Model, 83, set to walk the runway in Singapore during Digital Fashion Week
Our headline wasn't a typo.
The world’s oldest supermodel, Carmen Dell'Orefice, is set to walk the runway at the Digital Fashion Week (DFW) Singapore 2014 from Oct 31 to Nov 3.
She's definitely not a regular 83-year-old, though.
Dell'Orefice has modelled for many leading brands from Gaultier to Galliano and is known to be one of the youngest Vogue cover girls.
She got her first US Vogue cover at just 16.
PHOTO: DFW Creative
"We are immensely honoured to have such an eminent name in fashion grace our catwalk, and we certainly hope our audience will be just as impressed," said DFW co-founder Charina Widjaja.
Here are five things to know about one of the supermodelling legends:
1. As a teen, she had little money
Earlier on in her modelling career, Dell'Orefice and her mother struggled financially because the income modelling provided wasn't enough to sustain the family.
PHOTO: DFW Creative
She didn't have a telephone so Vogue had to send runners to her home to let her know about assignments.
PHOTO: DFW Creative
To save money on public transportation, she used to roller-skate to assignments. On top of that, Dell'Orefice was so malnourished that fashion photographers had to pin back dresses and stuff the curves with tissue.
2. 80th birthday and honorary doctorate
In July 2011, just after her 80th birthday, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts London in recognition of her contribution to the fashion industry.
PHOTO: DFW Creative
The university sponsored a retrospective exhibition featuring her Vogue covers, career highlights, and photographs from her personal archives.
3. She was married three times
Her first marriage was in the early 1950s when she married Bill Miles. The two have a daughter.
Despite Miles exploiting his wife financially, by letting him spend US$50 (S$63) from her earnings after he picked up her cheques, she wasn't deterred from the idea of marriage.
PHOTO: DFW Creative
After divorcing Miles, she met photographer Richard Heimann in 1958. Within six months they were married.
And when she finally decided to retire, Heimann left her.
PHOTO: DFW Creative
Her third marriage was to a young architect, Richard Kaplan, in the mid-1960s. The marriage lasted nine years.
4. She still fronts Rolex campaigns
She continues to front the campaign for luxury watchmaker Rolex.
PHOTO: DFW Creative
The luxury watch's advertising campaigns appear in magazines such as Vogue, W, and Harper's Bazaar.
5. Guest appearance in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Talk about diversity.
Apart from appearing in the 1998 documentary Ageless Heroes, 2002 film The Guru and 2010 film Bill Cunningham in New York, who would have guessed that she would appear in the Law & Order spinoff series too?
But she did. It was in the episode titled Bound aired in May 2004.
Source: Digital Fashion Week
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