Jean Shrimpton is back in the news

Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum, London

For many of the baby boom generation, this woman's face is very familiar.

A tiny, huge-eyed model who dominated the fashion world of the sixties, she was also known as "the Shrimp."

Last week she was back in the news. BBC4 is making a movie named for her first American shoot for Vogue. It's called First we'll take Manhattan.

The real Jean Shrimpton couldn't care less. Interviewed by Alex Wade in The Guardian in April, she said she had absolutely no interest in the film. Long since married, with an adult son, Shrimpton has for many years run her hotel, the Abbey, in Penzance, Cornwall. She grew up on a farm in Buckinghamshire, and has never missed the city lights.

Wade quotes her as saying that fashion is not normal, that the high-pressure fashion world is full of dark and troubled people and that she has always hated publicity. Once long ago, with fashion photographer David Bailey, publicity was her life.

The world's first supermodel, now 68 years old, is still slender, and wears her hair quite long. Somehow, this Guardian photo of her sitting on a garden bench subtly evokes the sixties.