One night, after having mysteriously found a camera in their apartment, Rubartelli asked Schluter to pose for him on a beach. With no stylist, hair, or makeup—nor much knowledge of how the camera worked—he took pictures of the wife he feared he was losing, pictures that were infused with longing, youth, and freedom—qualities rarely expressed in the formal fashion photographs of the time. Having asked Schluter what the most important magazine was, Rubartelli got together some money to develop the film and secretly sent the results to Vogue.

Much to Rubartelli’s surprise, he received a positive reply from New York in the form of a telegram, signed Diana Vreeland, then Vogue’s editor in chief, that read: “Beautiful model, beautiful pictures, will get in touch with you.” Soon, the photographer and his model wife were working with Consuelo Crespi, the magazine’s editor in Rome; their first story appeared in the August 1964 issue.

As Rubartelli and Schluter were racking up credits and becoming known as a couple, though, their love story was unraveling. “We spent too much time together as photographer and model, and not enough as man and woman,” Their final rupture (circa 1965) left Rubartelli “without work, without my wife, without my model, without my son.”

Take a look at these glamorous photos to see the beauty of young Françoise Rubartelli as a model in the 1960s.