Looking at an image of model Guinevere van Seenus, you might be surprised to learn that she was born 38 years ago today, in Boston. After all, her milky skin; wide, square jaw; sensuous frame; and pale blue eyes have all the makings of an 18th-century Pre-Raphaelite muse. But it’s this timelessness that has made her one of fashion’s most beguiling faces: Arriving on the scene in the mid-’90s as the bodacious glamour of the early supermodels gave way to the decade’s new minimalism, Van Seenus’s chameleonic ability to pull off the sublime and the austere was a breath of fresh air. In the years that followed, her unconventional features would make her the face of directional era campaigns for Jil Sander and Prada; today, her enigmatic beauty continues to make her a regular presence in major editorials and on magazine covers.
“Guinevere’s beauty is incredibly versatile,” says photographer Craig McDean, who has been shooting the model for 20 years, crediting her ability to represent the entire spectrum of femininity, from the androgynous to the ethereal. It’s a quality that has made the model a seamless fit for Vogue fashion portfolios as far-ranging as photographer Carter Smith’s study in menswear-inspired dressing (“The Return of the Suit,” 2000) to Patrick Demarchelier’s portrait in celebration of the body beautiful (“To Have and Have Not,” 2010). For Parisian photographer Paolo Roversi, Van Seenus’s fearless nature makes her natural for the camera. “She can mix truth and lies, [is] full of imagination, [and] she can take any risk—beyond any border,” he says. After dedicating an entire gallery exhibition, “Guinevere,” to his favorite subject in 2008, he says he still can’t pick a favorite photograph of her. But for McDean, “The first time shooting her was for the Jil Sander campaign. Those are some of my favorite pictures of all time.” We think the best is yet to come.
The post The Cultish Appeal of Guinevere van Seenus: Celebrating the Model’s Enigmatic Beauty appeared first on Vogue.
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