A couple of years ago, American Vogue decided to investigate who were the current icons of beauty in the United States. The magazine duly despatched a journalist, clutching photographs of Gwyneth Paltrow, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Amber Valletta, among others, to a number of cities.
The most irresistable face turned out to be that of the young actress Natalie Portman, who will be seen on cinema screens later this summer playing Luke Skywalker's mother in Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace. The reason Portman won, according to every woman of the 32-strong jury, was that she looked like a young Audrey Hepburn.
If the late, greatly loved and much-lamented Hepburn had survived the cancer which killed her, she would have celebrated her 70th birthday next Tuesday. Although it is six years since she died, the fashion world is reluctant to let her fade into oblivion. An exhibition of photographs taken on the set of her film Sabrina has just finished in New York, and on Friday another exhibition dedicated to her opens in Florence at the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo.
The museum will display some of her clothes and accessories, including gowns famously created for her by the couturier Hubert de Givenchy. Two sections of the exhibition will also be devoted to her work with Unicef and to the influence her image has had on contemporary fashion in the past four decades. The exhibition continues until June 30, and Salvatore Ferragamo intends to launch a special Hepburn suede pump in Hong Kong in the autumn, called Audrey.
Next Tuesday, however, it will also sponsor a gala evening in New York hosted by Sean Ferrer, Hepburn's eldest son.
Ten copies of the original model used to shape her shoes, which have been decorated by 10 contemporary artists, will be auctioned; the money raised marks the beginning of a campaign to build a New Jersey paediatric hospital in Hepburn's name.