Thursday, February 28, 2019

The Beauty of Renewal: Nastasia Urbano, February 2019

I end this month of February with happy news regarding my friend Nastasia Urbano, the Spanish model who ended up homeless on the streets of Barcelona.  The money raised by the GoFundMe page set up to raise money for her has already begun to pay her dividends, and . . . she is modeling again.

This is why I call call this post a renewal, not a retrospective.

Nastasia's story, originally reported in the Barcelona daily newspaper El Periódico, was picked by Spain'e biggest newspaper, El País, soon thereafter.  Recognizing her place as one of Spain's greatest national treasures (even though she was born and raised in Switzerland, where her Spanish parents emigrated), El País arranged for a special photo session for Nastasia to model numerous outfits for its weekly edition to show Spain and the world that, at 57, she can still turn heads and captivate eyes as well as she did in the eighties and as well as - or better than - the current generation of fashion models.

The six pictures below for El País accompanied an article about Nastasia's current situation and her amazing comeback.  You can access that article by going here.  In the meantime, here are Nastasia's wonderful pictures from that session.  She cut her hair short during her period of destitution, but she will likely grow it back.  It's amazing, though, how beautiful she still looks with this short haircut.

The captions below each picture are taken from El País' special feature.  All photographs are from photographer Manuel Outumuro.

Wool cape with leather flower belt from Delpozo and shoes from Chie Mihara.


Silk jacket from Jnorig and dress from Juan Vida. 

Pant suit from Palomo Spain. 

Jacket from Little Creative Factory and Elsa Peretti bone cuffs for Tiffany &  Co. 

Silk dress with leather belt from Juanjo Oliva. 

Silk dress with kimono sleeves from Roberto Diz and cuffs from VSB Barcelona. 

The last one may very well be my favorite.

There's even a seventh picture, an outtake (below), though the omission of this photo from the original article was more due to lack of space than to lack of quality. :-)

  
Nastasia Urbano (her original first name, by the way, is Consuelo) has already made great strides toward regaining her place in the modeling profession.  She is a testament to what happens when a beloved woman who's fallen on hard times has friends who want to help her succeed and who knows she has the ability to do it.  That's why I love her as both a fan and as a friend. :-)

As of this writing, her GoFundMe page has raised €5,336 (US$6,080.80) out of €6,000 (US$6836.67) sought.  Go to this link to access Nastasia's GoFundMe page if you can donate to help make up the difference. 

For March, I have a whole month of looks back at actresses I've featured here before. Back soon. :-)

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