Chapter 5 - You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico

As an adolescent, Christa began working on some of the attrib­utes that would become integral to her later ‘Nico’ persona. Helma Wolff pinpointed the time when the deep, baritone pronunciation, which was synonymous with the singer’s work, began. ‘It started about the age of twelve,’ she recalled. ‘She often came to me after school and asked me in her strange pronunciation, “Aunt Helma, is Ulli also there [said using elongated vowels]?” She always sang like that.’ Though ‘as a child she had a dark voice’, Aunt Helma still tried to get the pre-teen girl to ‘talk reasonably, say the words short’. Grete also noticed the difference in her daughter, but simply wrote off the odd behaviour as a symptom of impending puberty. Nico later reflected on this time, stating, ‘When I was young in Berlin I was not interested in many boys. Well, I was interested, but nothing more. I was shy. I have always been shy, this has been my difficulty. Some people think I am distant, while I think I am shy.’

Though admittedly a bit reticent, the determined and innova­tive young girl set her sights on trying to connect with the local fashionable set, spending time on the most aspirational streets in Berlin. Filled with shops, fashion houses, hotels and restaurants, the thoroughfares provided a glimpse into a tantalizing world, far away from the atrocities the young teen had seen and experienced. Christa also began haunting key shopping ports of call religiously, praying and hoping to be noticed by anyone who might be able to help her. Helma recounted, ‘She took walks on the Kurfürstendamm,8 she went window-shopping. She had no friends, she just went by herself.’ Another favourite spot for the teen was Berlin’s elite shop­ping centre, the Kaufhaus des Westens (Department Store of the West, or KaDeWe for short). Like its upscale cousins Harrods of London and Bergdorf Goodman of New York, the KaDeWe catered to a well-heeled clientele keen to snap up the latest and greatest fashions. With her tall stature, graceful body and high cheekbones, Christa attracted a lot of attention, with Helma remembering, ‘Christa was always noticed by everyone. What a proud child this is. A uniquely beautiful girl … You couldn’t miss it.’

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Considered one of the foremost German fashion designers of the post-war period, Heinz Oestergaard catered to a wealthy clien­tele and celebrities. Housed within the KaDeWe was his ‘salon’, where his newest pieces were featured. Instead of immobile plastic ­dummies, Oestergaard used good-looking young women to model his creations for potential customers, yet still referred to them as ‘mannequins’ or ‘dummies’. However, any job with Oestergaard was highly sought after, and his agents were constantly looking for new talent to inject into the daily fashion shows occurring within the sacred rooms. Christa caught the eye of one agent as he was planning the KaDeWe autumn show of 1953. Finally, her persist­ence had paid off.

Once she began, Christa soon saw that the realities of the job were less than glamorous. Mannequins were hidden behind a screen in the salon, where they quickly changed outfits, refreshed make-up, brushed out wigs and tried not to appear too sweaty as they modelled the newest styles for the attending glitterati. Nico later described the experience as ‘an alternative school. I understood why everything had to be just as it was; I could see the effect of a walk, a turn, a position … I was the centre of attention.’

The 1995 documentary Nico: Icon, written and directed by Susanne Ofteringer, provides invaluable interviews with many of the key figures in the artist’s life. It is a subjective film, painting Nico as neither a fallen martyr nor an unredeemable mess. Instead, it is one of the only texts that presents Nico as a flawed, interest­ing, troubled human. Ofteringer’s first-person, primary interviews with family, friends and colleagues – many of whom have sadly now passed away – provide a fairly well-rounded narrative of the woman behind the mythology.

This is especially relevant through reflections provided by Nico’s Aunt Helma.

‘She could move her body and act,’ Helma remembered. Thanks to her success with Oestergaard, the opportunities began pouring in. Christa excelled, even winning the title of ‘best mannequin at a parade to show off new items’ at one event. Her prize for the triumph was the rings she had modelled. A young photographer named Herbert Tobias was enlisted to snap her studded hands – and that, her aunt Helma recalled, ‘was the beginning’.

Tobias – who always went simply by his last name – was renowned for providing ornate, professional portraits for the fashion media, taking mannequins like Christa and transforming them into cover girls. The two quickly became close. Tobias proved to be both a good friend and a mentor. Fourteen years her senior, the photog­rapher gave the teen her first colour spread, for the magazine Bunte in January 1955. Though not often credited, further collaborations followed. Tobias’s images from these early modelling days reflected the teenager’s ability to transform seamlessly in front of the camera.9

At one of the many fashion shows Christa had started doing, someone from Vogue magazine approached her mother. The offer was beyond tempting. Grete was told that Vogue could offer her daughter a fantastic, affluent career in Paris. Yet despite living hand to mouth and with the threat of violence omnipresent, it was a tough decision. ‘Paris was the centre of the fashion world, you could not go higher. Imagine what she would earn! Imagine the fame!’ recalled Helma. But Grete was not as easily convinced. ‘My sis­ter said, “I couldn’t give my child to a completely foreign world. What’s all this about?”’ Helma recounted. But the girl was obstin­ate. ‘Christa cried and said, “Mummy, even if you don’t want it, I’m going without you!” Then she went directly to Paris.’

At the time, Christa was determined to provide a better life for herself and Grete. In 1969, she reflected on that first departure from Germany, telling Twen, ‘At 16, I became a photo model. I simply did what seemed easiest to me; after all, I had to take care of myself and my mother.’ The teen wanted to pay Grete back for the uncon­ditional love and support she had provided, and saw becoming a professional ‘dummy’ as the easiest way to accomplish this. When later asked if she enjoyed the profession, Nico answered, ‘No. I have not thought long whether I enjoy it. I did it to feed ourselves.’ Like it or not, Tobias had plans for his new protégée, viewing her as a vehicle for the rehabilitation of his post-war career.10 In Christa, Tobias recognized his own grit and determination. Having already tasted success on the Parisian fashion scene, he wanted to position the girl for similar fame. Christa was a willing and eager pupil.

Partnering with Tobias was an early example of her ability to take the initiative. One day in 1956, he prompted Christa to make a life-changing decision, as her name was ‘all wrong’ and ‘not inter­national’. ‘Models have one name, just like photographers and designers have one name,’ he told the model. She recounted how she got her new moniker, saying, ‘When Tobias took the first fashion ­photos of me, my name was Christa Päffgen. Tobias said, “That’s no name for a model. You’ve got to change your name. I’ll name you after a man I once loved in Paris. His name was Nico. That’s a nice name for you.”’

Christa’s new moniker allowed for an entirely different persona to be born, one without the baggage of family issues, poverty, vio­lence and patriarchal frameworks. As Nico is usually a name for men, suddenly even the limited opportunities and expectations for a female artist seemed temporarily non-existent. ‘Nico’ allowed Christa to seemingly shed her past and step into an unpolluted simu­lacrum. In the 1969 Twen interview, when asked about her mem­ories of the war, Nico responded, ‘That was not me, that was another girl … My memory consists of shreds and short flashes, never the whole picture.’ Though she thought she was at last out­witting her past, Christa never fully became Nico, remarking, ‘You don’t have to be you to be you.’ It would remain simply a role, an ‘other’ that she was portraying to the outside world while still eternally haunted by her youth. When asked how she dealt with the idiosyncrasies of modelling, she responded, ‘I was an alien … I did not take it seriously. I could laugh … because I was playing the part of Nico.’ For the rest of her life, she would maintain the dual personas: Nico, the created, cool ice queen that she showed to the world and her audience expected; and Christa, the brave yet dam­aged survivor at the core of her being, the tormented casualty of a grim childhood. In the over one hundred interviews for this book, not one person remembered ever referring to the singer by anything else but her Tobias-chosen name. Nico had become so good at play­ing Nico that she rarely showed anyone her authentic self.

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The birth of Nico began the decline of Grete. Mother and daugh­ter had been in each other’s company almost continuously since Christa’s birth, and they were incredibly close. Helma recalled them both sobbing hysterically at the airport when Nico first left Berlin; she hypothesized that this initial detachment was one that neither of them ever really got over. It was the first instance of what would become a lifetime pattern of Nico being completely on her own, alone, a foreigner in a foreign country. At first Grete was worried about where the teen was staying and who was chaperoning her. Christa quelled Grete’s concern, calling her and reassuring her that she was ‘well accommodated’. The loss of her daughter ‘almost broke her heart’, Helma remembered, as Grete ‘started to suffer from the separation … Christa would not have seen that, or even understood it.’ Christa’s mind was focused on being Nico, making money and creating a new life away from her past. Her diary overflowing with assignments and bookings, Christa did not come back to Berlin, as the opportunities lay elsewhere. Though the absence of the girl left Grete bed-bound with grief, Nico’s star was about to soar.

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In a Parisian dark room, Tobias met his fellow German Willy Maywald, who was already a famous photographer in his own right. Tobias began helping Maywald retouch images, which led to the established shooter introducing the young artist to crucial contacts at elite magazines. Tobias also set his protégée up with a meeting with his new friend. Soon Maywald would begin booking regular shoots for Nico with the esteemed Elle magazine.

Maywald had worked in the Parisian fashion industry since the 1930s, making a name for himself with his black-and-white portraits. He was also one of the first to take models out of the controlled studio environment and onto the bustling streets of the iconic city, capturing the energy and vibrancy that inspired so much of its famed haute couture. His images were featured regularly on the covers of Vogue and Vanity Fair, with celebrities lining up to have him snap their pictures.

In his autobiography, published in German after his death in 1985, the photographer recounts the day he first encountered the young model:

I was retouching photographs on a summer afternoon at my big working desk, and the door to my garden was open as always. A sound in the room made me look up. In front of me stood a most beautiful girl with bright eyes. She was tall and well-proportioned, and her hair was cut short. She gave me a shy glance and introduced herself to me … I had just had the assignment to shoot some ready-made clothes at the Côte d’Azur. And because Nico was exactly the right look for that, I hired her at once.

The two would go on to collaborate repeatedly, Maywald cap­turing the fresh-faced blonde with the haunted eyes for top fashion magazines and designers, including Elle and Dior. Once Nico was firmly under Maywald’s wing, her image gained a more consistent, defined quality. Maywald played a crucial role in helping Nico find her signature look of fair hair and long fringe, while fine-tuning her natural ease in front of the camera. Of her Maywald-influenced look, Nico commented, ‘You could say I looked the same from 1957 for ten years, until I changed the colour of my hair for Jim Morrison. Maybe my hair grew a little longer or shorter depending on the cut, otherwise I never bothered to make a change. Whether it was quite the fashion I didn’t care, because I had found my fash­ion. It gave me a security.’

Security was important for the teen, who often felt intimidated by the high-powered, high-glamour social situations she suddenly found herself in. Nico’s rapid evolution – moving from Berlin to Paris, unaccompanied by family members – must have been extremely overwhelming for a girl of sixteen, especially as she did not speak the native language, having to learn it at the same time as attempting to acclimatize to her new life. She quickly moved from print-ad model – with campaigns for everything from face cream to washing-up liquid – to cover girl, adding the catwalk during fashion season to her accomplishments. Maywald helped the teen navigate the fashion business, tutoring her on how to carry herself and act in various social situations. In a later interview, Nico said, ‘I could say that I reserved all my energy in Berlin for Paris. I was never so lazy in Paris because Willy Maywald was strict, and he counselled me. But when you are eighteen in Paris, you do not want to be lazy, in case you miss something. I tried to miss nothing, but I understood nothing as well.’

Though grateful to her mentor, she was still an outsider, a young woman alone in an unfamiliar country. Nico was acutely conscious of her turbulent childhood and lack of formal education. She would often make up for it simply by being quiet and coming off as aloof. The young model would carry a copy of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, in an attempt to prove herself worthy of the attention she received. Nico’s coping mechanism became to simply watch, listen and learn from others, teaching herself how to adapt to various situ­ations. Later, she would say of the time, ‘I could not admit that I was out of my depth, but anyway I found a way to overcome my shortcomings. You might think it was easy, because the men in any case did not assume you had intelligence. But that was a trap, or do I mean a convention? I didn’t want anyone to assume I was a stupid girl, because I don’t believe I was. I was uneducated because of the restraining system of the school. I found instead an underground way to learn. You can study most from other people not when they are formal, but when they are relaxed.’

Nico’s quiet demeanour was often perceived as her being vacant and vapid, instead of it being the only protection available to the damaged girl.