Vivien Neves is every man’s idea (at least twice a week) of what a woman should be, and most women’s idea (some of the time) of what they’d secretly like to be, could be, or – in a few cases – actually are. At twenty-three, Vivien is Britain’s top nude model. She’s the one who got everyone going in the electricity ad, sitting at a dressing table in slip and rollers. She’s the one who advertises cigars on television by slopping about in Caribbean waters in a T-shirt. And she’s the one who appeared full-page nude in an advert in The Times, forsooth – “people haven’t stopped talking about my nipples ever since.”.

Talk about Viven’s nipples must have stopped at some point, but that’s stil quite an achievement! This stunning photo illustrates an article about dangerously attractive women, also including Joan Bakewell and Edna O’Brien (just in case you thought it was all about nipples). Neves, who sadly died in 2003, was photographer John Kelly’s girlfriend at the time (they would later marry) and you can tell by the way he’s photographed her so beautifully here.

Photographed by John Kelly.

Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Cosmopolitan, May 1972