At 74, she has never gone under the knife - and is happy being single. Her debut novel, Piece Of My Heart, reflects the model's own experiencesPenelope Tree was the ultimate Swinging Sixties ‘It-girl’; her style idiosyncratic, her hallmark look a kind of kooky luminosity that defied convention.
Bailey, like his fictional alter ego, was constantly assailed by propositions from beautiful women — even when Penelope was with him. ‘Models would use every seductive trick to get him to look at their books,’ she says. ‘We’d be in a restaurant and a waiter would arrive carrying a silver salver with a little message inside. Bailey would read it covertly then stuff it in his pocket. Women propositioned him all the time: actresses, models; you’d be shocked if I named them.
Sweet-natured and self-deprecating, now 74, she retains her youthful lithe bearing. Recent catwalk shows for Fendi in Milan and Valentino in Paris testify to her enduring appeal. I ask how it felt to return to modelling after a break of half a century. She lived in Sydney for 17 years — raising her children, working as a TV researcher, travelling and sitting on the board of several charities — but has now settled in rural West Sussex.
‘My mother adored men and had passionate affairs while married to my father and being chatelaine of a grand house in Manhattan.’ Advertisement At this stage, Penelope kept her distance. She had been traumatised by an earlier sexual assault. She smiles mischievously. And of course it did; their first sexual encounter was in a Paris hotel room.
She laughs at this memory. ‘And I went straight from my parents’ house to living with him in Primrose Hill.’ ‘I was constantly comparing myself to other more beautiful models and felt I was really just a novelty act.’ She felt defined by her appearance and eating disorders plagued her. ‘I was no one unless I was thin and, at first, as a model, I was rewarded for being thin,’ she observes.Then, in her early 20s, she suffered a bout of late-onset acne caused by a hormonal imbalance she believes was brought on by her eating disorders. The acne was so disfiguring it put a halt to her photographic modelling career.
Today, she has attained a happy equilibrium and ‘pretty much’ embraced ageing. ‘It’s an ongoing challenge but I’m learning to live in the present and hopefully to see beyond appearances,’ she says.
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