Francina Díaz Mestre

Francina was born in Albi, southern France, and at nine months old moved to Barcelona, which she has come to adopt as her birthplace. A remark when she was 16 by a customer of her mother, a seamstress by trade, made her realize that she could take advantage of her body to work in the world of fashion. She embarked on the adventure of entering the world of haute couture. She began working as a model for the designer Pedro Rodríguez. For 2 years he gave her the grounding for her future career as a model. At the age of 18, she entered the Santa Eulàlia fashion house in Barcelona. She worked there for four years and began her career as a model for prestigious fashion designers in Spain. When she was 20, she moved to Paris where she modelled for Lanvin for one year and became Spain's first internationally recognized model. Over the following two years she pursued her international career by working with the greatest designers of the time. She was selected by the Chamber of Fashion (which upheld the interests of Spain's fashion industry and designers) as its representative in countries such as Japan, Belgium and France. She subsequently went to Geneva before returning to Spain to become the country's first freelance model. This allowed her to take on a wide range of work and to enter into the world of advertising. Marçal Moliner discovered her and paved the way for her as a promotional model. Francina's face became familiar in every household in Spain through her work in advertising campaigns, TV commercials and the most prestigious fashion magazines. During this period, she worked with the greatest names in advertising such as Leopoldo Pomés, Estudios Moro, Tessi, Xavier Miserachs, Gianni Ruggiero and Toni Bernad. She took part in the Risk campaign for Andrés Sardá and appeared in TV commercials, notably La Lechera, Gallina Blanca, Camisas IKE, Tergal, Henkel Ibérica, Playtex and Loewe.

In 1976, she put an end to her career as a model and moved to Italy, where she lived in Florence and Milan.