Elle Macpherson on parenthood, plastic surgery and the perfect T-shirt bra 

She is married to billionaire financier Jeffrey Soffer and they live in another world. Specifically Miami, where she moved last year with her two sons (Flynn, 18, and Cy, 13, by former partner Arpad Busson).

Macpherson is holding meetings to promote EMB in the private room of a restaurant in London’s Clerkenwell, and she does actually look like a million dollars. She is 52, long and rangy, and there’s something tomboyish about her. She has gorgeous hair, a lovely face, and a somewhat steely expression behind the smile.

It was announced in 2014 that Macpherson was ending her 25-year licensing arrangement with Bendon’s lingerie company. ‘After many years of licensing, I felt it was time for me to build my own business,’ she says. ‘I wanted to put everything I had learnt into practice, and I didn’t want to look back wishing I’d done things differently.

'It wasn’t easy to walk away from the security of a licensing income, but I realised that there were unfortunate limitations to my involvement.’ Three months later she was working on a business plan for her new company, and a year after that she set up with her partners Simon de Winter and Solomon Lew to form Elle Macpherson Body.

Taking the step from the billboard to the boardroom has been one of my biggest and yet most fulfilling experiences,’ is how she puts it, in an email to me after our meeting. Macpherson now works with a team of designers, and has plenty of involvement.

‘I have more experience so I know what I’m doing; I now understand what kind of lace is going to be just right for the wings of the bra, or if it should be net or micromesh. It’s about the application of experience, and the freedom to be as creative as I want.

‘Because I’m a 50 per cent shareholder of the business, I’m also involved in all the commercial aspects. So we chose Gilles Bensimon to shoot the campaign, who’s a dear friend of mine…’ And your ex-husband, I point out. ‘Yes,’ agrees Macpherson without missing a beat (they were married for three years, from 1986).

‘So he shot the campaign, and we’ve got a fantastic girl called Kirsten to model it. She’s Danish but she embodies this free spirit of Australia. I think the DNA of Australia is very freedom-oriented; I wanted to capture that in my imagery and in the product. And I could do what I’ve always wanted, which was to design the perfect T-shirt bra.’

Apparently it’s not easy, designing a perfect T-shirt bra. ‘There’s not just one perfect shape, there’s not just one solution; there are many solutions,’ she says, before showing me some on her iPad:

‘It’s a very different feel from what I’ve done before, when I was locked in lace-land; these are made of Air-Tech fabric and microfibre… and here are the knickers, really emphasising the high cut. It’s more directional fashion-wise – so, six different styles: six bras, six knickers and a bodysuit, in eight colours.’

In all, EMB has, in lingerie-speak, ‘19 stories’ and ‘364 pieces’. I’m beginning to reel from all this underwear. Later, I ask to try one of her bras. It arrives at my house in a box the size of a small car (and that’s not a reflection on my measurements). I have to admit it’s a fine bra; good shape, well-constructed, nice detail.

Macpherson was inspired to create this line by her teenage stepdaughters. In America, she says, there’s little variety, with Victoria’s Secret and Walmart and not much in between. They don’t have the luxury of M&S, or Rigby & Peller. She has two stepdaughters (aged 16 and 18) who only shopped at Victoria’s Secret.

‘I wanted to create a cool, sexy alternative for young girls.’ Licensing is a more usual way to go about things if you’re a celebrity – but licensing your name and image to a company is very different from sitting on the board. After Macpherson chose not to renew with Bendon, it was announced that Heidi Klum was taking over its Intimates range.

(She’d previously muscled in on Macpherson’s territory when she stated in a Victoria’s Secret ad, ‘They call me The Body.’) So was Macpherson angry about her collection being handed over to the German-born model?  ‘Why would I be angry?’ she says in her smiling, steely voice. 

It would piss me off, if I were you. ‘That they took my clothes and ripped out the labels and put somebody else’s in? That’s one way of doing business,’ she says smoothly.

‘That was the choice they made. On the positive side,’ she gathers herself, ‘I’ve loved [being] able to design what I think we need today – not what we needed 25 years ago, but what women want today. So, not pissed off, no. Fortunate that I can have a clean slate to work with.’ 

She is, I remark, obviously very driven. Is it the business side that drives her, or her passion for lingerie?  ‘I don’t think I’m driven to succeed; it’s more that I really enjoy the products. I believe if  you love what you do and do what you love, it doesn’t feel like work, and that’s been my experience.

I’ve had the courage to try a lot of things because I’m not afraid to fail, so if I was really driven I probably wouldn’t have explored so many mediums.’ Has she ever failed? Maybe she’s not afraid  of failure because she’s never really experienced it.

‘I don’t call them failures,’ she says. ‘I don’t experience things as failure because there’s learning in everything you do. For me, success is fulfilment. It’s not a question of dollars or public opinion, it’s, “Was it a fulfilling experience for me?” I’ve always found it invigorating  in some sense.’

Macpherson talks like this a lot. She’s very experienced at interviews; she’s slick, friendly, and a little controlling (‘I don’t know how much of this is really relevant for what you need,’ she says to me at one point). And she likes to put a positive spin on everything. There is an optimistic veneer that’s hard to penetrate.

But maybe everything in Elle-world really is positive. The only flop that springs to mind in her prolific career is the Fashion Cafe venture, in New York and London, which she fronted with Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer.

It bit the dust rather spectacularly in 1998, after they fell out with founders Tommaso and Francesco Buti and the business went bust – but that was hardly her fault.  And her acting career didn’t result in any Oscar nominations – but she did make 10 films, appear in a series of Friends and become the only supermodel to have hosted Saturday Night Live.

I press on: why lingerie particularly? ‘I spent a lot of time in France, where they take lingerie seriously, and I have quite big breasts, so trying to find a nice 36C bra was pretty hard.’ So her first goal when she started Elle Macpherson Intimates was to create French-style lingerie with an American fit.

‘My most successful businesses, like WelleCo, have been ones where I’ve created something that I needed,’ she says, referring to her Australia-based nutrition company. A few years ago she was not feeling well and not sleeping well, so she went to a nutritionist, who told her she had an acidic system…

‘She gave me this green powder and I made some changes in my life, and I saw a phenomenal difference.’ It was basically an alkaline mixture. ‘I started to feel myself again. I lost weight – not that that was an issue,’ she adds quickly, ‘but I found I was not craving sugar, I was sleeping better, my skin was better – and my manicurist said, “Gosh your nails are growing so well…”’

Being Elle, she decided to build a business around it, refining the recipe into her ‘Super Elixir’ – now the flagship WelleCo product.  ‘I had doctors and scientists formulate the powders for me, so they’re very high-quality.’ WelleCo also offers a sleep tea and protein powder.

Most people would just be grateful that they had found a solution and a good nutritionist; she turned it into a business. So is it successful? ‘I consider it to be successful in that it’s helping people, sales are very strong and it’s growing at a beautiful rate. It’s an online business – which is new for me.’

Does she stick to the alkaline diet herself? ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I am mindful.’ She doesn’t drink and is careful what she eats. ‘I’ve been extreme in many ways in the past – everything from exercising a lot to being really strict with my diet; taking too much sun. Today it’s about finding balance.

Fortunately, I naturally gravitate towards what makes me feel good.’ And so on. Back to the Super Elixir: I’ve read that even her children drink this stuff. I decide to try it out myself and see if my manicurist will react as favourably. 

The sachet declares, ‘The world’s best wholefood and organic supplements,’ which sounds like an ambitious boast – and it has an impressive list of ingredients, including vitamins, minerals and digestive enzymes. All things considered, it doesn’t taste too bad.

‘Ugh, what are you doing?’ says my 16-year-old son, coming into the kitchen and seeing me stir up a gloopy, khaki-coloured drink. I force him to try it. He makes a face that reminds me of when I gave him a slice of lemon as a baby. ‘That is RANK,’ he declares. I tell him Elle Macpherson’s son likes it.

He says, ‘Trust me, no teenage boy on earth would like that.’ She also developed a protein supplement specifically for her younger son Cy: ‘A clean plant protein specially for children, which has all the vitamins and minerals they need, alkalising and tasty in a snack that they might want to eat when they come home from school.’ 

I ask her about how her regime sits with the family. Don’t her sons roll their eyes and tell her to shut up? ‘Of course they do,’ she admits. ‘But sometimes Cy will be really moody and look at me and say, “Oops, low blood sugar,” or if he has a headache, he’ll say, “Mummy, I’m dehydrated.”

But if I tell him to drink more water, he’ll say stop nagging. All you can do with your kids is guide them; educate them to the best of your ability, and then it’s their free will. I can’t force-feed it.’ Is she a strict parent? ‘The children would say so, but I say, “I’m not here to be popular, I’m here to guide you, so you may not like what I have to say but this is how it is.”’

If someone were to ask her what advice she’d have given her younger self, it would, she says, be to wear sunblock. Wisdom, she continues, is the advantage of getting older, along with the willingness to apply experience.

‘People ask me, “How do you cope with the ageing process of your body?” and that’s why I’ve really focused on the way I feel, to make sure I’m doing everything I possibly can from the inside to be healthy and well. How I adapt to the changes in my body is directly related to my happiness and peace.

And if I chose not to adapt, it would be really uncomfortable. It could be small things like what length of skirt to wear, or what kind of shoes, or what colours suit. Trying to hold on to the past doesn’t work for me, I’ve got to put my energy into things that are more purposeful than trying to look like I’m 20.’

I ask her if she’s ever had surgery. ‘No, I haven’t had surgery; it’s not in my game plan. I don’t have any perspective on it for anybody else, only for myself; I would worry because I know things can go wrong really easily.  ‘With some of these procedures, you might feel that you look younger but it doesn’t look quite right.

'So I try to keep it really natural. I can’t do laser on my skin because I’ve spent so much time in the sun and it gets hyperpigmentation.’ Once an avid sun worshipper, Macpherson has been more careful over the past decade.   Has she tried the likes of Botox and collagen?

‘Yeah, I’ve tried things but most of the time they don’t work for me. It doesn’t work for my face – sometimes people get things done and they look worse. I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat and  I don’t want to mess with what there is. At this point I think it’s best to leave what I have alone.

'Having said that, I do vitamin injections, infusions, and I work on my nutrition.’ Why do you need vitamin injections if you have a really good diet?  ‘Vitamin-slash-collagen infusions,’ she clarifies. ‘Changing my nutrition plan and going on the Super Elixir is what has helped the most, the alkaline diet…’ and she’s off again.

‘I’ve learnt that a good smile, good teeth, good hair, good skin, a good mood is worth a thousand injectables and Botox and facials and masks. It disguises a myriad of what can be seen as imperfections.’ She smiles widely. ‘When I look at my pictures, I don’t want them to retouch my wrinkles.’ 

Our photo shoot takes place on the day after the referendum. Cameron has just stepped down; Boris is  still in the running. Macpherson is intrigued about what will happen, and mentions that she’d take Boris over Trump any day, ‘Or Hillary for that matter.’

You’re not a Hillary fan? ‘I tend not to enter into it,’ she replies, ‘because we’re all backyard politicians, but I wish that Hillary had more feminine energy – that means co-operation, creativity, humour, we’re-in-this-together. But I just think she’s so masculine; she’s not representing what could be a really nurturing  position as female president of America.’

Were you an Obama supporter? ‘The concept behind Obama, yes,’ she says obscurely, ‘but it depends where you stand.’ She won’t be drawn on whether she’s a Democrat or a Republican. ‘I had a socialist upbringing, being Australian, in the sense that we had free education, free healthcare; we paid higher taxes but you didn’t care because you lived well.

'[But] in order to survive in Australia you need to get in there and do it yourself; we’re taught to be self-sufficient and independent. We’re a new country and we share that pioneer spirit America has; we don’t rest on our family backgrounds. I think it’s quite a ballsy country, a courageous country.’ But she can’t imagine living there now.

‘My life is in America; my children are here, my husband is here, my stepchildren are here, my businesses are thriving in the UK and America, so at this point in my life it would be unrealistic to imagine myself living in Australia. But I feel deeply Australian.’

Macpherson grew up in a suburb of Sydney, the daughter of a nurse and a sound engineer. The eldest of four, she was born when her mother was only 17. ‘I went to the beach on weekends, surfed and windsurfed, played sports. I worked in a pharmacy Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings, then in a theatre restaurant –

'I always wanted to be independent and I had a strong work ethic.’ She was, she says, a responsible teenager, admitting, ‘I was more wild in my 30s; there was definitely a lot of experimentation going on then…’  She didn’t actively decide to be a model, but had done a bit of modelling when at 17 she  was asked to enter a competition.

‘The winner would get a contract with Ford Models in America. I said no because I thought it wasn’t serious.’ She regretted her decision, and when a second opportunity came up, having enrolled in law school and needing money to fund it, she decided to take it. ‘My mum really encouraged me – she said, “What else are you going to do?

"Live in Australia, go to school, get married to the guy round the corner – is that what you really want? Take this opportunity to explore and travel. You’re smart and I trust you.”’ It was 1982. Macpherson went to New York, and that’s where it all began.

Four years later she did the first of a record five ‘Swimsuit Issue’ cover shoots for Sports Illustrated. Then in 1989 came the Time cover story, which landed her with the soubriquet ‘The Body’. It was a defining moment for the 25-year-old, who became one of the key supermodels of the era, working with all the big designers and photographers. 

Also in 1989 she left Ford Models and formed her own company, Elle Macpherson Inc, running the business through a manager rather than a model agency. ‘I felt like I needed more purpose and involvement in some of the decisions that were being made for me.’ 

Five years later she appeared naked in Playboy, shot by Herb Ritts, in response to a media hunt for nude photos of her. She made her own fitness videos, produced a series of swimsuit calendars, and was behind a documentary on the making of… swimsuit calendars.

In the mid-1990s she also started acting, and appeared in a season of Friends (17 years on, her son’s schoolmates still think of her as Joey’s girlfriend). In 2010 she started hosting Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model, on which she was also executive producer.

She’s even appeared in an ad for Walker’s Crisps, alongside Gary Lineker. That’s quite a haul. Was there a moment in all this when she felt that she’d really made it? ‘No, because most of the things that came to pass have been beautiful surprises. I didn’t set out to have five covers of Sports Illustrated; they just happened.

And the first time changed my life. I went from promoting Pepsi to having mass appeal, having my image out there and doing a tour of America, TV shows, presentations – I learnt to be a celebrity to a certain extent, all through being on that cover.

‘It was a lucky break. But I think at this point in my life, being a co-owner of these two companies is probably the pinnacle [of my achievements]… because it’s not through luck.’ Or through her looks. So, I ask, if you had to pick one word describing what you do – on your passport or gravestone – what would that be?

‘Entrepreneur,’ she says without hesitation. ‘I think I have an entrepreneurial spirit. A willingness to explore, give it a go, find the seed and make something out of it.’  So there we have it: Elle Macpherson, entrepreneur. 

Elle Macpherson Body is available at Selfridges