Erin O'Connor Quotes

My story wasn't one of those cliched stories of being an ugly duckling, I had a pretty good time at school. But then I think being six foot by the age of 15 meant that I couldn't help but be noticed, and that was when my physical being felt quite painful - I could not any longer walk into a room without being noticed.

Water - I drink gallons of it! You can use the most luxurious skincare products in the world, but they won't work as well if you do not hydrate from inside.

Sometimes, very quietly and graciously, you can inspire other people by showing them that there's a different way and many perceptions of beauty. You may not be feeling it inside, but if you display it like you mean it, then it can give permission to be kind to ourselves and embrace our individuality.

I'm often mistaken for a man.

I have a regular cleansing, toning and moisturising routine.

We won't get economic growth if we don't look after our mothers and the potential of the next generation. They need to be prioritised.

Clothes are like a suit of armour when you're young. I was quite a shy teen, so I wanted to make aggressive statements with the way I looked. I'd say my goth/indie stage was the worst: there was a lot of experimentation involving pink food dye in my fringe.

In my job, I am portrayed as a misfit, a grandiose high fashion lady or an unearthly creature. At home, it's important I can look in the mirror, strip away the disguise and be comfortable with who stares back.

I'm like a tourist when I'm in London.

I've worn a lot of humdingers in my time, but as a model it's my duty - my responsibility - to bring life to any garment. That can be challenging when it comes to high fashion, where the creations can be very eccentric, but I've gained a reputation for being the go-to girl who can pull it off.

I've enjoyed many camping holidays with my sister and her children, but we're pretty posh campers.

Caution is the key to safe cycling. I'm aware that cars are bigger than me, but I feel quite safe. I'm in control, liberated and free, when I'm on my bike.

I think most models fear growing old, but from a tender age I had always chosen to play someone grown up. I am slowly but surely catching up with the people that I have spent the last decade and a half trying to portray.

A girl must have an indefinable magic, real character, a strong sense of self. Her role is to respond to the brief of a photographer or communicate the vision of a designer - while making whatever she does look utterly effortless and whatever she wears utterly seamless.

How awful to be a perfect beauty! How confusing! God. Can you imagine?

I want to show that we all have the right to be ourselves, and I certainly don't want to freeze time.

I love the sun, but we don't get on at all; it doesn't agree with my Celtic tones. I also like nothing better than putting on a big ski jacket and feeling the wind in my face.

I am aware it's easy and may be fashionable to pose with a slum child, and the irony of getting the media along means that it can come across as disingenuous. But you take these things on board, and you hope you mean it whenever you get stuck into something.

I've been cycling ever since I was a kid. I remember taking my cycling proficiency test aged seven - I got to school at 7:30 A.M. to practise, I was so nervous. After that, I always cycled to school.

I think most of my career has been built on conviction and the personality to carry that image or stride confidently on the catwalk. That was my beginning and, hopefully, my legacy.

I love vintage clothes. But they don't love me very much. It is difficult to find anything that fits me because of my height, but if I do fall in love with something, I'll buy it and display it like a work of art at home.

I take my mentoring responsibilities very seriously.

For my last meal, I'd want an Irish breakfast with soda bread and one of my dad's omelettes with three or four eggs.

I seem to disappoint people a bit. They want the full regalia - but I don't walk around in a corset the whole time.

It makes me cross when I hear people say, 'It's so last season.' I always say, 'It's vintage.'

It's a very intimate thing to invite someone into your home; there's a lot of trust involved.

I had one particular handbag disaster when I couldn't get into it, and when I finally did, it flew over the red carpet and was caught by 200 lenses. Not a great moment.

When you're physically growing up, you develop emotionally with that.

I do like shopping high street, but I do consider the long-term value of a specific piece and, also, one day giving it up for somebody else to love and enjoy.

The 'Best of British' is a positive thing that's bandied around, but also it's applied pressure to our country in terms of economic growth. I think we've always felt the rest of the world is so much more powerful in terms of being commercially viable, but we can take great pride in our level of creativity.

Fear has been my biggest friend. Fear of the unknown. Whenever I've been afraid, I've been very self-protective.

I can play the flute. Music was my favourite A-level, and I used to love composing my and stylising my voice to sound like 90's singing sensation Tori Amos.

I've been on both sides: the victim and the villain. I was the victimised model, and everything from my weight to my fertility was held up for discussion. And then I was the person that could garner some kind of positive outcome, by taking on the role of vice chairman of the British Fashion Council and becoming an activist of body image.

In the early days of my modelling career, I think the industry was uncomfortable with how strikingly different I was.

As a model, part of my job is to be critiqued physically.

There are great slender models, great tall models, Amazonian models, great busty models - my point is models of all shapes and sizes, age, ethnic background should be embraced and celebrated.

The great outdoors is a theme with me; a walking holiday in Scotland is perfect - Culloden and the forests of Aviemore are both favourites.

I love the physicality of my job and how my mind and body are most happy when I'm expressing and moving. My face was always secondary to body alignment and the dynamism of making a moment come alive.

At school I was very shy and coincidentally inherited the title 'little miss worry guts,' and that was just among the staff. I learned early on that I could make people laugh, and as my small neat body betrayed me by growing to dizzying heights, I used it as a tool that translated into complete slap-stick comedy.

I think there is some resistance when people talk about ethical fashion, and a tendency to panic that if you're bringing a moral agenda and highlighting the origins of the garments, you can't incorporate style. But there's no reason why style and conscience can't co-exist.

It's not about hiding your imperfections on a shoot; it's about embracing them and being unapologetic about them.

Conformism is a potent statement, and as much as we do talk about individuality in fashion, there's a sense that people are fearful of not conforming and not being part of action.

Fashion is intoxicating, and it plays a part in all of our everyday lives. A lot of people use it as a form of escape, of realising a fantasy, and in some ways that becomes an unobtainable norm.

I knew I'd made it when my face appeared on a stamp.

I am concerned about ageism and the loss of beauty - the perception that as you grow older, you 'lose your looks,' which I think is diabolical.

As a small child, me and my pals fantasised about one day owning an ice-cream van. To have ice creams on demand would have been a dream come true.

I am the world's laziest shopper, but very rarely have I had to take anything back.

My hair is an untidy bob. I am very dark, but I embellish the roots because I am white in one clump.

Starting my career in London was no accident because the city and the industry here are all about theatre and drama, and I respond well to that.

It's like recycling: selling old clothes to help make new ones.

My plan growing up was to leave home and try not to panic. I always knew that to strive to be self-sufficient was an important ambition.

Rejection is, of course, part of any successful model's career, as ironic as that sounds. It's how you pick yourself up and get on with the job.

Someone once referred to modeling as being like winning the lottery gene pool. It's such an odd way to put things, but what is different about modelling is that the industry often picks you.

When I first began modeling, I was very conventional looking. I had hair down to my waist in a side parting - almost church-like. But beneath the sheath of hair lay this Amazonian, strong-looking frame.

I'm bad at rationalisation - very bad.

When I was 13 or 14, my parents had a bit of a windfall so bought a lovely new kitchen, but I burnt it down. I was making cheese on toast when flames escaped from the grill. My father stopped the fire with blind panic and excessive water. I was forgiven, but it put me off cooking for years.

I would say I live half in New York and half in Claridge's. How decadent! How hysterical!

The model sanctuary was borne of a complex, political, societal debate. It was proposed to us from various bodies that we give models medicals once a year, and if they didn't pass that medical, there's a chance they'd legally lose their right to work.

In my career, which has been fairly two-dimensional, people make decisions based on your persona.

Growing up, I had an insane crush on Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.