Model Woman: Eileen Ford and the Business of Beauty, published by Harper in paperback on July 5 this year, was chosen by People magazine as one of “Best New Books of the Summer”. “Part business history, part irresistible gossip,” declared the magazine, “[Model Woman] is a fascinating look at the woman who, perhaps more than anyone, shaped our ideas of what it means to be an American beauty.”
The Hollywood Reporter Summer Reading Guide selected Model Woman as a “Must-Read, True-Life Tale”, describing Ford as “the Jewish girl who invented the supermodel, a mixture of Mary Tyler Moore and Barbara Walters, but tougher.”
L’Œil de la Photographie runs three exclusive parts from Robert Lacey’s remarkable book. Professionals will recognize the difficulty of securing world rights in fourteen images of the world’s top models – shot by fourteen of the world’s top photographers. But that’s what Lacey has accomplished with the help of his research team headed by California fashion archivist Susan Camp.
Robert Lacey began his writing career in the 1960s on the Illustrated London News and London Sunday Times, where he worked on the recently founded Colour Magazine and as editor of the paper’s LOOK! pages, collaborating with such photographers as Duffy and Snowdon, and the fashion editor Michael Roberts.
In 1977 the success of Majesty, his Silver Jubilee biography of Queen Elizabeth II, established him as a best-selling author on both sides of the Atlantic, and he went on to write more than twenty books on subjects ranging from Grace Kelly and Henry Ford to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 2010 Robert met Eileen Ford (1922-2014) and started interviewing her and her family, as well as her colleagues, models, rivals and enemies, to form the basis of Model Woman. Four years in the making, Model Woman recounts the story of the Ford model agency and also the modern history of fashion modeling.
Robert Lacey, Model Woman: Eileen Ford and the Business of Beauty
Published by Harper
$29,99
ISBN: 9780062108074
