I'm fresh off the plane from Europe, where I spent two weeks visiting friends and family from Rome to London. One of many inspiring moments of the trip was flipping through my aunt Victoria's modeling portfolio while hearing stories about her from my cousin Phillippe. She's precisely the kind of woman who inspires me to design; strong, smart, and adventurous. She left modeling to become a neurobiologist at a laboratory in Paris. An animal lover, she collected unusual pets including a lizard who made its home in her Paris apartment bathroom.
I was a student of Victoria’s at the University of Paris in the late 1970s and was wondering what became of her. I knew she had been a model and had a son named Philippe. She would have all her students over to her apartment for dinner and was especially kind to me, lining me up for a job as a professor of translation.
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