From M&S lingerie icon to runway return, how Rosie Huntington-Whiteley built a £20m empire but is ‘just getting started’

WITH a stunning corset dress clinging to her goddess-like curves, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley sent shockwaves through the fashion world this month when she returned to the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week for Jean Paul Gaultier. It was the perfect revenge on all those who said her career would be over by the age of 25.

Here she was, more stunning than ever, aged 37, with two children and several years of insecurity and setbacks under her belt. No longer just a model, but a genuine multi-hyphenate businesswoman, beauty guru, actress and branding expert who – unlike so many of her contemporaries (we’re looking at you, Naomi Campbell) – has only ever grabbed the headlines for the right reasons.

“She has spoken before about the challenges of motherhood, the loss of identity and career shift, but it seems to me she is now in a new era and she wanted to show that,” says fashion expert Jennifer Countess Von Walderdorff, author of Look @ The Labels, of Rosie returning to the catwalk almost 10 years after retiring.

“I think she may have seen the catwalk as a little bit of unfinished business, but also, she wanted to show who the Rosie of today is. "She is no longer a Victoria’s Secret model, but someone who is empowered and her own boss.”. The move back on to the catwalk also came as she made her latest move with her eponymous brand.

After the success of her lingerie line at Marks & Spencer – which is credited with helping bring the brand into the 21st century and sees one of her items being sold every 30 seconds (her plunge bra alone has sold 3 million units) – she is now designing a clothing range with Wardrobe NYC based on her trend-setting, luxury-cool aesthetic.

Rosie is a serious success story, with an estimated net worth of £20million. She’s gone from struggling to fit into the fashion world to having the whole industry falling at her feet. No wonder she said: “If you’d asked me what my dream was when I set out, it was to do this mix of roles.

"I feel like I’m living it. And I know that sounds cheesy.”. Maybe a little, but it’s inspirational, too. Rosie owes her success to, yes, her stunning looks, but also an enormous work ethic and drive, the support of an equally successful partner, actor Jason Statham and – for when it all becomes a little too much – a secret £7million bolt-hole in London, just for her.

Rosie has always been a go-getter, with her eyes on what she wants. Growing up on a Devon farm, she fell in love with her mother’s fashion magazines and plastered her walls with them. Her parents, Fiona, a fitness coach, and Charles, a company director, were strict and she would often be sent to her room, where she would pore over fashion shoots and dream of moving to London.

At 15, she wrote to a London modelling agency, finding their details in the Yellow Pages, asking for work experience. By the time she’d finished her GCSEs and got rid of her braces, she had an agent. It wasn’t easy. For the first five years of trying to break into the industry, she supposedly had the wrong aesthetic for the fashion world.

Super-skinny was in, and she was told she was too “wholesome looking” or “too full-figured” and that she would be out of work by 25. “There were good months and bad months, lots of ups and downs,“ she told The Telegraph last year. “I’ve done everything from teen catalogues to bridalwear and luxury campaigns with top photographers.

“But that experience, the rejection for many years and pounding the pavements, going on castings or travelling in economy class for years and then getting to a location in the middle of nowhere where no one spoke English. "Those things really built a lot of resilience in me.”.

In 2006, she made her debut for Victoria’s Secret, but it was becoming the face of British brand Burberry two years later that led to her first British Vogue cover – and her acceptance into the world of high fashion. There may have been the odd celebrity boyfriend, including French actor Olivier Martinez and fellow model Ty Wood (son of Rolling Stones star Ronnie), but she has admitted that during her 20s her career was her focus.

Success on the catwalk led to acting roles in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon and Mad Max: Fury Road – both attacked by critics, but that didn’t stop her from becoming an even-bigger name. She always had an eye on what was next, citing Elle Macpherson – who used her modelling platform to become a successful businesswoman – as her inspiration.

After her plan to design a line of lingerie with Victoria’s Secret was rejected by the brand, in 2012 she took her idea to Marks & Spencer, where she’d been measured for her first-ever bra. It felt like an unusual move, going back to a brand that was seen as becoming old-fashioned, but Rosie was thinking about her future in the industry.

“I recognised that, at any point, [the modelling world] could say: ‘Rosie is out.’” she told Porter. “I’d seen that with so many girls – they literally worked with them for 15 years and then one day it was: ‘She’s too old and she’s getting some weight.’.