Smugger than Justin Bieber on a nude Instagram tear. That's how I felt after dropping this 

 list a while back, mostly just to get one over on surf-dandy Chas Smith, arbiter of all things fashionable in surf. But oh how embarrassed I am today, after discovering that I overlooked the most glammed-up surfer of all time—Arnaud de Rosnay.

 Arnaud de Rosnay. French Aristocrat, pioneering Biarritz surfer, skateboard champ, sailboard daredevil, and jet-setting photographer for both 

. Looked like Robert Redford's younger, more swashbuckling brother. Thread-count inspector on the beds of the finest Pompidou-era beauties. Friday morning, de Rosnay's ruling the lineup at La Barre. Midnight Saturday, he's strolling into Maxim's in an ankle-length brocade jacket, swinging a brass-knobbed walking stick, cheek-kissing Bianca Jagger. Non-stop dazzle. Never worked a day in his life.

In 1980, while in Hawaii, the 34-year-old de Rosnay met a blond 17-year-old high school stunner named Jenna Severson (yes indeed, the underage daughter of SURFER founder John Severson), felt 

, and began pitching 25 different kinds of sophisticated Continental woo. The two were married just after Jenna's 18th birthday.

De Rosnay turned his attention to open-ocean sailboarding, and completed a series of headline-worthy first crossings: the Bering Strait, the English Channel, the Straights of Formosa. Then in late 1984, not long after outpacing his guide boat while attempting to cross the Taiwan Strait, de Rosnay was lost at sea. His body was never found. The French, I suppose, would argue that de Rosnay was glamorous unto death. A more prosaic mind would suggest that he should have hung up both his swash and his buckle a couple years earlier.

In any event, de Rosnay, today, is best remembered for his late-'60s work with 

when he was trading cover shots with the likes of Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon. Look at these nine photos. Argue among yourselves as to whether de Rosnay's work or de Rosnay himself was more beautiful.

THE NINE MUSES OF ARNAUD DE ROSNAY

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos