La Vie En Rosie: Model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley opens up to Bella Blissett

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From frillies to fragrance, and swapping the UK for LA, our best-loved lingerie model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley opens up to Bella Blissett  

Rosie gives YOU’s Bella a first spritz of her new scent

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is looking at me in horror. I’ve just asked the darling of lovely lingerie if she owns a pair of huge, saggy, Bridget-Jones-style pants. ‘No! There are no granny pants in my house.’ she says in a clipped British accent, before her face curls into that purring, feline smile that lures us in from Marks Spencer adverts everywhere. Having designed a bestselling lingerie and sleepwear collection for the high-street giant since 2012, the 27-year-old model is turning her nose and business brain to her first perfume, Rosie for Autograph. Arriving in stores later this month, it’s a whimsical whirl of jasmine, sandalwood and pepper, and its most prominent note is – naturally – rose.

‘It’s quite a fresh, girlie, sensual smell. The idea was to capture a rose in bloom first thing in the morning,’ she says, misting us both in a floral cloud as we sit in an enormous suite at the Soho Hotel. Rosie is wearing a Chloé dress and knee-high Miu Miu boots, and her creamy English-rose complexion bears no trace of yesterday’s ten-hour flight from her Los Angeles home. ‘I’ve collected retro lingerie for years,’ she says, ‘so my girlfriends are always asking me if I just waft around the house in vintage underwear. Of course not – I’m as real as anyone else. But I spend a lot of time at home when I’m not working and I want to feel good there. I think that’s why I was so insistent that the Rosie for Autograph sleep and lingerie collection would be comfortable and cosy – but still make women feel chic.’

The popularity of the range is testimony to her success – and has had some unexpected side effects. ‘Women come up to me and flash their bra strap or knickers,’ she laughs. ‘I’m flattered because it’s usually their way of telling me they’re wearing my designs or want my advice. I guess I get excited about people flashing me their underwear for totally different reasons than most people would!’

Rosie discusses her new fragrance with perfumer Ralf Schwieger

The crossover from model into fashion and beauty is not new. Elle Macpherson has her Intimates lingerie range; Christy Turlington helped develop Sundãri skincare. What is perhaps rarer is to branch out into new territory at such a young age.

‘I was always into creative subjects such as art, textiles and media studies at school,’ she remembers. She got her first glimpse of life in the fashion industry when she did work experience for Profile model agency at the age of 15, before being asked to appear in a Levi’s advert. Since then, she has been hailed as the next Kate Moss, fronted Burberry campaigns – and, crucially, gained experience in the lingerie sector as a Victoria’s Secret Angel before signing to MS.

‘I’ve been working for 12 years, so I’ve picked up things along the way. I’ve learnt, listened and watched,’ she says. ‘I’ve also been inspired by my vintage lingerie collection. People always think that’s kind of gross! But I’m talking about really beautiful slips and kimonos. I wanted Rosie for Autograph lingerie and sleepwear to be centred on the idea of a rose – the colours, prints, details – but in a way that reflected my love of vintage.’

Rosie starring in Burberry’s beauty campaign with Lily Donaldson (left) and Nina Porter in 2010

In the run-up to designing a new collection, Rosie will fill scrapbooks and make moodboards before taking them to the MS chiefs. ‘I’m always trying to educate myself about fashion – poring over books, magazines and picking things up on editorial shoots,’ she adds.

Her work has taken her all over the world and, while she still spends much of her time flying from country to country, she and her long-term boyfriend – British actor Jason Statham (star of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and more recently The Expendables films) – have now settled in LA. As a model, it must help that Hollywood is so focused upon staying in shape?

‘LA is so geared towards fitness and health – there are always new trends cropping up,’ she agrees. ‘Of course, I have to look a certain way. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re a model and your career is centred around the way you look, it’s your responsibility to present the best version of yourself. There are times, of course, when I have off days. But I generally feel very encouraged and am always flattered when people ask me how I look after myself. It’s a huge compliment.’

Rosie walking her dachshunds in LA

and on the red carpet with actor boyfriend Jason Statham

Even by Hollywood standards, her workout regimen seems punishing. She skips, runs, does high-energy dance classes, pilates and yoga – and has recently signed up for tennis lessons. In fact, both her mother Fiona and younger brother Toby are personal trainers. Coming from such a sporty family, was she captain of the school hockey team?

‘Erm, no. I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as having been a very sporty child. I was more into horseriding and swimming than team sports. I would say that I’ve always enjoyed exercise, though.’

In true LA style, her Vitamix gets an airing every morning. ‘I love juicing. That’s definitely something I’ve picked up since moving to America.’ She has also been giving some vegan restaurants a whirl. ‘There are loads of really cool vegan places opening up over there now. I’ve always rather sneered at vegetarian and vegan food – but a girlfriend of mine took me to a vegan restaurant and I loved it.

‘People always ask me whether I diet – instead of thinking, “I can’t have this” or “I can’t have that”,

Rosie modelling for Balmain at Paris Fashion Week S/S 15

I always try to include healthier options in my world. It’s about opening yourself up to healthier choices rather than restricting yourself all the time. That way, you can still indulge sometimes.’ So what’s a big blowout in the Huntington-Whiteley house? ‘A good old roast dinner.’ she chimes in instantly, remembering the Sundays of her childhood spent in Tavistock, Devon. 

‘I guess I learned to cook from my mum. She’s doesn’t really enjoy it, but she’s a great cook. When Toby, my younger sister Florence and I were children, mum was always quite experimental in the kitchen. Everything was done on the fly and there were definitely some disasters. There was one chicken dish she threw together which really shouldn’t have worked, but was actually one of my personal favourites. It was one of those things she just created, but then we always asked for it because it turned out to be rather tasty.’

Sitting around the table with her mother, father Andrew, a chartered surveyor, and her siblings, it never occurred to any of them that she’d go into modelling. ‘Growing up in the countryside, we just played in the fields and did really normal things,’ she shrugs. ‘There was certainly no praise for being a cute kid. I always find it quite a funny thing when you see cute children, and I’m not sure it’s the first thing you should say to them. Children should be encouraged for accomplishing a grade at school or their team winning. Those are the things I was praised for as a child.

I don’t remember people saying, “You should be a model.” I never thought it would be part of my reality now.’

Equally, spending time in New York with a top perfumer to create her own scent isn’t something she envisaged doing – although, in hindsight, she says that she always had a particular love of fragrance.

‘I remember both my grannies giving me some of my first scents. They’d take me into their bathrooms and let me rifle through their cabinets and boxes of keepsakes. Grannies always have special boxes of things, don’t they? Both of them would give me the bottles of perfumes that they’d picked up from all over the place and I remember thinking how grown-up I was.’

So when Marks Spencer suggested she create a perfume for them, it made sense. ‘After meeting the perfumer in New York, I went to Grasse in the South of France, where they harvest the roses, to learn about extracting oil from the petals. It was such a fulfilling experience.’ Rather poetically, they decided to shoot the campaign advert for the perfume in the Devon countryside where she grew up.

Rosie taking part in the 2010 Victoria’s Secret show

All the flying hither and thither sounds amazing – if a little exhausting. Yet endless blogs and Pinterest pages are dedicated to her faultless airport style. ‘Let’s just say I’ve got the whole flight thing down to a T,’ she smiles. ‘There’s a whole system to it now. No alcohol, lots of water and I always sleep. Then I have what I call my “two-minute face”: AmazingCosmetics concealer, Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush, a little bit of loose powder – all topped off with huge sunglasses.’

Outside her career, she prefers to keep her life as private as possible. So yes, there’s the odd snap of her with Harry Styles or Ellie Goulding on her Instagram page, but in the main, she dedicates it to pictures that promote her as a professional model – plus a few of her two dachshunds.

‘People always ask me if I have loads of celebrity friends and the answer is no. It’s not that I stay away from them, it’s just that my relationships have evolved with different people in ways that feel more natural,’ she says. In fact, she still keeps in touch with one school friend in particular. ‘Maddie’s a teacher now so our lives couldn’t be more different. But even though we don’t see each other that often, everything is always the same between us.’

With modelling and now working on her lingerie, sleepwear and perfume ranges, it’s not often that Rosie gets time off. In a notoriously tough industry, she has worked hard to get where she is today.

‘Throughout my career, the one person who has been a stable and consistent source of positivity has been my mother. But having said that, my mum couldn’t tell me at this point how to run my career,’ she muses, looking back on the high points of the past decade or so.

An early photo of Roise with her father and brother Toby

Back home, she keeps a few treasured pieces of clothing as mementos: ‘I’ve been so lucky to work with some incredibly special designers. I’ll never part with this amazing leather jacket that the fashion designer Olivier Rousteing gave me after walking my first Balmain show for him. Then there are the jackets from my Victoria’s Secret shows. I wouldn’t necessarily wear them again but they all hold special memories.’

All of these she keeps in impeccable order; she is, by her own admission, ‘very neat’. And as she jumps into a taxi on her way to the airport yet again, it’s easy to imagine the rows of exquisite clothes, rose-adorned lingerie and perfume bottles arranged with absolute precision in her dressing room. With not a granny pant in sight, of course.

Rosie’s raves 

Wardrobe essential Sunglasses! I have loads of pairs from Oliver Peoples.

Beauty icons I’ve always loved Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Bardot and Grace Kelly. For me, they embody this really womanly, powerful attitude.

TV guilty pleasure True Detective – it’s a great show. I highly recommend it!

Motto Always enhance – never hide.