Veruschka was born Vera Gottliebe Anna Gräfin von Lehndorff-Steinort.
She used the shorter professional name Veruschka while building an international modeling career in the 1960s. Her aristocratic family background and German identity were often discussed in profiles, but her professional reputation came primarily from her unusually expressive work in fashion photography.
Veruschka became especially associated with transformation. She used makeup, costume, and body paint to alter her appearance, anticipating later forms of conceptual and performance-based fashion imagery. Her collaborations with influential photographers helped make her a distinctive figure rather than simply a conventional runway model.
She also appeared in Antonioni’s Blow-Up, one of the era’s most influential films about photography and modern London. Her birth name is sometimes shortened incorrectly in popular references, so the full name distinguishes her clearly from other 1960s models.