Spotted - Peggy Moffitt

There was a big soiree in LA last night to celebrate the Model As Muse traveling exhibition. And I was particularly pleased to see Peggy Moffitt out and about

Anne Crawford, in vintage Galanos, with Peggy Moffitt, in Peggy Moffitt for Comme des Garçons.

Is it just me or do you die over Peggy's Outfit?
That girl is still rocking and pushing the edge.

If you are just a young thing you might have just said who is Peggy Moffitt?

Well Miss wet-behind-the-ears, Peggy was a hot hot hot model in the sixties and was associated primarily with Rudi Gernreich. She was THE model that was photographed in the infamous topless bathing suit for Life in 1964, dubbed "The Monokini"


Needless to say it caused quite the sensation

Life played up this feature to the max back then - it was publicized as if women where goign to be expected to wear these from now on, in fact be expected to.



It was just a big publicity stunt though. There where ever only about 100 suits made and very few worn in public - those that did try where promptly arrested. This was still America after all. Even the pool picture above - that was not even taken in America - nope, it was taken in France and that is not even Peggy, nor is it a Gernreich suit - its a french copy of the suit.
Ahh the wiles of publicity huh?

Either way it made her tres famous to say the least and she was from that point on, firmly attached to the Gernreich name and known as his muse.

She is also the face that graces the book on Gernreich's work

and her asymmetrical, blunt bang haircut by Vidal Sassoon,
known as "the five point" was copied worldwide

She also developed a signature style - tons of false eyelashes and heavy eye make-up. It photos as black but it was actually a heavy dose of red kohl which was said to be derived & copied from Japanese Kabuki theater






When Gernreich died in 1985, Moffitt held (and still does) the rights to his name and designs. It was she who allowed the exhibition of his work to happen in 1999 and was the force behind the book shown above, also released in 1999.

That book and exhibit and the subsequent interest generated are what led to the collaboration of Moffitt with the Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons. (interesting that once again the Japenese theme creeps into her story, no?) Peggy and designer Rei Kawakubo re-created a number of Gernreich's designs and went over the Gernreich archives to select key pieces to be re-released under the Comme des Garçons label. In 2003 the *moffit line was released, initially as a series of t-shirts with Moffit's image. And it seems that now they might just be trying to take that a step further and into a full line based on Peggy's outfit.

I guess we will just have to watch and see.