Lynn Kohlman; American model who defied convention by displaying the ravages of cancer
Hyfler/Rosner
American model who defied convention by displaying the
ravages of cancer
Veronica Horwell
The Guardian,
Thursday September 25 2008
The American fashion director and former model Lynn Kohlman,
who has died of cancer aged 62, presented herself as the
beautiful public body of cancer. She posed for the camera
unclothed with both breasts gone, with titanium staples
encircling her scalp after a brain operation, with hair
frazzled away by radiation. In a radical gesture consistent
with her life, she published proximate portraits of her
youthful perfection and post-op, scarred self, defiantly
lovely, in her autobiography, Lynn Front to Back, published
in 2005.
Kohlman had modelled in her student years after the
photographer Clive Arrowsmith spotted her on a London
street. Then, as a graduate in art history, she moved from
her native New Jersey to Italy to do restoration work after
the Florence floods of 1966. She thought modelling was
"inane", but it paid, and her looks were liked in Europe in
the 1970s - her short, dark hair so different from the
prevaling taste for curly girlies, her long, lean face
harking back to a pre-60s sophistication, though not clarted
with makeup. She was a cover girl for Elle, Harpers & Queen,
and French Vogue, and she twirled on Paris and London
catwalks, lanky enough to carry off the acres of fabric in a
Zandra Rhodes ensemble. She travelled to Africa and India,
and learned how the photographers Barry Lategan, Irving Penn
and Richard Avedon worked.
Photography became Kohlman's back-up career after she
returned to New York in the early 1980s. The model agency
boss Eileen Ford told her she would need a nose job before
she was acceptable for modelling assignments in the US. And
the crew cut, motorbike boots and Patti Smith style would
have to go.
She did have American fans, notably the designer Perry
Ellis, who produced a collection based on the oversized
man's linen suit she wore. Kohlman wrote that she thought of
herself "as his muse, but he gave me the title assistant
designer", and she led the parade at his shows. She shot ads
for, and portraits of, him and Calvin Klein. Andy Warhol
rated her portfolio highly enough to offer her space in
Interview magazine, and Vogue commissioned her behind the
camera. Besides fashion and portraits, she photographed
landscapes.
Donna Karan employed her in 1988, first as fashion director,
then as creative director, and always as inspiration.
Kohlman's edginess and "masculine-feminine street feeling"
became a basis of Karan's urban DKNY look. Then, after 11
years with Karan, she was recruited by Tommy Hilfiger as
creative director, but was swiftly dismissed. Despite an
initial encounter with breast cancer in the 1990s, which
required a lumpectomy, she remained fit until 2002.
Then, that September, Kohlman asked a friend to practise
spiritual healing on her son, Sam, and the friend warned
Kohlman to check her breasts, as she was sure something was
wrong. It was. Kohlman had cancer widespread enough to
demand an immediate double mastectomy - as her mother had 30
years earlier.
Kohlman enjoyed telling the story of her operations and
their aftermath as outrageous comedy. She had expected to
qualify for a new technology that created replacement
"breasts" from her own body fat, only she lacked enough fat
for one breast, let alone two. "I was very baffled that I
could be too fit or too thin." A reconstructive surgeon
inserted "expanders" in her chest to stretch skin and
muscles slowly so implants could be fitted. But after an
infection, she had them extracted.
At the end of a yoga class five months later, as she wrote
in Vogue: "It was as if hot snakes were wriggling through me
... my mouth tasted like metal." The class master claimed
this was the joyful release of "kundalini rising", but she
knew it was brain cancer. The precise diagnosis turned out
to be stage four glioblastoma. "Stage four out of 10, I
asked? No, the doctor shook her head. Stage four out of
four." Kohlman had to stay awake during the surgery to
answer questions so the surgeons could be sure they were
within the correct zone of the brain. Then they sealed her
skull incision with 39 titanium staples. The tumour regrew
in weeks; more chemotherapy, but no hiding. She was proud
that she was shameless in what others thought of as her
physical ruin.
Karan considered the staples elegant and edgy, and so did
Kohlman. As she told the Oprah Winfrey show in 2005, she had
sauntered out onto the streets of New York with her scalp
shaved and staples visible. A passing pierced punk admired
them, so "nicely spaced and even. That's cool. Where'd you
have that done?"
Kohlman's first marriage ended in divorce. She is survived
by her second husband, the documentary director Mark
Obenhaus, and their son.
· Lynn Eleanor Kohlman, model and fashion director, born
August 12 1946; died September 14 2008
Louis Epstein
:
: At the end of a yoga class five months later, as she wrote
: ... my mouth tasted like metal." The class master claimed
: this was the joyful release of "kundalini rising", but she
: knew it was brain cancer. The precise diagnosis turned out
: to be stage four glioblastoma. "Stage four out of 10, I
: asked? No, the doctor shook her head. Stage four out of
: four." Kohlman had to stay awake during the surgery to
: answer questions so the surgeons could be sure they were
: within the correct zone of the brain. Then they sealed her
: skull incision with 39 titanium staples. The tumour regrew
: in weeks; more chemotherapy, but no hiding. She was proud
: that she was shameless in what others thought of as her
: physical ruin.
:
: Karan considered the staples elegant and edgy, and so did
: Kohlman. As she told the Oprah Winfrey show in 2005, she had
: sauntered out onto the streets of New York with her scalp
: shaved and staples visible. A passing pierced punk admired
: them, so "nicely spaced and even. That's cool. Where'd you
: have that done?"
So how did she respond?
:
: ? Lynn Eleanor Kohlman, model and fashion director, born
: August 12 1946; died September 14 2008
-=-=-
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