Fashion history holds a few models whose arrival signaled the birth of a new aesthetic—Audrey Marnay is one of them. Arriving on the scene in the mid 1990s, just as the Amazonian supermodel look was discarded in favor of waifish coquettes, Marnay represented the minimalist beauty ideal. Tiny with oversize brown eyes, freckles, and delicate features, Marnay’s gamine elegance was reminiscent of that other Audrey—but with a modern twist. Naturally, designers fell head over heels for her offbeat look, and within a year she was on the runway for Prada, Valentino, Louis Vuitton, and nearly every other major fashion player.
In the pages of Vogue, Marnay’s daintiness was put to good use, with photographers reimagining her as everything from Star Wars’s Queen Amidala to a BASE-jumping daredevil to a couture-clad living doll. The ease with which Marnay shifted into these characters foreshadowed her eventual leap into acting, and in her photographs by Steven Meisel and Arthur Elgort, her thespian skills are on full display. Though these days she appears more often in the front row rather than on the catwalk, Marnay is busy appearing on-screen in French films alongside the likes of Juliette Binoche and Jean Dujardin. Still, a look back at Marnay’s fashion work remains captivating for her many transformations and timeless sense of glamour.