Lara Stone was born on December 20, 1983, in Berlin to a Dutch mother and a British father. She grew up in the small town of Mierlo in the Netherlands. Lara entered the Elite Model Look contest in 1999 as a 15-year-old and, although she didn’t win, she did impress the execs and was signed by Elite Model Management.

When Lara was expelled from high school the following year, her mother encouraged her to go to Paris to try and model. More than five years of struggle followed—Lara didn’t make it in the French capital, and she spent a lot of time trying to build her book and work off agency debt. But a change of representation to IMG suddenly changed the game for her. IMG promoted Lara very selectively, pushed her to a few key industry players, and got her in front of the right casting directors. After Ricardo Tisci picked her to open Givenchy’s Autumn/Winter 2006 haute couture show, Lara didn’t look back.

She has walked for Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Lanvin, Miu Miu, Fendi, MaxMara, Pollini, Prada, Anna Sui, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Stella McCartney, Zac Posen, Balmain, Celine, Hermès, Isabel Marant, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, D&G, Givenchy, Karl Lagerfeld, Missoni, Emanuel Ungaro, and many others. In spring 2008, Lara signed a semi-exclusive contract with Prada, where she was only allowed to walk on other runways after she closed the Prada show, meaning she didn’t do New York at all. During the runway season of Spring/Summer 200, Lara opened the shows of Giles Deacon, Isabel Marant, and Christopher Kane. She also opened the finale of the coveted Prada show that very same season.

Her history of campaigns includes Calvin Klein Make-Up, Calvin Klein Jeans, H&M, Jean Paul Gaultier, Time, DKNY Jeans, Nicole Farhi, Belstaff, CK Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss Orange, De’ Type, Revlon, TSUM, Just Cavalli, Max Mara, Malizia by La Perla, Sisley, Jil Sander, and Givenchy (for five consecutive seasons).

Lara was on the cover of Japanese Vogue in March 2005, French Elle in May 2006, Danish Elle in August 2006, Italian Vogue in December 2007, and French Vogue in April 2006, March 2008, and again in February 2009. In 2008, Lara was also on the cover of W, alongside Kate Moss and Daria Werbowy, and featured on the cover of Vogue Italia in December 2007, shot by Steven Meisel. She was recently on the cover of i-D with the cheeky tag line “Yes, I think I’m sexy.”

Lara was also photographed alongside Malgosia Bela, Daria Werbowy, Randal Moore, Mariacarla Boscono, Emanuela De Paula, and Isabeli Fontana for the 2009 Pirelli calendar. She spent 10 days on a savanna in Africa shooting the calendar. She shot while in front of a fire, jumping off of elephants, and climbing up trees in heels!

According to Vogue 2009, Lara is one of the 10 new models to watch. She was considered the best model in 2006 by MODTV and the best in the Fall 2007 season by FashionTV. She was featured in the Elle article “Supermodel Generation 2006,” along with Jessica Stam, Gemma Ward, Hilary Rhoda, and Natasha Poly. She was also number one in the First Faces Fall 2007 Countdowns from FashionTV.

The entire February 2009 edition of Vogue Paris was dedicated to Lara. She was featured as the entire issue’s cover star and sole model. French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld has said about Lara, “Sometimes a girl just touches you.” Lara has worked with Peter Lindbergh, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Hedi Slimane, Steven Klein, Patrick Demarchelier, Terry Richardson, and Nan Goldin, who almost never shoots fashion. Roitfeld also solicited artists, including Marco Perego, Rupert Shrive, and Francesco Vezzoli, to imagine Lara’s likeness in their own styles—for instance, as a nude figurine among S&M-y pencil drawings of Minnie Mouse and Tinkerbell (which was Marco’s contribution).

Lara’s trademarks include the gap between her front teeth and her wobbly runway walk, which can be attributed to her size-seven feet, vastly smaller than the regular runway shoe. Some say the gap in her teeth upsets her symmetry, but we think it adds to her beauty and is one of the things that has made her stand out from the crowd. She once told i-D magazine, “Now every time I go to the dentist they always say, ‘You really need to fix that gap of yours.’ I’m like, ‘My gap is paying your dentist bills.’”