Cara Delevingne: VICTORIA'S SECRET

@caradelevingne I was saving this ass video until last! Take it away @doutzen @joansmalls @victoriassecret check out the #VSfashionshow playing tonight! X



VICTORIA'S SECRET Fashion Show 2013 Focus on "CARA DELEVINGNE"

Three million Instagram followers, 4,000 tweets, 50 catwalk appearances and countless onesies. In just over a year, and aged only 21, Cara Delevingne has turned into a model phenomenon and changed the fashion landscape forever. Violet Henderson examined just how she wiggled her way - and her eyebrows - into superstardom in the January 2014 issue of Vogue.



Model of the moment", "Fashion's It-girl": like all prodigies to whom labels won't quite stick nor superlatives stretch to express, Cara Delevingne is frustratingly, alluringly elusive. She bucks trends and conforms to them in equal measure. On paper, her career particularly in 2013, the year in which she turned 21 and ascended to heady phenomenon status - has followed a well-established trajectory towards model superstardom. After two quiet(ish) years getting to know the business (she worked five days a week on contract for Asos before scoring a Burberry campaign), her big global push began at the autumn/winter '13 shows: Cara walked on 40 different catwalks in New York, London, Milan and Paris, every step she took garnering column inches and fans. The world went mad for the impish beauty with the upturned nose, dominating eyebrows and piercing blue eyes. The magazine editorials flooded in, all 47 of them, 14 of which were cover stories (six Vogue covers, including one British Vogue and a Miss Vogue). Simultaneously there were nine advertising campaigns, including Chanel, DKNY and Saint Laurent. By the time the spring/summer '14 shows came around six months later, Cara was in a position to pull back and make her own choices: she walked for only 10 fashion houses, each of which she had a personal connection with.



While catwalk models normally measure 5ft 10in or taller, Cara is 5ft 9in and smaller than sample size (Marc Jacobs once referred to her as a "dwarf"). When she's stressed, she suffers from the skin condition psoriasis, which requires a team of make-up artists to conceal. She is outspoken about her distaste for high heels and often arrives at shows and shoots in onesies - which she admits can annoy people. She does not go to the gym, she likes McDonald's, she makes no bones about not wearing make-up, and when she gets dressed does not seek extensive sartorial advice (despite the fact that the paparazzi documents her every look). She has never gone as far as saying she dislikes modelling, but she has said "Fashion Week is horrible" and, on countless occasions, that acting and music are her great passions. She is, as far as it is possible for her to be, an anti-model, who often seems a bit bemused by her own success: after winning Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards she said, "Even to be nominated was such a shock."

There are now hundreds of social-media accounts devoted to Delevingne, including Cara's Eyebrows (3,600 followers), Cara's Thigh Gap and, even more esoterically, Cara's Fingers. The model - who, last May, hit 1 million Twitter followers and has nearly 3 million on Instagram - is far from oblivious to their existence; she retweets, follows back and interacts (as far as is possible while having a pretty full-time job). In this respect she is the opposite of the famously reticent Moss. Doukas, also Moss's agent, is not convinced that the older supermodel would have "been OK" in this area of constant updates and communication, although when Cara was photographed dropping a bag of suspicious-looking white powder outside her front door she markedly didn't take to Twitter and neither she nor her agency issued a statement; the matter soon passed, with only H&M dropping her from future campaigns.


British models Jourdan Dunn, Cara Delevingne and Eliza Cummings star in DKNY's new ad campaign, shot in Times Square.

Cara's devil-may-care attitude has more than just teenage appeal; another of her big supporters is Karl Lagerfeld, who makes reference to her pluck: "She gives a new energy. The strength of her personality makes her unique." Hers is a curious, engrossing vivacity that stems from a love of performance. As a child - not so long ago - she put on plays and dances, entertaining any way she could.

It's not so much a case of what next for Cara, but when, and in what order, and how she will fit it in. One thing's for sure: she's taking creative control. No longer will there be handbags, shoes, tweezers or even, bizarrely, walking sticks made in her name without her solicitation; for now, in a move strangely unprecedented for a model, she's trademarked her name. She likes to joke that she might bring out a line of onesies. If she did, it would surely be a lucrative joke, for anything she touches sells, even last year's colouring book, Colour Me Good Cara. And then there is her unabashed dream of becoming a musician. Her duet last year with the soulful upcoming jazz star Will Heard, posted on Youtube to 1.5 million views, was surprisingly unassuming. Filmed in the studio, Cara sang not much more than a backing track in jeans and no make-up - and it was good. As was her drum solo at Charlotte Tilbury's make-up launch, Rock'n'Kohl.