Former scarfie makes a Stella start to career

Kiwi model Stella Maxwell still has her feet firmly on the ground. Photo / Herald on Sunday

A year ago, Stella Maxwell was a typical student living the scarfie lifestyle in Dunedin. Now she's a top model mixing with the rich and famous in Paris.

"It's really amazing," says 19-year-old Maxwell. "I definitely wasn't expecting to go as far as I did."

It all began in October when Maxwell, then a first-year Otago University psychology student living in a hostel, met Aliana McDaniel of Dunedin agency AliMcD's.

McDaniel was blown away by the leggy blonde. "I said to her, 'I've got a feeling your life is about to change'," says McDaniel.

And change it did. Maxwell, who had no modelling experience, was soon signed with Donald Trump's agency and heading to New York on the strength of pictures sent by McDaniel.

Now she's living in Paris and flits between the fashion centres of Europe doing fashion shoots and runway shows.

Maxwell has shot a lookbook for Alexander McQueen, a fragrance campaign for Mango in Spain and has featured in Italian Vogue, German Vogue, Glamour and French Elle.

A recent shoot with some very high-profile supermodels is set to raise the teen's star even higher when it comes out in September.

Maxwell, who was born in Belgium to British parents, grew up in Wellington, where she attended Queen Margaret College. Her father is a European Union diplomat now back in the UK.

But New Zealand is still home to Maxwell, who has just been in Auckland for a fleeting visit to catch up with McDaniel and her Auckland agency Red11. "It's great because it's important for her to be back on this side of the world and remember there is a market in New Zealand," says McDaniel. "You don't have to be in London or America or Paris to make it."

It's good to be back but Maxwell is looking forward to returning to her life in Paris, she says.

The bitchy, aloof model stereotype is far from the truth, says Maxwell. "I'm good friends with all the models," she says. "We live close together and we hang out together.

"It's like a family. It's tough because you're all competing, but all the girls I've met have been super-nice."

As for the hedonistic, drug-fuelled lifestyle the fashion industry is famous for, Maxwell says "there's definitely that side to it".

"But if you have a good head on your shoulders it's fine," she says.