The documentary featuring Shanks will air sometime next year, but an exact date has not yet been set.

The designer doesn't think the item's journey is quite done.

"It is interesting to imagine where the corset will be in five, 10 or even 100 years, and to wonder if people looking at the painting by Shanks will speculate about its past," she said.

Chaplin said she will have to sit for the artist for seven eight-hour days, but Shanks expects to spend two weeks painting the corset.

"It's a lot easier than I thought it would be. We chat the whole time. We're having a good laugh," she said.

The pair has plenty to talk about. Chaplin is busy with the final rewrite for "Vega," a dark comedy-mystery about the fashion world. Chaplin, who has walked the runway for Roberto Cavalli, posed for the Pirelli calendar, modeled for top photographers and seen her share of fashion shows from the front row, said the fiction is based on her own experiences.

She is also getting ready to go on location in Rome for "The Chamber Piece," a film written by Tommaso Rossellini, who will also direct and star in it.