Legendary Fashion Model and Fashion editor China Machando died at the age of 87 from a cardiac arrest at Stony Brook University Hospital in New York on Thursday night at her home in Connecticut.
She was the first non-white model to appear on the front cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine in 1959
Throughout her decades in the industry, she worked with a who’s who of the fashion world, including Hubert de Givenchy, Cristobal Balenciaga, Oleg Cassini, Pierre Cardin, and more. Machado even became the first diverse model on the cover of a major magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, in 1959 and also became its editor and worked for for 11 years, starting as a senior editor and eventually becoming its fashion director.
Machado continued to model into her 80’s, having appeared in a Cole Haan campaign in 2013 and most recently was shot by Steven Meisel for Ray-Ban.The model was born as Noel De Souza Machado in Shanghai China and made her mark in the industry as famed photographer Richard Avedon’s muse.
Machado is survived by her husband, Ricardo Rosa, daughters Blanche LaSalle and Emmanuelle LaSalle-Hill, and two grandchildren.
