© Distributed by The New York Times Licensing Group
Guinevere van Seenus at her home in Redding, Conn., on Feb. 17, 2022. (Jody Rogac/The New York Times)
Like many successful romances, the one between model and photographer Guinevere van Seenus and writer and broadcaster Beau Friedlander had an intermediary: Van Seenus’s three-legged dog, Ashley.
“He was the weird guy who went to the dog park,” Van Seenus, 45, recalled, joking regarding his first meeting with Friedlander five years ago. She was sitting at the dining room table of the Connecticut farmhouse that she and Friedlander bought together last year. Ashley (a Velcro dog who doesn’t care regarding anyone but her owner) was instantly attached to Friedlander and his two dogs.
“He started looking forward to Beau and his dogs,” Van Seenus said. “He would sit on the picnic bench looking down the road to see if they were coming. It became his obsession.”
“I was in love with you,” said Friedlander, 52, who also claims to “speak dog language.” Friedlander did not know that Van Seenus was a model. He began recording the time Van Seenus appeared in the park each morning. “I guess now they would call it bullying,” he joked.
As neighbors, both established an uncertain friendship.
“We texted each other almost every morning with three words: “Dog park?” Friedlander said. “I went to the park, even if it was busy.”
Van Seenus had an on-and-off boyfriend. Friedlander tried not to care. He took her to the airport when she had to travel to Europe for work. She made him lunch and drew cartoons of her contents on the paper bag. She took up gardening when she showed an interest in horticulture. He invited her and her friend to dinner. Her two daughters told her that her chances were nil.
One night, Van Seenus cut his finger on broken glass while washing dishes. Thinking that he would have to go to the hospital, he realized that he would have called Friedlander and not his boyfriend.
“I thought, ‘You’re dating the wrong person,'” she said.
Not much later, following a year and a half of platonic relationship, the relationship became romantic.
“Now we are married to the house,” Friedlander said. The couple’s 1911 house, which they bought in near ruin, has become their biggest project in their spare time. His three dogs were huddled near the fireplace. The heating and insulation were not yet finished.
“And with animals,” Van Seenus added with a smile.
a new chapter
In recent years, Van Seenus has found love, but she has also stood out as a photographer. Last month, denim brand Agolde announced that Van Seenus had been the photographer (with a series of self-portraits) for her most recent campaign, her first behind the lens. The latest photographs taken by Van Seenus, and by his family and friends, including photographer Yelena Yemchuck and models Kirsten Owen and Saskia de Brauw, have appeared in Vogue Germany, Vogue Czech Republic and in specialist publications such as Purpose and Perspective and the Self Service Magazine. Van Seenus posts much of this work on her Instagram accounts @guineverevanseenus and @just_film_by_gvs
“He carries the camera with him all the time,” said Yemchuck, 51. “When he comes to dinner, he brings his camera.”
It’s an excellent second act for a model whose career in the late 1990s reached stratospheric levels. Van Seenus has worked with just regarding every giant in the industry, including Karl Lagerfeld, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn. She has appeared in ad campaigns for just regarding every fashion designer imaginable, from Alexander McQueen to Versace. She has graced multiple covers of Vogue Italia and W Magazine and graced the pages of virtually every major magazine.
“For me it’s like the Venus de Milo,” said photographer Paolo Roversi, 74, whose images of Van Seenus for Yohji Yamamoto’s catalogs of the time have become collector’s items.
“I’ve never seen a face like Guinevere’s,” recalled photographer Craig McDean, 58. “She was so beautiful. She was almost porcelain, like a doll. At that time she used to go to many museums and see all the Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Van Seenus reminded me of them.”
“She looks like a woman out of a Renaissance painting or a Greek sculpture,” said photographer Mario Sorrenti, 50.
In 1996, Van Seenus was cast in Jil Sander’s spring campaign. Photographed by McDean, Van Seenus appears in very little makeup, with her hair pulled back gently on top of her head and her eyebrows bleached. The designer’s garments are barely visible; however, the image reflects a certain softness. She was speaking to a type of woman who wasn’t interested in going to the beauty salon to look great, that she didn’t want to wear a full face of makeup with a pretty dress.
“There was wisdom and strength in that photograph,” said designer Rachel Comey, 49, who had previously worked with Van Seenus and who featured the model in her latest spring campaign. “Suddenly, fashion was no longer rich people, luxury and glamour; there was an art to it.”
That same year, 1996, Van Seenus was nominated for VH1’s supermodel of the year. Rolling Stone magazine included her on her Hot List, and Women’s Wear Daily named her the season’s most visible model.
However, with all the good things in his career came the bad on a personal level. After just two intensely successful years, Van Seenus struggled to find a balance between work and life. Since she was an introvert, she didn’t date much and wasn’t interested in going to parties or fashion events.
His world outside the industry was shrinking. He commented, “I didn’t like to refuse work ever. I was very lucky. Every time Paolo Roversi, Craig McDean or Steven Meisel called me, I accepted without hesitation. Then parades take up a good part of the year, and pretty soon you’re working Christmas Eve, Christmas and Thanksgiving, not seeing your family.”
He paused: “That’s right, I didn’t have a good rhythm.”
Van Seenus began to experience crippling anxiety and depression. He got so bad that he mightn’t get out of bed.
“That stopped my life completely,” he said. She had to find a way out. In 1997, she decided to give up modeling and move to Woodstock, New York, before moving to Los Angeles in 2001, where she enrolled at Santa Monica College to study art.
an act of appropriation
Art school became another way of finding herself. Van Seenus took classes in photography, pottery, printing, theatrical makeup, and much more.
“Human figure drawing was a beautiful experience,” he said. “It allowed me to appreciate a woman’s body once more.”
She began to show off the jewelry she had been making: intricate headdresses, collars, and gloves handwoven from metal, beads, and precious and semiprecious stones. Pieces from the ella Cootje line by ella (Dutch nickname for her paternal grandmother, Jacqueline) have been featured in Vogue.
Throughout the 2000s, the fashion world kept calling her name. Her modeling (although she only did it when she wanted) made it difficult for him to finish her studies. In 2015, she moved to New York to pursue both fashion and school, and began studying at the International Center of Photography; however, being on set had always been an apprenticeship in itself.
“One time he asked me if he might come over and sit down with my assistants to do Photoshop,” McDean said.
Marc Ascoli, founder and creative director of Atelier 32, said: “She was always curious. He asked questions.”
Like many of the great photographers he has worked with, he prefers analogue cameras and likes to shoot with a dual-lens Rolleiflex or a Leica MC. The Polaroid is still his favorite.
“It is what it is,” he says. “Everything else can change with processing and Photoshop, but with Polaroid, it’s the only true version. You don’t have full control.” (In another form of expression, Van Seenus also embroiders his Polaroids with beads.) Friedlander is an encouraging colleague who proudly champions her work. Both he and his two daughters have become targets under the watchful eye of Van Seenus.
“I love that she points the lens at herself,” said Karen Elson, 43, who remembers Van Seenus helping pave the way for her as a young model. “She is reclaiming a part of herself following all these years of being the ‘muse’ (and I use that word reluctantly). What I like is that she is taking ownership of that space.”
