Former model Robyn Peterson: 'Fashion is a savage business'

Robyn Peterson, the 1970s Vogue model turned actress, highlights the darker side of the modelling world in a new West End show

BY Elizabeth Kirkwood | 13 September 2009

The fashion industry is no place to be a woman of a certain age - especially when that means anyone pushing 30. Former model-turned-actress Robyn Peterson, who became one of the faces of the 1970s, knows more than most how the industry chews girls up and spits them out.

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In her early twenties, Peterson was "the young blonde off the bus", part of the first wave of American models to make it in the fashion capitals of Europe. "Shipped over", as she puts it, with the likes of Jerry Hall to build up her magazine portfolio, she was immediately spotted by Helmut Newton, appeared on the cover of Vogue , and became the toast of the Paris fashion world when Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld put her on their catwalks. By all accounts, the girl had made it. But by the age of 26, it was all over.

"Fashion is a savage business," says Peterson, "an industry that eats people up. Modelling is like being an athlete. It's a young person's game, but similarly no life for a young girl. By my mid-20s, I just wasn't getting the bookings any more. It was time to move on." She found herself on a plane going back to New York to rebuild her life from scratch.

Now in her mid-50s, having reinvented herself as a successful actress, appearing in shows like Remington Steele, LA Law and The Sopranos , Peterson has still got it. With her immaculately coiffured 'Marilyn' blonde curls and Lauren Bacall cheekbones, she possesses a seemingly effortless gaze and a striking model's look.

She won't be going near any runway during London Fashion Week. Instead, she's taken to the West End stage in Catwalk Confidential , a one-woman show that opened last week which is "part memoir, part exposé". In it, she highlights the darker side of the modelling world, a calling she says offers little more than "a lifestyle on loan".

Charting her escape from Miami Beach at the age of 16, from a background she drolly describes as "white shoes and gold-chain", the show documents her ascent in the 1970s, the cocaine-fuelled nights in the backs of limousines and sexually rapacious fashion photographers. "We all make mistakes," she says, "we all have regrets. One of the reasons I wanted to do this show was to 'own' some of those mistakes."

As we talk, Peterson tucks into a large ciabatta sandwich. Carbs are clearly on the menu these days, but looking at her early photographs she was incredibly slim, even by today's standards. "I'm not going to say I didn't watch my weight back then. I wasn't naturally that skinny; I watched it like a hawk. Some days it was just black coffee and a lettuce leaf.

"I always remember Andy Warhol backstage at a fashion show once saying: 'You gals are the only ones who look good in these clothes.' Let's be honest here: high-fashion clothes look great on really young, thin girls. But that's not real life. Real women have curves and shape. I mean look at Beyonce. That bootie is gorgeous!

"So much of it is about owning your body," she suggests. "It's all white girls in the gyms in LA, killing themselves to be a size 10. The black and hispanic girls are out there with these great chests and fabulous behinds, and they're smiling and the guys are whistling. They own their bodies. More women need to do that."

Role models are clearly crucial for Peterson - which is what makes her lack of concern about the current size-zero obsession a little surprising. "Beauty is measured in thinness today. It just so happens that haute couture clothes look fabulous on 3lb girls."

While Peterson lambasts the fashion industry in her show for its ageism - "men can get still away with so much more than women, age-wise, weight-wise, even table manners-wise" - she prefers to be vague about how old she is. When I confront her, she turns to her producer and asks playfully: "What shall we say, 34?"

She also remains wilfully buoyant about the prospects for older women today. "With each generation, it opens up more. In the industry there's still Jerry Hall, Cindy Crawford and Christie Brinkley. They're the ones who kept it up. Older women are starting to step forward. Young women need older role models, to see an older woman who's a survivor, who's been through the dark stuff and come out the other side."

Looking back, what does she see in these photos of her younger self which surround her on stage every night? "So many things. Some days I see someone dressed up as somebody else. I see a certain ambition in some, and heartbreak in others. And I see disappointment too. You know," she says thoughtfully, "the camera really doesn't lie."

* Catwalk Confidential runs at the Arts Theatre until October 4. 0845 017 5584, www.artstheatrewestend.com

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