Bettina

Bettina (1925-2001) was a french model. Born Simone Bodin, she was renamed in 1947 by Fath. The daughter of a railroader and a kindergarten teacher, in 1946 she settled in Paris to work as a dress designer, but instead was hired as a model first by Costet, and later by Fath. At the time, the newspapers wrote: “If Dior has the new look, Fath has Bettina.” From that moment on, she was immortalized by photographers such as Irving Penn, Cartier Bresson and Norman Parkinson. After a failed marriage with the photographer Beno Graziani, in 1955 she started a stormy and expensive love affair with Ali Khan, who died in a car accident in 1960 without marrying her. Thanks to an inheritance received from him, the “little Begum” opened an atelier, turning herself for a few years into a designer and business woman. Later, she led a life that kept her away from photographers.