People used to tell Kiera Gormley she should be a model. The 25-year-old 'wee lassie' from Belfast eventually took their advice - and now works with Mario Testino, Kate Moss and other fashion legends, she tells Deirdre McQuillan
The June issue of British Voguehas a dramatic black-and-white photograph of Sir Philip Green, the owner of Arcadia, and Stuart Rose, of Marks & Spencer, two of the UK's most powerful retailers, followed by bodyguards and PAs. A tall, dark-haired model with smouldering eyes walks beside Rose, one arm around his shoulder. She is Kiera Gormley, a self-described wee lassie from north Belfast who is one of a new army of top models making their mark in international fashion. The photograph, the 25-year-old explains, was staged in a car park for a Mario Testino feature on London Fashion Week.
In an age when models have been usurped in fashion by celebrities, today's hot favourites are notable as much for their personalities as for their looks, and Gormley is one of the stellar few who have made it to the top in a very short space of time. "Personality has so much to do with it," she says. "There are thousands of models now, and personality will win a lot of people over."
The Dublin-based photographer Barry McCall, who worked with her on an a¦ wear shoot in 2005, says Gormley is "one of the few models who understand light and mood and are easy to work with. She has that certain sparkle you only get so often". It's a view echoed by the model-agency owner Rebecca Morgan, who believes that Gormley's versatility is her strength.
In the past year Gormley has worked with Kate Moss on a high-profile campaign for Burberry photographed by Testino; been booked twice for a Jaeger campaign; featured in numerous magazines; and appeared on the catwalk in Paris, Milan and New York in shows for Armani, Lanvin, Jean Paul Gaultier, Anne Demeulemeester, Vivienne Westwood and Diane von Furstenberg.
"I love Jean Paul," she says. "He's not artsy fartsy. He talks away to you, and he is so creative. So many designers don't check you backstage, but he always does. He wants girls with energy."
Growing up tall and skinny in Belfast, one of a family of six, Gormley was encouraged to model, but it was never her preferred choice of career. Instead she headed to Queen's to do a degree in history of art and sociology, doing casual modelling as a sideline. Her big break came during the shooting of an Aveda advertisement in London, when the make-up artist Val Garland suggested that Testino should see her. Within 24 hours of meeting fashion's most celebrated photographer, Gormley was called in for a Vogue shoot - and the hairdresser Sam McKnight cut her long brown hair into a short, dramatic bob that changed her looks and transformed her modelling career. Almost overnight everybody wanted her. Since then she has worked with Testino more than half a dozen times.
"I love photo shoots and having the time to create an image," she says. "There's a real buzz to the catwalk shows, but they're over in 30 minutes. With editorial you get to spend a whole day with people."
She recently completed a 20-page shoot in Belgium for 10, an upmarket fashion and beauty magazine, which involved a different set for each shot. "Fashion and art come together in an editorial which is about telling a story. It is creative; it is about many minds coming together to make a story. And the clothes are amazing."
She is now working on a shoot for the hip British design duo FrostFrench; she is also going to Japan with Ellen von Unwerth, the photographer behind recent Chanel and Prada advertising campaigns.
What Gormley loves most about her job, she says, is meeting new people and being paid to travel. The worst aspect is being away from home. "I get homesick for Belfast, but you get into a work format. I try to get home every eight weeks."
What does she think about the size-zero controversy? "I don't think size zero is attractive unless you are very small," she says. "I like a body. I couldn't starve myself, because I love food and get irritable if I don't eat. I need it physically and mentally, and as a model your health is really important."
Her favourite hobby is collecting tutus. "I bought one in Paris from the pin-up era and wear it as a dress. I just love tutus, and any time I see one I just buy it. I must have about 20."
She had no objection, therefore, to a challenging recent assignment for the Sunday Times. It involved an underwater shoot in a special-effects studio in London. "They put me in a bathing suit and a huge purple tutu in a tank and put weights on me. There were four divers around, and I went five metres down. That was incredible."
Gormley recently got engaged to Tam Nightingale, a London-based music producer responsible, among other things, for the soundtrack for The Last King of Scotland. They hope to marry in 2009. In the meantime she's making the most of her burgeoning career. "You have always to stay on your feet, because it is such a fast turnover. But, as to the future, I am not sure what will happen."