; a handsome young American soldier…

    After a decade of modelling success, Tedi Thurman remained an unknown. But once she made the leap to broadcasting, she became a household name — and one of the industry’s first mainstream stars.

    Even today, there’s not much going on in the City of Midville, Georgia (pop. 269) — just a few flat streets of spread-out timber-sided houses, scattered round the intersection of Highway 17…

    Many of the top models of the Forties and Fifties enjoyed exceptionally long careers. But even by those standards, Marilyn Ambrose was exceptional, enjoying two decades of top-flight success — forging a now-faded reputation as one of the most elegant women in fashion.

    In 1947, Irving Penn’s now-iconic portrait of the most photographed models in America was first published. Shot against…

    You can’t have a good Cinderella story without having an ugly sister somewhere in the frame. In Barbara Mullen’s particular fairytale, that role falls to Bijou Barrington — a glamour girl whose career contrasts with that of Mullen in almost every significant way.

    Of course, in reality Bijou Barrington wasn’t remotely ugly. Like most models of the early Forties, she was uncomplicatedly…

To borrow an expression that wouldn't become common currency till decades later, Muriel Maxwell had it all; beauty, brains, connections, and a glamorous life both in front of and behind the camera. She achieved remarkable success across much of her career — but if she’s remembered at all, it’s as one of the first of modelling’s cautionary tales.

    Rabbi Benjamin Tintner — the…

    If any of Manhattan’s first generation of models could have successfully told (and sold) their story, it would have been Liz Gibbons. She did, in fact, over thirty years ago — a fascinating historical document of a fashion industry just beginning to take shape. But the manuscript was rejected by her publishing house, and has lain untouched ever since.

        Like many models, Liz Gibbons…

    Barbara Mullen’s story is unique. But it’s just one of hundreds of stories that could have been written about the modelling industry’s early pioneers. While Unbound’s campaign to publish Mullen’s biography continues, we wanted to tell the story of some of these other forgotten figures.

    When Mullen was born in June 1927, the cover of Vogue featured a slim figure on board a rowing…