Aroundtown MEETS
‘‘A name change to Vikki and a few ‘Don’t mess with me’ poses later she was booked to launch YSL’s revolutionary Le Smoking trouser suit.’’
concentrate on her own future. Paul Jones’ modelling suggestion was researched by Patricia who concluded that London’s Lucie Clayton Academy in Bond Street was Britain’s leading model agency, but they were very choosy about who they accepted, with previous alumni including Jean Shrimpton and Fiona Campbell-Walker. She worked overtime to pay for Victoria’s train fare to London and the month-long course fee of 28 guineas, but on one condition – she also had to do a secretarial course as a back-up plan.
“My mum knew how to handle every situation and she gave wise, well-balanced advice. She was never victim-esque; she could have said to me, ‘Stay here and care
for me, darling.’ But instead she packed me off to see the world and have a good time. ‘Your home is always here to come back to,’ she’d say.”
Instead of taking her A-Levels, Victoria headed to London to join the course which was more like a finishing school for posh girls looking to be debutantes. This Barnsley lass wasn’t like the rest – she wanted financial independence, not to be a kept woman.
“Why marry for money when you could earn enough yourself?” When Vidal Sassoon offered her his signature bobbed haircut for free, Victoria turned it down. “Why would I want to look the same as everyone else?”
After a month of balancing books
on her head and learning how to not flash her knickers as she exited a car, the passing out parade loomed. But Victoria’s cool vibe backfired. She failed magnificently, the only girl in Lucie Clayton history to fail - ever. “Everyone else chose these pastel two-piece skirt suits and dainty heels. I wasn’t into that. Biba gifted me this floaty black dress and I bought some purple suede boots from Russell and Bromley which I had to walk down a catwalk in. They said you should never wear black in the day, my hair was too wild, I didn’t wear enough makeup and I walked like a carthorse.” The ‘back-up plan’ was now ‘the necessary plan’ and Victoria became an accounts typist at a Mayfair advertising agency. “Mum wasn’t fazed by anything. She just said, ‘Never mind darling, something else will come your way.’”
And sure enough, it did. While at work, she literally bumped into fashion photographer, Mike Berkofsky, who was doing a shoot for Alice Pollock’s Quorum boutique. He compared her to Bonnie and Clyde star Faye Dunaway and asked if she’d ever thought of modelling, suggesting she contact Askew Model Agency. A name change to Vikki and a few ‘Don’t mess with me’ poses later she was booked to launch YSL’s revolutionary Le Smoking trouser suit.
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aroundtownmagazine.co.uk
Her career then went up another notch when she was spotted by controversial Vogue photographer, Helmut Newton, while window shopping on Bond Street. She was booked for a shoot almost immediately and was excited to see Newton’s provocative style in action – but to her dismay it was more school uniform than sensual goddess. From a place in British Vogue did an international career follow. Vikki was the first Brit to be offered work for Riccardo Gray’s new Milan agency, earning around £9,000 in
today’s money for a few days’ work around Italy.
“But I lost it all at customs after stashing endless notes in my pants and bra.”
Over the next ten years, Vikki Nixon travelled the width and breadth of the earth armed with her passport, tear-sheets and trusty kit. “Despite what people might presume about modelling, it was pretty hard work back then. Your agent would call and say a ticket was waiting at the airport for a job in this country or that. My final shoot was in Sri Lanka and I’d never heard of it but presumed it was in Italy – 14 hours later I finally got off the plane. “There was no stylist on location then; we had to do our own makeup and hair, carrying endless products, wigs, shoes and underwear with us. I’ve still got the shoulders to show for it.”
Vikki’s era was the time when meaning triumphed narcissism; it didn’t matter what you wore but who you were. Models weren’t media personalities, their names rarely known, and they never worried about their weight.
When named the Daily Mail’s
Face of ’68, Vikki considered it no big deal. She didn’t want her youthful face to define her life. In 1971, she signed to Ford Models in New York, the best agency in the world. Vikki’s rollercoaster life had hit a peak – but a pit was fast approaching. Nick, now a furniture designer and estranged from his wife and two children, came to stay at her Manhattan apartment having been invited by Richard Avedon who wanted to photograph one of his pieces.
While she went home to England for Christmas, Nick, perhaps held by the burden of his dad’s death, died from a combination of wine and pills aged just 30. His sister would never know if it was intentional or just another cry for help that sadly went wrong. The pain of losing not one, but
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