was a Japanese model, first Japanese model who worked in Paris, from 1960, to the late 1960s, considered to be a first Japanese supermodel.

Biography

Pierre Cardin Pierre Cardin (, , ), born Pietro Costante Cardino (2 July 1922 – 29 December 2020), was an Italian-born naturalised-French fashion designer. He is known for what were his avant-garde style and Space Age designs. He preferred geometric sha ...

met and fell in love with Matsumoto in 1960 during a trip to Japan. She would eventually follow him to Paris where she was Cardin's top model. Known as Miss Hiroko, she was the first ever Japanese model for a French clothing collection. Matsumoto ended her modeling career in 1967 and married Henry Berghauer, a manager at groupe

. Berghauer went on to become a manager at

Hanae Mori was a Japanese fashion designer. She was one of only two Japanese women to have presented her collections on the runways of Paris and New York, and the first Asian woman to be admitted as an official ''haute couture'' design house by the Fédé ...

, and later of fashion company Hervé Léger. In 1970, Matsumoto played the prominent part of Kyoko, the Japanese lover, in French director François Truffaut's movie '' Bed and Board''. Many of the dresses worn in the movie were designed by the Hanae Mori fashion company. A few years later, Hiroko Matsumoto married Jean-Claude Cathalan, who, at the time, was a manager at

Roussel Uclaf Roussel Uclaf S.A. was a French pharmaceutical company and one of several predecessor companies of today's Sanofi. It was the second largest French pharmaceutical company before it was acquired by Hoechst AG of Frankfurt, Germany in 1997, with p ...

'' Who's Who in France'' He later became the president of Revillon,

Parfums Caron Parfums Caron is a French perfume house founded in 1904 by Ernest Daltroff. Over the course of the years, many Caron Perfumes were created. As of 2019, the brand is owned by Luxembourg-based Cattleya. Foundation Caron was founded in 1904 by Er ...

Jean-Louis Scherrer Jean-Louis Scherrer (19 February 1935 – 20 June 2013) was a Parisian fashion designer and couturier. Although he had name recognition and was known for his work, he is mainly noted for being the first couture designer to be sacked from thei ...

and is the current president of Comité Montaigne. Their daughter, Maxime Cathalan, was kidnapped in Neuilly-sur-Seine at the age of 20 months in front of her nurse. The child was returned on 23 June 1975 for a ransom of 1.5 million Franc. In 2003, Hiroko Cathalan died in Paris at the age of 67 after a long period in the hospital. The cause of her death remains uncertain.Obituary: Hiroko Matsumoto
''The Japan Times'', 23 June 2003

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Matsumoto, Hiroko Japanese female models People from Tokyo 1936 births 2003 deaths