Did you always dream of becoming a model?
No. I’d get approached by agents, and I’d do little jobs here and there, but I didn’t like the business. If you’re blond and have boobs, they want to put you on something like Baywatch, and I wanted nothing to do with that. But when Mario Testino came to take pictures of me, he was really focused on my face. I was 22, and he told me, “You know, this is going to change your life.”
Are those exotic Sports Illustrated shoots as glamorous as they seem?
There’s actually a lot that can go wrong. When we were shooting in Turks and Caicos, and it started to rain while I was wearing a painted-on swimsuit that hadn’t been waterproofed. It literally started dripping right off my body...and I had to streak back to the hotel!
Lots of models these days have second careers. Do you have one in the works?
I’m designing a line of swimwear because I’ve tried on so many over the years, and it’s a big part of my personal life. The line is simple, sexy, and all about accentuating what you have and covering up what you want to cover up.
Some models are exceedingly thin. Have you ever felt pressure to look like that?
When I first started modeling, the whole androgynous look was in. I remember going to castings in Paris, and they wouldn’t see girls who had over a B-cup. For one shoot, they taped down my boobs with duct tape. I always wanted to represent the natural, healthy girl, and I didn’t care if it was cool or trendy to look like you hadn’t eaten in two weeks.
Lesley Rotchford
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