She's a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Dublin - and she's one of the hottest young models around. Fashion editor Deirdre McQuillanmeets Laragh McCann
Since she made her debut, at Sharon Wauchob's spring 2007 show at the Sorbonne, in Paris last September, Laragh McCann, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Dublin, has shot to success as a catwalk model in demand with the world's leading fashion designers. She has worked for Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan in New York, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu and Dries Van Noten in Paris and Miuccia Prada in Milan, to name but a few. She has gone straight to the top with no previous experience - quite an achievement for a young Irish girl.
She is now on first-name terms with Jacobs, who flew her to London for his recent Marc by Marc Jacobs show at Claridge's, and Nicolas Ghesquière, at Balenciaga - two of the hottest names in fashion - and has become the face of Valentino's Red campaign, following in the footsteps of Jennifer Lopez. "Agents internationally are fighting over her. She is one of the four key catwalk models in the world at the moment," says an enthusiastic Julian Fallon of First Option, the agency that represents her in Ireland. "British Vogue and W magazine want to book her. In 10 years of business we have never had someone so young do so well so fast."
McCann's modelling career began in 2005 as a bit of a lark, after friends entered her photograph in the Ford Model of the Year competition when she was only 14. "When I got a call to say I was in the finals I thought it was a joke," she says. Although she didn't win, she joined First Option and "did little jobs here and there and really enjoyed it". Later, in Paris on holiday, she went for castings and, to her surprise, within minutes of walking into an agency was signed up - and in the space of a month had been booked for work. One of her first jobs was with Italian Glamour magazine.
There is certainly a fairytale quality to her looks, let alone her blossoming career. McCann also has the maturity and poise of somebody much older, although she looks younger than she is. "I want to keep school and modelling separate," says McCann, who is a student at the Institute of Education in Dublin, having previously been a pupil at Holy Child School in Killiney. "They are parallel worlds. You need a thick skin for casting, and when I went for one in Paris I expected to be treated like an object, but I wasn't."
According to her father, Hugh McCann, her success "all happened so fast and fell outside our usual terms of reference, but it doesn't seem to have gone to her head. She wants to stay a normal kid, and I am very pleased from that point of view".
Born in Versailles, the youngest of the four children of Hugh and his wife, Catherine - they are a chartered accountant and a doctor who lived there for 12 years - McCann returned to Ireland at the age of four. She loves Paris, where she has done several shows recently, and says: "Everybody is really nice, and the girls are down to earth. I have made so many friends." (At home she is reticent about talking about her modelling, as she doesn't "want people to act differently around me. You don't want to start boasting about your fashion success".)
Family and close friends have been very supportive, and her father, who also specialises in leadership development, feels that she is "navigating a growth path very well".
"I am amazed at how quickly she can assess a situation," he says. "Sometimes I am in awe of her."
McCann's priority is to concentrate on her Leaving Certificate next year. She is interested in photography, art "and something to do with the environment" as a future career. Academically she's a bit of star, too, according to her father. In the meantime, she loves getting to know cities such as Paris and New York better, believes the skinny-models controversy is hyped up - young models are still growing, she points out, and still have time to develop physically - and thinks that modelling is a crazy life "but in a good way". She says: "Most girls are like me, suddenly whisked away into this world, but we work really hard."