Veteran Bollywood actress Zeenat Aman recently offered her admirers a rare glimpse into the nascent days of her illustrious career, revisiting her early modelling assignments through a series of evocative vintage photographs shared on Instagram.The photos include vintage campaigns for airlines, jewellery houses, clothing lines and the iconic Lux soap brand.
Zeenat Aman wrote in the caption, "It is such a pity that I am an awful archivist! Almost all my material memories have been lost over the years. The photographs, letters, slides, and notes of my 50 year long career are all lost to the passage of time. Which is why I love stumbling across my old work online. Each picture gives me a little jolt of recollection, and unearths buried memories. My modelling career was short but fruitful, and an excellent outlet for a teenager working on her poise, confidence and pocket money!"
Zeenat further added, "These vintage ads are amongst my favourites. They’d be outdated today, but I do think there’s a charm to print advertisements that video can never replicate.
"So, from first to last:
1. Playing the “dark haired beauty” for @airindia in an ad I love, but I suspect would be sharply critiqued today for all its “exotic” exuberance. Thoughts?
2. Bouffants and cat eyes! A modelling assignment with Shobha De, for a jewellery brand if I remember correctly. Some years ago we bumped into one another at an event in Australia and @sanjoykroy made us recreate these frames for a laugh!
"3. Being a flower power poster girl for Krimpex! Stripes, minis, headbands, chokers, bellbottoms… I spent a scholarship year in California during the late 60s and you can see the influence it had on my fashion sense.
4. This one is from the later years. I had a long association with Lux, and they ran a number of advertisements with my mug!" (UNI)
