Description

Jill Kennington was among the most successful models of her generation, embodying a fresh, youthful, and dynamic ideal of beauty that came to define the Sixties. Jill’s memoir takes the form of an extended interview in which she responds vividly and with disarming frankness to questions from historian Philippe Garner, who initiated and shaped the project.

Chapter titles such as ‘To Turkey for Elle’, ‘To the Arctic for American Vogue’, ‘To Kenya with Peter Beard’, and ‘Cast for Antonioni’s Blow-Up’ give the flavour of Jill’s professional experiences through those heady years. She describes her collaboration with some of the greatest photographers of the era, including Richard Avedon, William Klein, Saul Leiter, Helmut Newton, and Norman Parkinson; and she shares her memories of a remarkable cast of characters that includes Federico Fellini, Norman Hartnell, David Lean, Mary Quant, Vidal Sassoon, Terence Stamp, and Veruschka.

Beyond Jill’s precious insights into the worlds of fashion, modelling, film, and photography, this memoir is also a poignant account of intense emotional challenges and dark episodes in the roller-coaster of her private life – a moving and inspiring story of a young woman’s journey to self-awareness