Danish model Renée Simonsen

Something is beautiful in the state of Denmark.

Of all the fashion and beauty models who made the depressing eighties bearable enough to get through, Renée Simonsen was probably the most stunning.  She was certainly one of the most prolific models of the time; she appeared on so many different magazine covers and in so many fashion and beauty editorials and ads that to list them here would take too long.  Just to give you an idea of how prolific she was, a Tumblr page devoted to her work has fifty-eight pages of images.  Fifty-eight.

She was discovered at the age of sixteen by a Danish local fashion editor, and the work she got in her homeland led her to enter a contest sponsored by the prestigious Ford modeling agency for a big-time modeling contract.

Naturally, she won.

After a few years of causing a generation of young men to sigh and swoon, Renée Simonsen raised a lot of eyebrows when she got engaged to John Taylor, the bass player for the insubstantial pretty-boy pop-rock group Duran Duran. She caused among her many male fans several broken hearts and the impulse to call her taste in music into question.  Eventually, the couple broke up.  One of them was turned off by the other's interest in fashion and style and preferred more intellectual pursuits.

It was Taylor who was the fashion/style maven. HA! :-D

You can call Renée Simonsen Dr. Simonsen now, thank you very much.  She obtained a degree in psychology - what would you expect from a woman from the country that gave the world Søren Kierkegaard?  - and though she has modeled periodically since the eighties came to an end (which happened when Nirvana consigned Duran Duran and their New Romantic pop ilk to the dustbin of history), she has worked primarily a writer of both novels and children's books.

And she still looks great in middle age. :-) 

Renée Simonsen is married to Danish rock musician Thomas Helmig and has a son by him along with two children from a previous relationship.