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Long before she was the undisputed queen of the kitchen or the person who made jail time look like a brief sabbatical in a craft room, Martha Stewart was a working model. You’ve probably seen the grainy, black-and-white young Martha Stewart images floating around Instagram or Pinterest. She’s usually leaning against a tree in a pair of perfectly creased shorts or looking impossibly chic in a vintage Chanel suit. Honestly, she looked like the quintessential "all-American girl," but there was a lot more grit behind those photos than just a lucky genetic lottery win.
Martha Kostyra (her maiden name) didn't just stumble into a studio. She was a hustler from day one. Growing up in a middle-class Polish-American household in Nutley, New Jersey, she learned to cook, sew, and garden because that’s just what you did. But she also had a brain for business that most teenagers lack. By the time she was 13, she was already booking jobs. While other kids were hanging out at the soda fountain, Martha was taking the train into New York City to build a career that would eventually pay for her Ivy League-adjacent education.
Why Everyone Is Obsessed With These Vintage Photos
There is something hypnotic about seeing a 19-year-old Martha Stewart. Maybe it’s the irony. We know her as the woman who can tell you exactly how to roast a turkey and fold a fitted sheet, so seeing her as a wide-eyed college student in 1960s fashion feels a bit like finding a secret chapter of a book you’ve already read.
But let’s be real: she was stunning. She had this "cool girl" energy long before that was a marketing term. In the 1960s, she was a student at Barnard College, majoring in European and architectural history. New York City was expensive even then, and Martha wasn’t the type to rely on a "very partial" scholarship. She needed cash.
Modeling was the answer. She wasn't just doing it for fun; she was doing it for $50 an hour. That sounds like a decent rate today, but in the early 1960s? That was a massive amount of money. To put it in perspective, $50 in 1961 is roughly equivalent to over **$500 in 2026** purchasing power. She was basically making a senior executive's hourly rate while studying for her art history exams.
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The Iconic Clients: From Chanel to Cigarettes
When you look through young Martha Stewart images, you’ll notice she wasn’t just doing local department store flyers. She was working with the heavy hitters.
The Chanel Connection
Yes, Martha Stewart modeled for Chanel. One of the most famous stories from her modeling days is that she worked for the house of Chanel while Coco Chanel herself was still alive and running the show. Martha has even mentioned in interviews that she kept some of the Chanel garments she received back then. Can you imagine the eBay value of a 1960s Chanel suit owned and modeled by a young Martha? It’s the ultimate fashion artifact.
The "All-American" Commercials
If you dig deep into her portfolio, you’ll find her face attached to some very 1960s brands. She was the face of:
- Unilever (Her first big break at age 15)
- Breck Shampoo (The "Breck Girls" were a huge deal back then)
- Lifebuoy Soap
- Clairol
- Tareyton Cigarettes
The Tareyton ads are particularly funny in hindsight. They featured the famous slogan, "Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!" Usually, the models had a fake black eye to show how "tough" they were about their brand loyalty. Martha, with her pristine skin and perfect hair, looking like she’d "rather fight," is a hilarious contrast to her later image as the patron saint of domestic tranquility.
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The Reality of Being "The All-American Girl"
Despite how effortless those photos look, Martha has been candid about how she felt during that time. She told People magazine a few years ago that she actually struggled with her self-image. "I was so skinny and so perfect for modeling, but I didn't know that I was beautiful," she admitted.
She also felt like she didn't quite fit the "sexy" vibe that was starting to take over the industry in the mid-60s. She was the "all-American girl." She played "married parts" in commercials when she was only 16. While other models were getting caught up in the wilder side of the 60s scene, Martha was focused on her books and her paycheck. She’s famously said she never really did the whole "sleeping around" thing that was rampant in the industry because she simply wasn't interested in that lifestyle. She was there to work.
The 1961 Glamour Accolade
In 1961, when she was 20, Glamour magazine named her one of the "Ten Best-Dressed College Girls" in America. This was a massive deal at the time. It gave her national exposure and cemented her status as a style icon before "lifestyle" was even a category. You can find photos of her from this era wearing shorts on the Barnard campus—a move that was actually considered a bit scandalous back then. She was always pushing boundaries, even if it was just with her wardrobe.
How Modeling Shaped the Mogul
You might think modeling is just standing there and looking pretty, but for Martha, it was a business masterclass. She learned about lighting, composition, and how to present a product. She learned how to work with photographers and how to command a room.
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When she eventually left modeling, she didn't go straight to catering. She spent about eight years as a stockbroker on Wall Street. The discipline she learned from modeling—showing up on time, being "on" for the camera, and understanding how to sell an image—directly translated to the trading floor.
The young Martha Stewart images we see today aren't just pretty pictures; they are the visual record of her first successful business venture. She used her looks to fund her education, which gave her the intellectual foundation to build an empire.
The 2023 Full-Circle Moment
If you want to talk about "actionable insights" from Martha's life, look no further than her 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover. At 81 years old, she became the oldest woman to ever grace the cover of the magazine.
It wasn't just a stunt. It was a statement. It connected the 19-year-old girl in the Chanel suit to the 81-year-old billionaire in the swimsuit. The common thread? Total confidence and a refusal to let anyone else define what she was "supposed" to be doing at any given age.
What You Can Learn from Martha’s Early Career
- Monetize your assets early. Martha didn't wait for a "career" to start. She used what she had (her appearance and work ethic) to get where she wanted to go.
- Diversify your skills. She studied history while modeling, then became a stockbroker, then a caterer. No experience is wasted.
- Longevity is a choice. The reason those young Martha Stewart images still resonate is because she has maintained a consistent standard of excellence for over six decades.
If you’re looking to find these images for yourself, search through the archives of the Library of Congress or digital collections of 1960s Glamour and Vogue. You’ll see a young woman who wasn't just a model, but a mogul in the making. She wasn't just posing for the camera; she was looking right through it at a future she was already planning to build.
To see the evolution for yourself, you can track her journey through her official digital archives or the PBS Makers documentary, which features some of the best high-resolution footage of her early days. Whether you love her or hate her, you have to respect the hustle. She’s been "living" her best life since the Eisenhower administration.