Boyd and George Harrison announce their marriage to the press the day after their wedding, January 22, 1966. “The lead up to our wedding was actually terribly sad for me,” Boyd writes. “I couldn’t tell anyone that I was getting married except my mother. I must have told Mary Quant, though, because she had a fur coat made for me.”

Boyd models a Quorum minidress in London. “It was like a zeitgeist,” she writes of the city at that time. “We were no longer twin sets and pearls; we were forging ahead, going through the tunnel knowing there’s something at the other end.”

*Top,* Boyd and Harrison, who were introduced by Beatles manager Brian Epstein. *Above,* Harrison on a Triumph at Friar Park, the Oxfordshire home the couple bought at the encouragement of Epstein, who “wanted to get all of the Beatles out of London,” Boyd writes. “It was becoming very difficult to either leave or come into the London flat because there were so many girls outside.”

Boyd during a modeling session. “I took every job available at first,” she writes. “The more prestigious the magazine, the less they paid … but at least they had a makeup artist.”

Tea break in Covent Garden Market, 1963.

An early test shoot. “I was working and learning at the same time.”

Eric Clapton in a hotel room. Clapton, whom Boyd married in 1979, first “encouraged me to buy a camera,” she writes.

Boyd and her sister, Jenny, in a shot for a Foale & Tuffin campaign. Jenny was working for the designers at the time.

*Top,* one of the scrapbooks started by Boyd’s mother, which Boyd kept with “little cuttings from my work.... I loved working and I loved the idea of making money because it meant I could buy shoes … and I love shoes.” *Above,* a never-before-published shot of Boyd photographing Jenny at Friar Park.

“Shoots were simple affairs,” Boyd writes. “A plain roll of paper for a backdrop, whatever props were lying around, and a single light.”

Boyd, center, with Kellie Wilson and Elisa Ngai, wearing clothes by the Fool for the Apple Boutique, and photographed by Ronald Traeger for *Vogue,* 1968.

Pattie Boyd’s Life in Pictures

She married George Harrison and then Eric Clapton, was a muse for Mary Quant and David Hockney, and was photographed by David Bailey and Norman Parkinson, among others. Now the English model is publishing a book about it all

“I never wanted to get married,” says Pattie Boyd. “I was aware that there were secretarial colleges, but I knew that wasn’t for me.” Instead, she became a model. Boyd got to London in 1962, just as the city was starting to swing, and her big blue eyes, blond bangs, pouty Mattel mouth, and that slight space between her two front teeth were made to order for the era. Mary Quant was rising as a designer and David Hockney as an artist, and Boyd—Jean Shrimpton by way of a string bean—became their muse.

By 1964, Boyd was famous and dating George Harrison. A typical day started with a morning photo shoot—the likes of David Bailey, Brian Duffy, Terence Donovan, or Norman Parkinson behind the lens—followed by a midday interview for a Beatles film, and maybe another shoot in the afternoon.

She ended up marrying Harrison, on January 21, 1966, a date she marked in her diary with big bold cursive—“getting married”—surrounded by dozens of little hearts. Despite becoming a “Beatle bride,” Boyd remained vehemently independent, scoring still more Vogue covers and movie contracts. “I was just living and having fun with my group of friends, which happened to be the Beatles.”

The book Pattie Boyd: My Life in Pictures, out now, takes us through that first marriage, and then on to her second, to Eric Clapton, and her third, to real-estate developer Rod Weston. Boyd remembers trips to India and Tunisia, describes her houses, and details her switch from modeling to photography. There’s a postcard from John Lennon, who wrote, “Darling, I miss you,” and a shot of Boyd arm in arm with rival rock royalty—the Rolling Stones. Archival magazine covers, photo shoots, and letters punctuate the life. Whether she’s modeling or posing candidly in her pajamas, Boyd perennially embodies that 60s spirit. —Elena Clavarino

Elena Clavarino is the Senior Editor for AIR MAIL

Photos: John French (Rolling Stones); Getty Images (announcement, tea break); © Nancy Sandys Walker (modeling session; simple shoot); Ronald Traeger (Wilson, Boyd, and Ngai); Pattie Boyd Archive (all others)

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Pattie Boyd’s Life in Pictures