The idea of having a charmed life seems very far-fetched these days, but Marisa Berenson is living proof that it’s possible. Elsa Schiaparelli is Marisa’s grandmother, and Diana Vreeland was a good family friend who put Marisa in Vogue at the age of 16 (well, actually, Marisa first appeared in Vogue as a baby when her christening portrait, shot by Irving Penn, was printed in the glossy.) She went on to have a stellar career as a model, being lensed by the likes of Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Hiro, and Richard Avedon. She eventually smashed through the model/actress barrier, with a breakout turn in Stanley Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon. While we could go on and on about her accomplishments and career, luckily we don’t have to: Marisa has a book out now titled Marisa Berenson: A Life in Pictures (Rizzoli, 2011) which was edited by Steven Meisel. As the title suggests, it’s a pictorial retrospective, and much like Marisa herself, stunning and completely fascinating.

At a small cocktail gathering earlier this week to celebrate the launch of her book, Marisa said she thought the time was right for a book, since the world seems to be particularly inspired by the 60s and 70s now, and so much of her career happened during those heady times. We knew that we wanted to hear more of Marisa’s stories when she had no qualms telling the room that she “[had] the first titties in Vogue” and then told us about a shoot in which everyone dug through the garbage cans of seafood restaurants to get shells to use in her hair for a shoot (pic in gallery below). She also revealed that she has a skin care line coming down the pike (featuring prickly pear–and if her skin is any indication about the efficacy of prickly pear, we will gladly smear it all over ourselves). We had the chance to speak to Marisa about her career, about walking for Tom Ford, and about her thoughts on models today.

Fashionista: How did it happen that you walked in the Tom Ford show?
Marisa Berenson: He literally called me up and said ‘Would you be in it?’ and I said, ‘Are you kidding? Of course I’ll be in it!’ He’s such a special person; I find that everything he does is so perfect and beautiful . I was honored. He celebrates women of all ages.

Had you ever worked with him before?
No, actually I hadn’t. We’d met a lot through the years. He would always say to me, ‘Oh I have pictures of you all over my studio,’ so I was always touched by his comments. I was so flattered.

There’s a lot of controversy lately about models being too young and too skinny. What do you think about the modeling profession now?
It’s very different now. When I was a model I felt very protected. Nowadays it’s become a big, big business; it’s a very cold business. They kind of haul them out there like they’re numbers. I feel sorry for these very young girls, who come from different countries, who are all in a dream to make it big, to make money, to become famous–and they’re just vulnerable. I don’t know how protected they are and I think it’s sad. I look at some of the girls and they look totally forlorn and just lost.

You’ve been both an actress and a model. What do you think about big American magazines putting mostly actresses on the covers instead of models?
It went through a stage and I remember a turning point. There was that time after I did Barry Lyndon (1975) my agent said to me, ‘Oh Marisa you’ve got to tone down, you have to go around looking like the girl next door with no makeup on and jeans because that’s what everybody wants now.’ And I thought, ‘Oh..no! I’m not that.’ The actresses went through that period when they wanted to be taken seriously as individuals and intellectually kind of prove that they were serious–no glamour, no nothing. That got them to a place where no one wanted to photograph them anymore, and they were so NOT glamorous. Then the supermodels came along in the 80s and took over the actresses’ place. They were the stars. All of a sudden all these great-looking, glamorous girls were being photographed like they were actresses. They took over. Then [the actresses] woke up and said, ‘Wait a minute. These girls are taking our spotlight.’ Now Hollywood has gone back to being ultra glamorous which it should be, because it’s all about dreams, isn’t it? That’s what people want—to dream, to get away from their dreary, sad lives. I think [the actresses] have taken over again because they have more personality than the models.

What do you think about the revival of 70s fashion now?
It’ll never be the same, because it’s a whole different world. You can be inspired by the past but you can never copy it.