Svetlana Lloyd

Svetlana E. Lloyd (née Kassessinova/Kassessinoff) is an Egyptian-born former house model, then known as a "mannequin", for the Dior fashion house in Paris during the 1950s, under designers Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. She became known as the "Trapèze Line girl" after wearing Saint Laurent's Trapeze dress at a fashion show in 1958 and appearing on magazine covers around the world.

After retiring from modeling, Lloyd worked as a journalist and lecturer.

Early life She was born Svetlana Kassessinova or Kassessinoff in Egypt to Russian parents who had left Russia because of the revolution. Her father worked as a miniaturist and painter for King Farouk and her mother was a seamstress. She joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet, and whilst on a tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the United States, injured her knee ice skating, forcing her to give up ballet.

She was the first to model Saint Laurent's new Trapèze line dress, becoming the "Trapèze Line girl" after wearing the dress in Dior's January 1958 fashion show when the new silhouette, "growing from the bust" was first revealed. She subsequently featured on the cover of magazines around the world. and spent four years in New York, where they had two children, Alexander and Marina. She now lives in South Kensington, London, with her current husband.

Lloyd worked as an assistant editor for Mademoiselle magazine for 50 years but it took her decades to get used to wearing ill-fitting ready-to-wear clothes rather than haute couture garments that were made to fit. She later took up samba dancing, winning a silver medal as an amateur. In 2004, she sold two "tight and painful" corsets at Christie's that she wore at Dior, receiving £300 for them, despite observing that they had not been washed since 1956.