.jpg)
There are few faces more synonymous with the youthquake of the '60s than Veruschka, who turns 82 today. Born Vera Gottliebe Anna Gräfin von Lehndorff-Steinort in East Prussia, the German countess was discovered at 20 years old while studying art in Florence, and soon after decamped to New York City where she changed her name from Vera to Veruschka and became one of the—if not the most—in-demand supermodels of the decade, regularly appearing in the pages of Vogue and lensed by greats such as David Bailey, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
Standing six feet tall, she was a bombshell with a chiseled-by-the-gods bone structure, steely blue gaze, plush mouth, and shape-shifting champagne blonde hair. Her "indomitable career of beauty," as Susan Sontag once famously deemed it, was characterized by portraits of her sinewy silhouette, immortalized most notoriously in that scene from Michelangelo Antonioni's cult 1966 film Blow-Up where she poses for photographer David Hemming's camera to amorous effect. As for her countless evocative close-ups, which showcased her otherworldly hair and makeup looks, nothing was too decorative or directional for Veruschka, and it was this perpetual gameness that made her a favorite of Diana Vreeland during her tenure at Vogue. There were her sculptural, teased-to-the-heavens, and decidedly '60s hair looks, from a voluminous bouffant with waist-grazing lengths to an origami-like knot to the tornado of face-framing braids she wore in a 1967 editorial shot by her longtime lover and collaborator Franco Rubartelli. And then there were her signature extreme lashes, which ran the gamut from classic, doll-like fringe to cast in Technicolor shades or grandaddy long-legs lengths, and were often punctuated by a sheer wash of pastel pigment on the lids, graphic winged liner, and glossy pink lips.
"The most beautiful woman in the world," according to Avedon, and a true chameleon in every sense of the world, Veruschka's metamorphic fluency continues to be a lethal and enduring combination in the fashion world. In fact, in 2017, Acne Studios tapped Veruschka to star in its Resort 2018 lookbook, where she wore the collection's cropped jackets and slouchy trousers with a sharp slick back and statuesque swagger. Here, a retrospective look at her most striking beauty looks of all time.
