I met Carmen in April 2000 after pestering her agents to see if she would consider sitting for me. She eventually agreed, a little reluctantly I suspect, and we arranged to meet at her apartment in Manhattan. When I arrived she was whipping her hair into its trademark white squall, (“to give you something to draw”). She posed all afternoon with Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald on the sound system, changing clothes, thinking things through, finding the line. Paying me the compliment of taking things seriously. The drawings turned out well, and since then we have worked together often; in London on the catwalk for Hardy Amies; in Paris, backstage at Dior; in New York just for the hell of it and even, one summer, on a yacht footling around in the Mediterranean.

I think what makes Carmen so inspiring to draw is her innate understanding of image-making. She has developed a sixth sense (or is it a third eye?) so that she sees what you see and “edits” herself accordingly for the page. Of course, she is also beautiful, riotously funny, ribald when the mood takes her and has a heart as big as the Ritz. But those are the fringe benefits of working with her.

If this reads like a valentine, then who deserves one more? After more than six decades in an industry that gets panicky around 30-year-olds, Carmen is rarer than a blue giraffe.

A longer version of this article appeared in Pourquoi Pas? Issue One

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