Aroundtown MEETS


Aroundtown meets


Victoria Nixon


At just 16, life wasn’t so sweet for Victoria Nixon. The world around her was crumbling as quickly as the chocolate bar she would one day go on to advertise. But she was not the type of girl to be consumed by the flakes of grief that were settling around her.


Barely out of school, Victoria had already lost her father to suicide which forced her mother to sell their family home in Barnsley. Her older brother was then admitted to a psychiatric hospital after attempting to fatally stab himself at university.


She knew more about loss than life.


But as they say, the flower that blooms in adversity is often the most beautiful of all and from the seeds of tragedy did a flourishing, ambitious and successful woman grow.


Armed with a teenage dream, this head-strong, unruly and utterly striking young lass from Barnsley set out on an adventure to find freedom, carving out a lucrative modelling career along the way. During her decade-long heyday in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Victoria’s nonconformist look, with her wild hair, strong cheekbones and expressive eyes that hid a painful past, preserved her a place on the pages of glossy fashion magazines. Her signature brooding look appeared in the likes of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour and Elle. Her lithe figure advertised everything from raincoats to motor oil and even


‘‘She modelled space age fashion for the Apollo 11 moon landing’s live coverage and was Top of the Pops’ first promo girl.’’


4 aroundtownmagazine.co.uk


a Sheffield-made steel dress. She modelled space age fashion for the Apollo 11 Moon landing’s live coverage and was Top of the Pops’ first promo girl.


Over the years she would go on to talk cars with the Shah of Iran while posing in the Alps, have the Beach Boys sing happy birthday at her 21st bash in London, take a tour of Andy Warhol’s New York factory by the man himself, and


have dinner with Salvador Dali and his wife in Spain. None of whom had ever heard of, never mind visited, Barnsley.


Her paid-for smile was a ticket to ride, swapping Fray Bentos pies in Yorkshire for pistachio macaroons in Paris. But while she was drawn to those days in the sun, a cloud of sorrow swiftly followed – leaving little pieces of her heart and former life behind in each new city.


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