In 1987, a shy 17-year-old called Claudia Schiffer was at Checker’s nightclub in Düsseldorf, when a stranger approached her and asked if she wanted to be a model. “I thought it was a joke,” recalls Schiffer, now 51, who at the time was still self-conscious about her height (5ft 11in).
But the man, who worked for a French modelling agency, was insistent – and, a few days later, accompanied by her mother, Schiffer found herself in Paris.Within weeks, she was living in the French capital, hanging around with her new friend, the up-and-coming German photographer Ellen von Unwerth – “and the rest,” Schiffer says, “is history”.
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