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“I’d like to be the first model who becomes a woman.”

LAUREN HUTTON is everyone’s favorite supermodel. I love her All-American tomboy style, her unconventional classic beauty and her undeniable fierceness.

And of course, the fact she’s a southern girl!

Mary Laurence Hutton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, but spent her childhood in Florida running through the woods and enjoying the simple things in life. Mary Laurence changed her name to Lauren Hutton when she began modeling.

When you consider Lauren’s life, you can’t help but be impressed by the breath and weight of her life experiences. She’s defied odds again and again never compromising who she is…for anyone.

Upon arrival in New York, Eileen Ford suggested that Lauren fix her nose and fill the gap in her front teeth, but Lauren refused, only later agreeing to use a wax seal when requested on fashion shoots. Diana Vreeland adored Lauren’s imperfections stating that “she made herself beautiful by learning, watching, willing–not by surgically altering her defects.”

Lauren and her trademark gap covered American Vogue twenty six times and she became the muse to Richard Avedon. In fact, it was Ms. Vreeland who implored Avedon to use Lauren in the iconic photos of her leaping through the air in couture.

• Lauren’s modeling success led to a groundbreaking cosmetics contract with Revlon and appearances in over 30 Hollywood films including American Gigolo with Richard Gere.
• Lauren spent several months in the African Amazon living with locals and eating off the land.
• Lauren launched a cosmetics line in 2001, now sold on HSN.
• Lauren returned to modeling at 46 to work with Steven Meisel.
• And Lauren posed nude at 61 because she “didn’t want women to be ashamed of who they are in bed”.

Told you Lauren was fierce. But enough from me, Lauren speaks best for herself:

“I became a model to see the world, to make enough money to travel and explore other cultures. I knew I had to get to New York to get to Africa.”

“Working with Avedon was like being in the sandbox with another kid.”

“Wise women are beautiful women who’ve experienced a lot and have alot to give back just with words.”

“Life is what we do when we’re on the way to live it.”

“Knowledge is the most important thing we can share. More important than personal love or money.”

“Women are generally methodical, sober, careful. They’re the ones that biologically have had to be long term thinkers. Men, on the other hand, think more in the short term.”

“I was making $50 a week as a house model at Christian Dior for 9 months before I learned that photographic models made $50 an hour.”

“There’s no such thing as fashion. Fashion is an idea to make you think that you’re not in it at all times. Style is your choice.”

“We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be.”

Photos: Bettina Rheims, The Block, Loulex, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue Paris, Fred Seidman, Richard Avedon.