MODELS.com's Wayne Sterling tracks down Supermodel Tyra Banks fresh from her awe inspiring run down the Victoria's Secret catwalk.
Photographer: Guy Aroch - Stylist: Lysa Cooper

Hey Tyra. What’s going on?

Nothing much. I just woke up. I have a little bit of a cold but otherwise I’m fine.

Oh you caught that nasty cold that been doing the tour in NY.

Apparently.

I was really impressed at the photo shoot with how quickly you got our idea of highlighting you as a fresh and versatile model as opposed to doing the Tyra-Banks-everybody-knows-and-loves.

I enjoyed that. a lot. People know me as a celebrity so it was nice going back to my roots. A lot of people don’t realize that I started in Paris in 1991 doing those edgy shoots. Most models who do the similar kind of work I do started out doing swimsuits and that sort of stuff but my first shoots were very, very editorial.

Don’t you miss the whole haute couture, sweetie darling. NY Milan Paris-circus.

I don’t miss it one bit. I could never go back to those days of 75 fashion shows a season...five shows a day. I’d get totally stressed, I’d get sick. My hair would be falling out at the end of the day. I’ve always seen it as a stepping stone. There has never been a lot of money for black models in that world, because all the money was in advertising, in the campaigns and black models rarely got those so my wages would be...I’d be getting so much less than the other girls and I thought that was just so wrong.

Through out your career you’ve certainly never been the kind of fashion world pet that most top models need to be.

Designers are very fickle and I never wanted to be a victim of that. It's "you’re in one minute, out the next" and you know what... that’s the way it should be. It should be about a constant turnover of new faces for them but I did not want to have that happen to me. I remember I was backstage in Paris and I saw Cindy Crawford doing "House Of Style" and I thought, Oh Wow. I would love to to be like that... I would love to be in charge of myself, in control of my career. I wanted to be more of a business woman. I wanted to take this name I had made for myself and take to the next level.

Which is what you did. The Cover Girl, Swatch, Tommy and multi-media Victoria Secret contract, probably makes you the most (pardon the pun) bankable African-American model in history. So what’s next? What’s the next challenge?

I’ve been doing this for 8 years now and there’s always going to be dreams and goals I still have but I never really tell other people what they are, cause then someone else might go after that same dream or goal (laughter).