Linda's Biography

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Source: Wikipedia: 

Linda Morand was a very successful fashion model, cover-girl and haute couture mannequin during the 1960s and 1970s. Known as ‘Superchick” Linda Morand was a modern fashion pioneer, a beacon of revolutionary style, avant-garde beauty trends and a major face in the Mod Sixties. She appeared in national ads, TV commercials and national catalogs.


She was discovered by Eileen Ford in 1966 and appeared in Vogue, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Teen, Elle and many more international magazines. As was one of Vidal Sassoon’s house models, top stylist to the stars, Christophe created her signature style, a closely cropped asymmetric cut which hugged her head elegantly set atop her long slim neck.

Her favorite designer was Betsey Johnson, whose clothes she wore for many fashion layouts. With cut glass cheekbones, a wide-eyed gamine look and a show stopping smile, she was a favorite of Mademoiselle magazine editors and photographers George Barkentin, David McCabe and Gosta Petersen.

    
At 5' 9.5 inches tall and 120 lbs ,Morand was naturally slender and did not have to diet to maintain her weight. Appearing on the fashion scene at the same time as Twiggy, she was noted for making up very unusual poses and participating in innovative futuristic fashion layouts including light shows, robots, super-heroes, computers and James Bond type spy take-offs.
 
In late 1966 Francois Lano of Paris Planning, the biggest fashion modeling agency in Europe, made a deal with Ford and Linda was contracted to spirit the Sixties to life on the runways of Paris and in the pages of the European fashion magazines, such as Elle, Marie Claire, Vogue, Vingt Ans and many Italian, Swiss and German fashion magazines. Her modeling career took her on assignments throughout the fashion capitals of Europe, including Paris, Milan, Munich, Zurich and Barcelona.


In 1970, shortly after her marriage to French aristocrat Philippe Forquet de Dorne, Morand spent a year in Los Angeles, represented by William Morris, modeling, doing TV commercials and playing a few small parts in movies and TV. Her husband became a teen idol starring in a popular, albeit short lived, prime time historical mini-series for ABC called The Young Rebels.

Linda Morand Seventies

RESEMBLANCE TO JACKIE PAYS OFF

By MARIAN CHRISTY 1970

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Linda Morand recently met at that chic New York "dive" where Lost Weekend was filmed: P.J.Clarke's, and the two eyed each other suspiciously. There was every reason for the prolonged glance! of cool appraisal. The two are look-alikes 21-year-old Linda Morand being the younger, prettier version. Linda, a successful Ford model who hails from a little town on Long Island, now is one of Europe's top models with her face currently, gracing the pages and covers of the slickest fashion, magazines, such as Italian Vogue, Elle and Jardin de la Mode.

Looking like Jacqueline from the neck up and Twiggy from the neck down has catapulted her modeling career onward and upward. Linda, barely 115 pounds, measures in at five feet, 10 inches' and she's all flawless skin and well-placed bones with gangly legs. Designers can't get enough of her.
During high-fashion openings in Rome and Paris she works 16 hours daily at $30 an hour. In New York she would automatically get double that price.
But the pay loss is leveled off by the fact that she hobnobs with movie stars, aristocrats and European royalty, who look upon fashion modeling as an art. "Europeans erase class distinction once success has been achieved,", she says;'  After all, my parents run little restaurant in South Hampton, and here I am traveling the world."  Ha ha.!
 
In the past 18 months the highly eligible Prince Albrecht of Liechtenstein has been a frequent escort. Linda has double-dated with Princess Grace and Prince Rainier at Paris's famous Maxim's. She also has socialized with Laurence Harvey, Rod Steiger and Fred Astaire. But last week, the dating game came to an abrupt halt. Linda is marrying  French  actor, Philippe Forquet, who recently did a movie with Sandra Dee, "Take Her She's Mine' and is presently starring in Aaron Spelling's new ABC television series "The Young Rebels." Philippe is a cousin of the world-famous Italian haute couturier ,Frederico Forquet. The wedding will take place in a tiny community in southern France, St. Paul de Vance, in a Matisse-decorated chapel. The bride will wear a Valentino pantsuit for the religious ceremony. The Forquet de Dornes are upper-class and moneyed.
 

 Valentino, the star of Italian high fashion, can boast that his most faithful and most famous customer is Jacqueline but he doesn't. Instead his little trick is to have Jackie's look-alike model in his press shows. Valentino has never mentioned the obvious similarity In looks, but always there's that subliminal advertising. Linda can't help but make comparisons. "Cappuci, another Italian designer, is much more flamboyant about making the most of my looks," she says. "He stubbornly insists that I ear wigs exactly like Jackie's lion mane hairdo. I've practiced walking and smiling like her and Cappuci tells me to go through the act on the runway. Valentino doesn't treat me that" way. He "is cool, charming and polite, almost as if I were you-know-who."

The look-alike business came to a head a few years ago when Linda, a teen-ager with no thought of being a mannequin, went to see the Broadway show, "Carnival." During intermission an announcer roamed the audience with a mike and unexpectedly came across Linda. "We have Jacqueline Kennedy in the audience!' he announced. Linda says: "I was just sitting there peacefully, in the balcony with Aunt Martha and suddenly there was a minor riot over me. It was wonderful! When I got home, I went straight to the mirror and started mimicking Jackie. It seemed like such a groovy thing to do. Now, in high-fashion modeling, it has paid off.

Admittedly, looking like Jackie on and off the runway can be a bore: During off hours she wouldn't touch a wig with a 10-foot pole. Her hair is shorn close to the head. And skirts, her forte on the runway, have no place in her private wardrobe which consists of 20 pairs of cuffed trouser made especially for her by Norwegian tailor, Astrid, who has a shop on Rome's busy Via Sistina. Her impeccable silk shirts, all 20 of them, are custom-made by Altertinelli of Rome. Linda's explanation of her all-pants wardrobe: "If I dressed like Jackie in my private life, I would get too much attention on the streets. Being mobbed has certain built-in disadvantages. Pants and short hair are a route to anonymity."

In 1974 Linda retired from a very busy modeling career to remarry and raise a family. The constant traveling was taking its toll on her. She stayed marginally active in the modeling industry as the owner of a small exclusive modeling school in the Eighties, a national photography studio from time to time she appeared  in special bookings. In 2005 with her four children all grown up, she moved back to New York City to research two books and launch an anti-aging facial exercise program.
 
image agency year
  Paris Planning (Paris) 1966
  Paris Planning (Paris) 1966
  Paris Planning (Paris) 1966
  Paris Planning (Paris) 1966
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Catherine Harlé (Paris) 1968
  Talents (Munich) 1973
  Talents (Munich) 1973
  Euro Planning (Paris) 1974
  Euro Planning (Paris) 1974

 

Model : Linda Morand

The Model Archives of Marlowe Press