Lauren Hutton

This week my new series on fashion models and sewing patterns continues with the great American model, Lauren Hutton. (See the first instalment, on Gia Carangi, here.)

World traveller, former Playboy Bunny, and daredevil Lauren Hutton (b. 1943) is an iconic figure in late Sixties and Seventies fashion. (Read Voguepedia’s bio here.) She was also a pioneer in transforming modelling into a lucrative career, signing the first exclusive, six-figure, annual cosmetics contract (with Revlon) in 1973. Hutton returned to modelling in her forties, so hers is still a familiar face, even for those who weren’t around for her early work. Recently she has been coming up as a forerunner for the current trend for gap-toothed models.

In the late 1960s, around the time her modelling career was taking off, Hutton did some work for McCall’s and Vogue Patterns. She posed for a few McCall’s New York Designers patterns that were released in 1967, including these designs by Larry Aldrich and Jacques Tiffeau:

In the same year Hutton also modelled for Vogue patterns. Here she opens a two-page feature introducing Bill Blass to the new Vogue Americana line:

Hutton appears on two more Bill Blass designs released in early 1969:

I also found two editorials featuring Hutton in a 1968 issue of Vogue Pattern Book. (My copy is the oversize international edition, so the scans are slightly cropped.) Both editorials promote non-designer patterns, so Hutton doesn’t appear on the pattern envelopes.

The first editorial shows the new wrap look. Here Hutton wears a wool fleece wrap coat, Vogue 7448:

(A quick search for this coat pattern turned up not one but two versions by sewing bloggers: Zoe of So, Zo and Tanit-Isis.)

The photo that opens this post is from the second, country-themed editorial, which was photographed by Ray Solowinski. (The design Hutton models beside the horse is Vogue 7426, “a biscuit coloured jumper in fabulously fake leather … lightly shaped to the body and loosely belted.”) In the first two photos Hutton models a tweed dress and fringed stole, Vogue 7439, and a camel-hair coat, Vogue 7416:

The last photo shows Vogue 7417, a wool flannel dress with “a perky sailor collar and bias binding of white flannel. The self-belt rides low on the hips, over a slightly A-lined skirt.”

With its earth tones and natural look (despite the wig) this last shoot illustrates how, heading into the Seventies, Hutton’s strengths were the perfect fit.