Book preview: Veruschka by David Wills

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In Italy the fashion press would call her “il trampoliere” (the wading bird), but Veruschka used to highlight how she was “only” 1.8 m tall, exactly the same height as Vanessa Redgrave. Yet her long legs and neck, her thin frame and outsized hands and feet gave her a peculiar look. Veruschka was indeed a crossover between a bird, a racehorse and a woman, Americans dubbed her the “sexy derrick”.

The international publishing house Assouline is going to release on 1st September the volume Veruschka by David Wills, in its series “The Ultimate Collection”. The book includes 63 illustrations and features interviews with editors Diana Vreeland and Grace Mirabella, and photographs by Richard Avedon, Francesco Scavullo, Irving Penn, Steven Meisel, Bert Stern and Franco Rubartelli, who was for a few years Veruschka's manager and partner. The book also features magazine covers and Veruschka’s own memories through which the story of the model and stylist is revealed.

Veruschka was born in East Prussia in 1939, her real name is Countess Vera Gottliebe Anna von Lehndorff. Her father was a Prussian count hanged after being involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. Escaping her childhood traumas - after her father was killed and her mother was arrested Vera and her sisters spent the rest of the war in Gestapo camps - she changed her name to Veruschka, a nickname her mother had given her, and moved at twenty-five to New York where she became a modelling sensation.

Her fame skyrocketed in the ‘60s: in 1966 she played herself in a memorable three-minute long scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup in which she writhes on the studio floor of the film’s protagonist, fashion photographer Thomas (David Hemmings), wearing a sexy black mini-dress.

Veruschka’s ambition, as she often revealed in early interviews, was becoming an actress and her first real chance came with Franco Rubartelli’s film Veruschka that featured a melancholic soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Though there are a couple of fashion shoots in the film and a few scenes in which Veruschka gets the cast of her head taken so that she can experiment further with new make up techniques, fashion is not exactly the main point of the film. The clothes worn in the film were designed by Veruschka and Philippe and were made by Sarli, the furs were by Soldano and the shoes by Mario Valentino, but showing off clothes and accessories wasn’t Rubartelli’s point. The photographer turned director focuses indeed on existentialist themes and portrays the model as a woman with a tortured soul. The plot is almost non-existent with Veruschka and her manager and boyfriend (Luigi Pistilli) travelling, quarrelling, getting back together and splitting up again. Veruschka seems to be obsessed in the film by the dichotomy model-object and on the suffering she goes through to get just a little bit of success. The theme of the doppelganger is also very important: though fascinated by it, the model destroys the cast of her head as if she were killing her own self and she is also filmed running through a forest while being spied by mysterious versions of herself camouflaged in savage animal body paint (sorry for the poor quality of the pics from the film, but I only have a very old video tape of it...).

At the time of shooting the film, Veruschka still lived in Rome, in a huge flat in Via Salaria. I remember reading once in an interview that her ideal flat would have been as spacious as the main hall in Rome’s central train station, possibly furnished with just a sofa and a record player. Veruschka used to love Rome since, though at first Italians were rather curious and often turned their heads whenever she passed, they quickly got used to the extravagant young model and let her live in peace and quiet. The initial shot of the film with Veruschka’s head camouflaged among a pile of stones, was actually inspired to the model while she was in Rome. She felt a bit depressed and went out on her terrace to get some fresh air. Feeling like disappearing and turning like the stones of the terrace, she decided to copy the stone patterns on her face and came up with an amazing make up that was used in the film.

My fave pics of Veruschka are some very natural shots taken by Rubartelli (he was the only photographer allowed to take pics of her in Italy) as she walked down the terraces in a stadium dressed in a striped mini-skirt and jacket paired with knee-height pirate boots and cheering at a goal like an ordinary football fan. Rubartelli became known for his innovative style and for amazing fashion shoots conceived with Veruschka in incredible places such as deserts, snowfields and derelict buildings.

Soon after Rubartelli’s film came out, their relationship finished and Veruschka stopped modelling concentrating more on her body painting art and working as an independent artist in Berlin, while also appearing in cameo roles in different films, the most recent being Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale (2006). In more recent years she came back into modelling for special occasions, such as launching a menswear collection for Karl Lagerfeld in 1995, joining the catwalk for the Spring/Summer 2003 Michael Kors collection for Celine (called “Veruschka Voyage” ) and taking part in the 2005 Buddhist Punk show.

The Assouline book is a great homage to a very versatile woman, as Rubartelli once described her, who helped changing the world of fashion and photography, and it's also a great way to celebrate a little bit in advance her 70th birthday.