Vale Maggi Eckardt: Tributes paid as ’60s glamour girl dies aged 82

Tributes have flooded in for Maggi Eckardt, after it was revealed on Tuesday evening that Australia’s first international supermodel had passed away at the age of 82. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, she is believed to have died in Sydney last week.

Maggi rose to fame in the 1960s, becoming one of London’s top-paid models with a salary of up to $250 a week. She worked with huge fashion houses, such as Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Cristóbal Balenciaga, and even fronted the likes of French Vogue magazine.

Derryn Hinch was one of the first to pay tribute to Eckardt, as he wrote on Twitter: “What sad news. Very sad. She was a great friend ‘in the old days’.”

While Ita Buttrose told the SMH: “She really was the most extraordinarily beautiful creature, absolutely breath-taking. And such an incredible career too, I can’t think of another girl from Australia who has achieved the level she did.”

Australia's first international supermodel Maggi Eckardt has died. Sydney born, she auditioned for the Queen's dressmaker as a teenager which led to a job in London, later working for @BALENCIAGA in Paris. Eckardt's believed to have been in her 80s. https://t.co/TWh1KQycs4 #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/W6Q2AQl9iT

— 7NEWS Sydney (@7NewsSydney) May 11, 2020

The internationally-renowned model began her career as a teenager, however she landed her big break after learning that the Queens couturier was in Sydney searching for models. Being the only girl who fitted the clothes “properly”, according to the SMH, Eckardt was then offered a job in London.

Eckardt married French diplomat Hervé Hutter in 1965, with the couple moving from Paris to Melbourne. They went on to welcome son Gaetan, before divorcing in 1971. It was believed her son had recently returned to Australia and was by his mother’s side as her health deteriorated.

In 1972, she became beauty director for Revlon, and in the same year she met and fell in love with advertising entrepreneur John Singleton. The couple tied the knot in 1976 and spent almost a decade together, before calling it quits in 1981.

“I could not believe this marvellous person with an incredible sense of the ridiculous; I mean, all the things that 99 per cent of people don’t have,” she previously said of Singleton. “I think that’s part of his genius.”