Victoria’s Secret model Lily Aldridge has said she initially struggled to work in high fashion because casting directors did not think she was “cool”.
The American catwalk star, 32, said she was considered “too commercial” to book the jobs she wanted when she was first starting out in the industry.
She told digital magazine PorterEdit: “My career has been such an evolution, it felt like such slow progress.
“In the beginning, I was sad that people in fashion didn’t think I was ‘cool’ and that was tough.
“We all have so many different sides to us, different dimensions, so I was typecast as ‘commercial’ and therefore not fashion or edgy.
“For a long time, no one would book me for those jobs and I wanted it so bad.”
Aldridge said she credits British model and musician Karen Elson with changing how she was seen.
She said: “Karen really helped push me in that direction, talking about me to those influential people.”
The model, who is mother to five-year-old Dixie, her child with Kings Of Leon frontman Caleb Followill, said she has also come to accept changes in her body as she has got older.
She said: “It’s been a while now since I had that moment of having to get back in shape (after giving birth), but there should be no judgement, everybody’s journey is different.
“Of course, as I get older my body is changing, I’m a woman, but I love it. I love working out and I love being healthy but I don’t judge myself so much; I don’t care if I have a six-pack any more.
“I am inspired by all these amazing women who have fuller bodies and don’t care about cellulite. I have cellulite, too, and I have stretch marks.
“When I was younger I would be like, ‘Oh, my abs need to be firmer’; now I look back and I’m like, ‘You were crazy! Your abs were gorgeous!’”