The Beauty of Retrospect: Joan Smalls . . . OMG!

I wanted to express in words my reaction to seeing this picture of model Joan Smalls in this Balenciaga number . . .

. . .but how do you type out an irregular heartbeat? :-D 

Talk about a long cool woman in a black dress!  With matching blue gloves?  She's so . . . so . . .

Is it getting hot in here? :-D 

Whew!  Well, that's it for my retrospectives of women I've - whew! - featured here before. Back in the new month with new subjects, after posting some updated numbers.

Oh . . . I need a cold drink . . . ;-)   

The Beauty of Retrospect: Paloma Picasso In Pink

Back in February, I showed a picture of model Pat Cleveland in a pink dress.  Here, below, is the only woman who could ever come close to being Ms. Cleveland's equal in sporting a pink ensemble.

And, while she is a fashion icon, she isn't a model. 

It is, of course, jewelry designer and fashion businesswoman Paloma Picasso, a woman (the woman?) who embodies European high culture and sophistication for us silly, provincial Americans.  And why not?  Not only does Pablo Picasso's famous daughter look stunning in a pink dress, the striped cape she wears around it, with hues of pink, purple and fuchsia, makes her look absolutely smashing!

Clothes don't make the woman, but they sure do help. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Rosemary McGrotha in White Lace and Pearls

Rosemary McGrotha is best known as a muse of Donna Karan and is revered for projecting strength in her modeling assignments, be it for Donna Karan or editorials and other commercial clients.

A woman who projects strength, though, can still be soft and alluring.  And Rosemary McGrotha has had no trouble conveying either quality, as the photo of her below, in white lace and pearls, demonstrates.

But no matter what she wears, Rosemary McGrotha can always turn the strongest man into jelly with piercing steel-blue eyes of hers. :-D 

The Beauty of Anonymity: Exercise Model

This woman appeared in a photo accompanying an article in my local paper about exercising properly.

I thought she had a cute face, so I figured, why not scan it and feature it here?

As it's a stock photo, I am under no illusion that I will be able to identify her.  But if you, dear readers, know who she is, please let me know by leaving a comment on this blog entry.

I'm going to spend the remaining third of this month of April 2016 with some looks back at models I've previously featured.     

Boston TV newswoman Victoria Warren

If there's a Volkswagen dealer in the Boston area willing to talk to the press about the company's diesel scandal, he's probably talking to this VW. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Victoria Warren is a general assignment reporter for WHDH-TV, Beantown's NBC affiliate.  She has been at the station since 2006, after having worked at WJXT-TV in Jacksonville.  While at WJXT, Ms,. Warren, ironically, covered the New England Patriots' Super Bowl XXXIX victory there, as well as hurricanes threatening Florida.  

Fun fact:  Ms. Warren was raised in Staten Island, so some Bostonians may not accept her as one of them. Especially if she's a New York Jets fan. ;-)

Australian actress Rachael Taylor

Despite coming from Down Under, Rachael Taylor is a familiar face to American audiences.

She's done many television movies in the States, but she's also appeared in numerous American TV shows. Not all of her American television endeavors have been successful - ABC's "666 Park Avenue" and NBC's "Crisis" were both duds - but she did have a recurring role as Dr. Lucy Fields in ABC's "Grey's Anatomy."

While Ms. Taylor has done some small, well-received movies in her native Australia, like Cedar Boys, about young people of Middle Eastern descent living in Sydney, and Any Questions for Ben?   her most prominent role in the movies so far has been as Maggie Madsen in the first Transformers movie.  She did not return for any sequels.  

French actress Léa Seydoux

Léa Seydoux has been an ubiquitous presence in both American and foreign movies.

The young French actress has had roles in movies like Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris and The Grand Budapest Hotel.  But her biggest role to date may be Dr. Madeleine Swann in the James Bond movie Spectre, whom Bond is sent to protect.

Ms. Seydoux' most important work may well be in her native France. She received numerous award nominations all over the world for 2013's Blue Is the Warmest Colour, in which she plays an aspiring painter named Emma who changes the life of a free-spirited teenager named Adèle.  The two become lovers.  (It's a French movie, remember . . ..)

Another big movie for her was 2012's Farewell, My Queen, in which she played a servant to Marie Antoinette at the outbreak of the French Revolution who remains loyal to her in the aftermath of the outbreak of the French Revolution. She won the Best Actress award at the Cabourg Film Festival for that. 

Model Annette Roque

Annette Roque is a model from the Netherlands.

A face from the waning days of the golden age of modeling, Ms. Roque is best known for her advertising work for Revlon and for Victoria's Secret.

She married American television personality and "Today" host Matt Lauer in 1998 and is the mother of his three children. 

Spanish model Judit Mascó

Judit Mascó is a top model from Spain who first came to the attention of Americans in the early nineties.  And she came to the attention of American teenage boys first. 

You guessed it - she appeared on the cover of Sports Illustarted's 1990 swimsuit issue.  

After that, she became known for her fashion-magazine work, concentrating more on projecting herself as a woman that women wanted to be like than as a woman that men wanted to be with.  (Not that men still didn't want to be with her, of course.)   Thanks to that Sports Illustrated cover, she got advertising campaign assignments that included Laurèl by Escada, Armand Bassi, and Clairol, among many others.  The magazine covers she appeared on all over the world are too numerous to list here (different national editions of Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Woman, and Glamour are among them), but get this: She's the only Spanish model (and apart from Penélope Cruz, the only Spanish woman) to appear on the cover of the U.S. edition of Vogue.  

Judit Mascó currently involves herself in philanthropic causes such as Oxfam and kidney donation awareness, and she also hosted the reality television show "Supermodelo" on Spanish television in the late 2000s.  She currently hosts the program "Actívate" on the Spanish state-run TV network La 2.

Model Lynne Koester

Lynne Koester is another stunning face from the golden age of modeling . . . specifically, the eighties and the early nineties, the part of that age in which she was most active.

Her poses included everything from sporting edgy hairstyles to modeling equally edgy dresses.

One interesting fact about Lynne Koester is that she was the muse of designer Gianfranco Ferre.  Her son, Paolo Anchisi, is a model himself. 

You want to see his photo here?  Sorry, you got the wrong blog.  But you might find this link interesting . . .. :-)