Bettina Graziani Dies at 89; Supermodel of Fashion’s ‘New Look’
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Version 0 of 1. Bettina Graziani, one of the world’s first supermodels, who in her midcentury heyday was known as “the most photographed woman in France,” died on Monday in Paris. She was 89. Associates of hers confirmed her death, Agence France-Presse reported. Known professionally by the single name Bettina, Ms. Graziani was ubiquitous on runways and in magazines in the 1940s and ’50s. During those years, as Vogue magazine wrote in 2009, “she ruled as the undisputed queen of the Parisian couture,” helping to bring the work of Europe’s foremost designers, including Chanel, Valentino, Givenchy, Jacques Fath and Lucien Lelong, to consumers around the globe. With her lithe figure, close-cropped russet hair and alluring, enigmatic expression, Ms. Graziani quickly became an avatar of fashion’s New Look, the postwar style built around full skirts, cinched waists and elegant silhouettes. She was photographed by luminaries in the field, among them Gordon Parks, Robert Capa, Irving Penn and Henri Cartier-Bresson. After retiring from modeling in the mid-1950s at the behest of her lover, the international playboy Aly Khan, Ms. Graziani was a fixture of Paris society. In later years, she worked as a fashion publicist. The daughter of a railway man, Ms. Graziani was born Simone Michelene Bodin in Normandy in 1925. In 1944, after Paris was liberated from Nazi occupation, she moved there, sketches in hand, to seek work as a fashion designer. The designer Jacques Costet took her on as a model instead. Soon afterward, she began a professional association with Fath, who renamed her Bettina: He already had a model named Simone working for him. To Fath, Ms. Graziani became a muse, working closely with him until his death in 1954. Ms. Graziani was also associated with the fledgling house of Givenchy, which had been founded in Paris in 1952 by Hubert de Givenchy, one of Fath’s former assistants. Givenchy named his hugely popular Bettina blouse, known for the tiers of ruffles down its sleeves, in her honor. By the time she retired, Ms. Graziani was commanding modeling fees of about $1,300 an hour, or more than $11,000 an hour today. After an early marriage to the photographer and journalist Gilbert Graziani ended in divorce, Ms. Graziani was romantically involved with the American screenwriter Peter Viertel, whose credits include “The Sun Also Rises.” She left him for Aly Khan, who had been married to the actress Rita Hayworth. In 1960, while driving with Aly Khan outside Paris, Ms. Graziani was slightly injured in a car crash that took his life. Pregnant with their child, she miscarried shortly afterward. Ms. Graziani was later associated with the designers Emanuel Ungaro, for whom she was a publicist, and Azzedine Alaïa, for whom she served as a muse well into old age. Last year, the Azzedine Alaïa Gallery in Paris held an exhibition of photographs from Ms. Graziani’s career. Information on her survivors was not available. She was named a commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2010. Reflecting on her career in a 2009 interview with Vogue, Ms. Graziani tried to put her finger on that je ne sais quoi that had made her the model she was. “I think, in retrospect, I had a different style,” she said. “Because I can’t say I was the most beautiful. It’s not a question of beauty. You have to have a personality.” |