Jean Shrimpton with love

Jean Rosemary Shrimpton (born 7 November 1942) is an English model and actress. She was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels. She appeared on covers such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Elle, Ladies' Home Journal, Newsweek, and Time magazines

Born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and brought up on a farm, Shrimpton was educated at St Bernard's Convent, Slough. She enrolled at Langham Secretarial College in London when she was 17. Later it was suggested to her to attend the Lucie Clayton Charm Academy's model course abd in 1960, aged 17, she began modelling, appearing on the covers of popular magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Vanity Fair. During her career, Shrimpton was widely reported to be the "world's highest paid model", the "most famous model", and the "most photographed in the world".  She was dubbed "The It Girl", "The Face", and "The Face of the '60s". Glamour named her "Model of The Year" in June 1963. She contrasted with the aristocratic-looking models of the 1950s by representing the coltish, gamine look of the youthquake movement in 1960s Swinging London, and she was reported as "the symbol of Swinging London." By breaking the popular mould of voluptuous figures with her long legs and slim figure, she was nicknamed "The Shrimp".

Shrimpton also helped launch the miniskirt.

In her article "The Man in the Bill Blass Suit", Nora Ephron tells of the time when Jean Shrimpton posed for a Revlon advertisement in an antique white Chantilly lace dress by Blass. Minutes after the lipstick placard was displayed at the drugstores, the Revlon switchboard received many calls from women demanding to know where they could buy the dress.

Jean Shrimpton met David Bailey, later to become her husband, in 1960 at a photo shoot. Shrimpton's started to become known in the modelling world around the time she was dating Bailey.She has stated she owed Bailey her career, and he is often credited for discovering her and being influential in her career. In turn, she was Bailey's muse, and his photographs of her helped him rise to prominence in his early career. 

On 26 January 2012 the story of her relationship with David Bailey was dramatised in a BBC Four film, We'll Take Manhattan, with Karen Gillan playing the part of Shrimpton.