Eileen Ford Dies

Eileen Ford, founder of the legendary Ford Model Agency, has died aged 92.

A stalwart of the fashion industry since she established her eponymous agency with her husband Jerry in 1946 from their Manhattan flat, Ford represented some of the most famous faces on the planet, including Twiggy, Lauren Hutton, Christie Brinkley, Christy Turlington Burns, Ali MacGraw, Grace Jones, Naomi Campbell and Elle MacPherson throughout her illustrious career.

Famed for her encouraging and nurturing approach - she was infamous for standing up for her clients' best interests - she frequently invited models that had just arrived in New York to live with herself and Jerry so that she could help them adjust to life in the Big Apple. When she handed the reins to her daughter, Katie, in 1995, her ethos still remained at the heart of the company's operations.

Eileen Ford

"Eileen's influence, vision and kindness will be remembered and celebrated inside and outside the fashion industry," Laura Bailey, who was signed to Ford Models in the Nineties, told us this morning. "I'd only read about the near mythical fantastical Ford Models, but, when I moved to NYC on a wing and a prayer, they changed my life. "The stories of life with Eileen were legendary, and my early Manhattan days were very much shaped by the Ford Models family, then run by Katie and her team. It's a time in my life I'll always treasure. She was one of a kind."

Ford is survived by her four children, Katie, Jamie, Billy and Lacey.