Audrey Hepburn's granddaughter makes her modelling debut

After stepping into the spotlight and appearing in US Harper's Bazaar, Emma Ferrer says she hopes to become an artist. The 20-year-old says she never met her grandmother, but enjoyed many of her movies.

You'd be forgiven for not realising that Audrey Hepburn had a granddaughter. Emma Ferrer, the daughter of Sean Hepburn Ferrer, the iconic actress's first child with actor Mel Ferrer, has lived her life out of the spotlight. But, for the first time, she's stepped out of the shadows and made her modelling debut on the pages of US Harper's Bazaar.

In an interesting parallel to her grandmother's life, Ferrer has been photographed by Michael Avedon, the grandson of famed photographer Richard Avedon, to whom Hepburn was a muse in the 1950s. The character of Dick Avery in one of Hepburn's most famous films, Funny Face, was indeed based on Avedon.

Ferrer, 20, never met her grandmother; she was born in 1993, the year after Hepburn's death from cancer. She spent her formative years at Hepburn's country house in Switzerland before moving to Los Angeles and then Florence at the age of 14.

"The first images I have of her are, interestingly enough, when she was quite young," she tells the publication of her grandmother. "I remember seeing a photo of her jumping on a trampoline - I believe this was before I understood that she was famous. But I remember thinking that she looked like a friend I wish I could have had."

Like her grandmother she has learnt ballet, but she hopes to become an artist having studied at the Florence Academy of Art, so modelling is likely to become something she does on the side. She'll soon relocate to New York to continue her creative studies.

She has some items that belonged to the actress, including "her cashmere turtlenecks, which I adore and wear all throughout the winter", but admits she hasn't seen all of her films. "When I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, I enjoyed it the same way any young girl would," she says. "I've seen My Fair Lady and Roman Holiday, but I suppose my favourite is Funny Face."

"But as a child I couldn't really relate to Audrey Hepburn, the actress," she adds. "To me, she was family. I can live with her through my father. His stories are all about his growing up."

(China Daily 08/23/2014 page24)