Soft focus for portraits of women....

Some time ago I spent a long time getting pin sharp images of a woman who was then completely put out by the fact that you could see all her blemishes.

She said she wanted "soft focus" whatever that is.

Anyhow, I have a photo here taken in the film 50s perhaps which is both soft but also in focus, undoubtedly a large aperture was used because the eyes are the sharpest but the whole image has a lovelly soft and gentle feel to it.

How do I achieve that with a DSLR in the camera?
I don't want to do much in post.

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Mark_A