Wilton Agent Walked the Paris Runways

As far as Dianne deWitt is concerned the 1980s were kinder and gentler times. “There was no fear,” she says. “It’s so changed.” The 80s were also the times that you couldn’t open the glossies without seeing the Texas native strutting elegantly down a catwalk, or draped in Carolina Herrera, Valentino and Bill Blass couture.

But a career as a top model was not what Dianne had planned for herself. Yes, she’d done some modeling as a teen in Houston, but her ambition was to be in musical theater on Broadway. “I’m a lyric soprano,” she says, “I have a bachelor’s degree in music and vocal performance from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.”

Dianne’s plans took a hard tack the moment she landed in New York with her mom. “Eileen Ford (co-founder of Ford Models) met us and offered me a job,” she explains. The next thing she knew she was living in Paris, posing for legendary photographers, Lord Snowdon, Norman Parkinson and David Bailey. “I tell people that I have a post-graduate degree in modeling. It all just happened,” she laughs.

While in Paris, Dianne met her former husband, Edward Menicheschi, publisher of Vanity Fair. “I walked out of the Ritz in sneakers and hair rollers and bumped into him,” she giggles.

Back in New York, Dianne continued modeling as she juggled home ownership and motherhood. “We bought a house in Armonk and had a nightmare mortgage,” she says, “it was 11 percent plus three points.” And so began an interest in real estate that led to her new career as a real estate agent with Prudential in Wilton. “I moved to Wilton after my divorce and have met some of my very best friends through the schools,” she says. Dianne’s daughter, Adrienne, is a junior at Wilton High School.

Dianne deWitt is one of life’s eternal optimists. “I started as an agent in 2008,” she says. “I’ve never known the ‘good times!’” But, Dianne says, she enjoys everything about the business. “I learn every day and it’s always something interesting.”

And how about that career in musical theater? Well, Dianne did manage to sing in New York for a while. “I was in the choir at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church,” she chuckles, “and now I sing in the shower.”

Shakespeare said that music is the food of love. Do you agree? Email me at fpearson@mainstreetconnect.us.

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