Christy Turlington says being a supermodel isn't part of her identity.
The 45-year-old star doesn't identify with the label, which was coined in the 90s with the rise of the original supers including Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Linda Evangelista, and claims her job has never defined who she is as a person.
She told British VOGUE magazine: "I was a young woman who had been given this identity as a supermodel, but that was not my identity. It was like, wait a minute, before I did that job nobody treated me with kids gloves.
"It still feels sort of silly trying to justify how normal one's life is, but that's kind of what happens when you are in this profession, it creates something that really isn't all that. Or maybe it is for some people, but it certainly never has been for me."
Christy graces the cover of the fashion bible's Ageless Style issue, marking 28 years since she first posed for British VOGUE and her fifteenth time covering the magazine in total.
The former face of Calvin Klein, who set up non-profit organisation Every Mother Counts in 2010, started out in the industry aged 14 and can still remember the prolific 'serial modeliser' types who used to lurk around the girls in the 80s.
She reminisced: "Oh god. I actually dated one for six years. A horrible guy! But I was lucky in that when I first came to New York I stayed with my agent and those predator types, luckily they weren't interested in me.
"I do remember them, though, on their motorcycles and always being backstage... like why were they backstage? Who had invited them there?"
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