On being discovered
"When I was seventeen, this friend of my Mom's and Dad's who used to do the photography on the Fellini movies, Catallini, came over for dinner and he hadn't seen them in ages. He remembered me when I was very very little. I didn't know who he was, it was like my parents were going "Oh we're having this friend over for dinner; He's a nice guy. A photographer." So I was like OK. So we were talking and he said, "Would you like to take some pictures?" and that's how it began. He took the pictures and you know it's when you're in that teenaged period where you feel skinny and ugly and very tall with no boobs and every guy called me Olive Oyl. "Where's Popeye? Where's Popeye!" they'd go. I hated it so much. So my mom pushed me to do these things, because I never saw myself that way. I never thought I could have this power to be this beauty. Plus I was in that depressed phase, not depressed in my personality but as a teenager in the way I dressed. Everything was all dark. My socks was dark. So this guy took those pictures and my Mom was like, "Why don't you take them to this agency?" So there were agencies interested but I was in school and I just felt like you cannot do two things together. You have to focus on one thing at a time. So I worked on believing in myself and making myself stronger and having a good attitude. So it's good that I started full time, a year ago, after I finished school. Because also by then I was mature. But back then through the Milan agencies, I started doing the Milan shows, doing well, like 13 or 15 shows but I never had a book. It was Piero Piazzi, he's a really big booker who used to take care of Naomi, who believed in me in Milan. At first he was at Ricardo Guy, then he moved to Tomei. He really believed in me and really wanted me to model and really pushed me. So then I came to DNA in New York with nothing in my book planning to stay one month doing editorial and then come back home. But I liked this agency a lot. I felt there was something going on here and I decided to stay in New York."

On being in demand...