Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, January 15, 19681/18Franco Rubartelli and Veruschka on location in Brazil.
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, May 1, 19662/18“[After meeting and falling in love], we decided to take some photos together. Veruschka was very tall—her size was not commercial for the fashionable photos at that time—so we got to thinking about doing something different, and we came up with the idea of body painting. No one had been doing this.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, May 1, 19663/18“We bought colorful makeup, feathers, and paillettes and decided, on our own dime, to go to the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. There we painted Veruschka’s naked body.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, May 1, 19664/18“During the time we shared together, I noticed that Veruschka carried with her inferiority complexes from her childhood. It sometimes felt as if she were not happy in her body, that her personality wanted to evade its physical dimension to become other beings. She found in makeup the possibility of escaping and transforming into other things: a butterfly that could fly, a panther or a tiger to run in the jungle, a mermaid to sink into the sea.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, October 15, 19675/18“We often went to Veruschka’s mother’s house in Petersrkirchen, near Munich. She was a very open-minded lady and very proud of Vera. She lived in a big house with many rooms. When we visited, our rooms were under the roof on the second floor. They were very big and all built in wood.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, October 1, 19686/18“Veruschka’s mother lived a drama with all her daughters during the Second World War. Her husband, [Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort], participated in the plot to kill Hitler in his bunker. It was not successful, and he was executed. [According to Der Spiegel, Vera’s mother, Gottliebe, was first put in prison and then placed in a working camp with her newborn child. Her older daughters were moved, with other children of the resistance, to a nursing home and renamed.] Reunited after the war, they moved from one place to another and were very poor. When I met Vera’s mother, she had a boyfriend living with her. He was a crazy musician playing very heavy and noisy music. Her mother loved him and his music. In winter, the place was very beautiful. It was near a forest, and the fog made a great atmosphere.” From left: Countesses Catharina and Vera (known as Veruschka) von Lehndorff, Frau Marie Eleonora von Haeften, and Baroness Gabriela von Plotho.
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, August 15, 19687/18“The Queen Christina assignment came about while we were watching the movie [about her] starring the tremendous Greta Garbo. Before the film was over, Veruschka and I simultaneously had the idea to propose the look of the queen to Diana Vreeland. Enthusiastic, we asked for an appointment with her and got one for the following week. This meant that we had to work day and night without sleeping to have the project ready with sketches. If we weren’t on time, we’d have to wait a long time to see her. We were always a little nervous about what Mrs. Vreeland’s reaction would be. She was a very straight woman; if she liked an idea, she would accept it right away; if she didn’t like it, we understood immediately that the project did not work for Vogue. She was very fond of us, but didn’t care about our reaction if she did not like the idea.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, August 15, 19688/18“Mrs. Vreeland’s mysterious office [was infused] with the smell of her candle. How she walked, how she moved her hands with her long, expressive fingers, was very exotic. She created a magical atmosphere in her office, which had black walls full of photographs and furniture upholstered in an intense red fabric, mixed with leopard skins. In this dim environment you almost didn’t see Vreeland, who dressed all in black and red and almost matched the decor. ‘How are you, Mrs. Vreeland?’ asked Veruschka. We explained all the details and she listened in silence. It was a silence that was scary. Finally, when we finished, she got to her feet and congratulated us, saying: ‘This is so fabulous; let’s do it!’”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, August 15, 19689/18“Mrs. Vreeland loved the Queen Christina idea and ordered dresses to be made for Veruschka. We headed to Austria, where we made Innsbruck our base. For 10 days we looked for locations. It wasn’t easy to find a castle.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, January 15, 196810/18“Mrs. Vreeland almost never rejected an idea: Queen Christina, Libya, Texas, Australia, Brazil . . . . For Vreeland, everything impossible was possible, and she didn’t put limits on our creativity. This was very stimulating for us, because every project we proposed was more daring. I remember one time she called us by surprise and asked us to go to Rio de Janeiro to photograph some dresses during Carnival. She showed us the clothes and explained her idea to us. ‘Franco,’ she said, ‘I do not want to see the Carnival; I want you to work in a studio with the windows opened. Franco,’ she continued, ‘I want, I want . . . pissst.’ She made a buzzing noise with her mouth closed. ‘I want you to shoot like that. Do you understand what I mean?’ I did not. It was impossible to understand what she meant with that sound.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, January 15, 196811/18“I think Mrs. Vreeland was very original. Having such an important position in the world of fashion in those years, she directed taste toward the different, the eccentric. She understood things immediately, and if she liked an idea, she approved it on the spot. She had very precise ideas about colors; for example, she loved red and dressed in it and decorated her apartment in it. Apart from her strong and precise ideas of color, one could never be sure about her decisions until the last moment. Once she liked an idea and authorized it, she approved the costs of the productions. There was never an intention to reduce the result by making any kind of economy.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, July 1, 196812/18“I can assure you, without a doubt, that Veruschka, myself, and Giorgio di Sant’Angelo [a textile designer turned stylist and designer] were a creative team for a long period. We met together to develop themes, and if we had a trip that we liked, we gave ourselves to the story until we fully developed it. Veruschka and I really enjoyed going to Giorgio’s house. We spent many hours there thinking, drawing ideas, doing tests. Then, back in the city, we visited museums, bought books to study, saw films, all to perfect our ideas and to make sure of the look that we wanted to create.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, July 1, 196813/18“Giorgio [above right] was unlike anyone else; his creativity was superior. He had been born in Florence, Italy, but had spent so much time outside of the country that he had forgotten the language a little; when he spoke, it was a funny [argot]. He was an original and very imaginative designer. Giorgio was an excellent companion also in private life. He shared with his friends the joyful moments as well as the anxious ones and tried to creative a positive atmosphere. His style tended toward the exotic. His only defect was that he smoked too much; he was never without a cigarette in his hand. He was an artist in creating jewelry, and he himself was upholstered in necklaces of all kinds.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, July 1, 196814/18“Giorgio loved colors and their mixture. I studied him as we prepared for our journey to the Painted Desert. In order to decide what fabrics to bring with us, he came to the studio with many samples of all colors. In front of a mirror he tested the various combinations by cutting and mixing the different pieces with incredible taste and perfection. It was fun to see him. He looked like a scarecrow all covered in pieces of cloth. For the final test shots on Veruschka, he invented the gypsy look by cutting all sorts of fabrics and wrapping them around the body.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, April 1, 196715/18“When we decided to work in the desert of Libya, we visited many stores looking for fabrics suitable for all the drapings that would be made on location. They weren’t sewn dresses, but draped on the body. We were creating a look, an atmosphere—nothing more. We went to Diana Vreeland to sell her an atmosphere, and she accepted it and gave us carte blanche. Of course, we had our sketches, but sometimes we were moved by feelings, or so inspired by the atmosphere, that we were forced to change things.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, April 1, 196716/18“Every morning in one location or another, Veruschka, almost naked, was standing for many hours as Giorgio draped on her body. These preparations were incredible. In the sand around us there were meters of fabric that Giorgio cut and adapted to her body. We had a long mirror that Veruschka could see herself in. Although we always started early in the morning, before dawn, these preparations lasted many hours, and I worried and complained because the light became too strong. We couldn’t work later than 10:00 a.m.; we could start again after 4:00 p.m. when the desert light turned gold.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, April 1, 196717/18“I remember that when we traveled, Giorgio spent a lot of time researching, trying to find original clothes typical of each place we were visiting. Before our shoot in Ghadames, he went to visit the small souk of the town, where he discovered two small warehouses full of typical desert fabrics and bought many of them. As he did not have much money, he made a deal with the store owner, agreeing to swap the fabrics he had brought for the ones in the souk, so Giorgio returned to New York with stupendous finds.”
Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, April 1, 196718/18“Giorgio came to the desert shoot every day with two or three suitcases full of fabrics that he modeled on Veruschka’s body according to his state of mind. He spread the fabrics out on the ground so he could have a panoramic view of them all. One day a strong breeze blew in all of a sudden and the fabrics began to fly away. It was amusing to see Giorgio run after them in the dunes, and suddenly stumble and fall. Once we were approached by a little girl from Ghadames. She was very cute and watched us curiously. After a while she grabbed a piece of fabric and put it on her head, simulating what Giorgio was doing with Veruschka. We asked her not to touch and to go away, but Giorgio stopped what he was doing with Veruschka and draped some fabric on her, then he cut the cloth and let the girl run away with ‘a custom Giorgio di Sant’Angelo.’”
