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Victoria Nixon (born 7 June 1948) is a British author and company director. The Evening Standard wrote in 2005 “Victoria Nixon has had success in four careers – from being a Vogue model to advertising, television production and now owning a deli.” She now divides her time between rural Buckinghamshire and the West London offices of AirCell Structures Ltd of which she is Managing Director.

Early Life

Victoria Nixon was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire and educated at Barnsley Girls’ High School. Her father owned a car dealership, her mother was a college bursar and she had on elder brother. At the age of 15 she caught the eye of Paul Jones, the lead singer of Manfred Mann at a gig in Sheffield and he said that she should go to London to be a model. After completing a secretarial course at the Northern Secretarial College in Leeds she left for London.

Career

At the age of eighteen she was spotted in London’s Bond Street by top fashion photographer Helmut Newton who stepped out a taxi and offered her a contract launching a decade long international modelling career as Vikki Nixon in 1966. He would later photograph her for the cover of Vogue and subsequently she appeared in French, English, Italian and American Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Glamour, Nova, 19 and Elle. She was selected as the Daily Mail’s ‘Face of 68’, Jean Rook described her as “the grown up face of ‘68” and someone who would “set fire to the pages of the glossy magazines in the New Year.” During her career she worked with many top photographers including Norman Parkinson, David Bailey, Terence Donovan, Jean Loup Sieff, Arthur Elgort and Hiro. Her New York agent was Eileen Ford. She was the first British model to ever work with a Milan model agency.

As part of her modelling career she also appeared on a number of TV programmes, most notably in the 1969 live coverage of the Apollo11 moon landing where she appeared with presenter Cliff Michelmore and journalist Jean Rook wearing a “space-fashion outfit”. She was the first “promo star” of the BBC’s ‘Top of the Pops’ described in Disc and Music Echo April 11th issue as an “Angelic looking Hell’s Angel”, and “girlfriend of promotion ace Bill Fowler.” When a music act, such as Andy Williams or Kenny Rogers, was unable to appear live, producer/director Mel Cornish would pre-film a clip of her to broadcast with the song. She was featured in the 1971 version of the hugely successful and long running TV campaign for Cadbury’s flake.

After modelling she relocated to Australia and became an advertising copywriter and was the Melbourne editor of POL magazine, an avant garde fashion and lifestyle glossy, from 1978-85. Whilst still in Australia she formed a film production company and produced ‘The Price of Fame’ television series for Central Television UK however the series was never broadcast but it remains “in the can”. In 1992, she opened the One Stop Fresh delicatessen in Fulham, South London which specialised in healthy lunchtime food. One Stop Fresh was the first deli in the UK to use revolutionary eco-friendly packaging.

Her first book ‘Supermodels’ Beauty Secrets was published in 2002 with contributions from Jerry Hall, Kate Moss and many others leading models. Reprinted in English thirteen times, it has been translated into several languages including Spanish, Hungarian and Latvian. It formed part of Victoria’s Celebrity Inspiration in “Beauty Flash”, Liz Dwyer’s weekly column in TV Now.

Her follow-up book ‘Supermodels’ Diet Secrets’, based on her experience both as a model and latterly as a deli owner, was published in 2004 and the Daily Express newspaper bought first rights. Tom Parker Bowles described it as “Chic Eating” in his “Food for Thought” column in the Daily Mail’s Night&Day magazine.

In 2006, with Michael Messenger, she co-founded the British company Aircell Structures Ltd which designs and manufactures unique humanitarian aid products for medical charities and aid agencies such as IFRC, British & German Red Cross, Marie Stopes International and Vision Salud. As Managing Director she officiated when the London showroom was opened in 2012 by MP Greg Hands.

1. 1967 Italian Vogue December Photographed by Giancarlo Barbieri
2. 1968 Daily Mail Jan 1st “The New Face of ’68 who is she”
3. 1969 Sunday Times Magazines full page advert “Model Vikki Nixon’s Choice Lyle & Scott”
4. 1970 Cover March issue of L’Officiel #575
5. 1970 Top of the Pops 2nd April http://www.imdb.com/title/tt_0730233/ & 9th April http://www.imdb.comtitle/tt_1629691/
6. 1971 Sunday Times magazine “Don’t shoot – it’s not fur” photographed by James Wedge
7. 1969 April Economist & Sunday Times full page adverts “The New Age of British Steel”
8. 2002 Nov 27th Yorkshire Post “Looks that last” p.B11
9. 2002 Nov Oxford Times Intuition supplement “Beauty Secrets are so simple” p27-29
10. 2004 Nov 4th Daily Express “Diet Secrets of the Supermodels” p44-45
11. 2005 Feb 13th Tom Parker Bowles Daily Mail Night&Day magazine “Chic Eating” p49
12. 2005 May 12th Evening Standard “Secrets of My Success”
13. 2006 Nov 18th TV Now – Dublin Liz Dwyer’s “Beauty Flash”
14. 2002 Published Supermodels’ Beauty Secrets ISBN 978-0-7499-2344-0
15. 2004 Published Supermodels’ Diet Secrets ISBN 0 7499 2517 5