Marie Helvin

I lost count of how many times photographers and designers would tell me to lose a bit of weight, especially as I got a little older and my body started to develop.

I am thrilled to be modelling the debut collection of Always Aliza. Janet Reger was such an iconic brand throughout my modelling career, and it feels great to now be modelling her daughter's range for JD Williams almost forty years on.

I wasn't interested in having children of my own. I know what would have happened - I'd have been left at home to look after the kids, and my career would have been over while my husband travelled the world.

I'm spoilt. I like my own space. I don't even own a microwave, and men don't like that. They want to be looked after.

I'm interested only in buying land in my native Hawaii so that one day I can live there and have the space to rescue animals.

I don't do a lot of looking back; I tend to look ahead.

I lost all my investments after everything crashed in 2001. Prior to that, I'd been living off the interest on my investments, which was very healthy because it allowed frequent travel, and I had a lovely apartment.

When I began modelling in my late teens, I started to earn a lot of money very, very quickly, but I'd never been shown how to manage it properly.

The average British woman is a size 12 to 14, but in modelling, a size 12 is considered huge, which is ridiculous.

When I see images of a girl who is obviously far too thin, I am just as shocked as anyone else.

A lot of women lose definition around their waist as they get older, which can mean their bottom half can look shapeless.

I'm not a pretty-boy kind of a girl; the Brad Pitts don't do anything for me.