When Amber Valletta turned up for her initial photo-shoot for American Vogue, aged seventeen, the legendary stylist Brana Wolf took a single search at her and shook her head. "I'll always remember it," says Valletta these days. "She explained, 'You're sweet, sweetie, but we're going to shoot a lot of the fashion on Shalom [Harlow, the Canadian model] for the reason that she looks improved from the apparel.'""I was entirely gutted," Valletta suggests by using a chortle. "Arthur Elgort [the photographer] was using tobacco his pipe and mentioned, 'Don't get worried, darling. I am going to shoot some natural beauty on you.' And he did. I ended up acquiring a Vogue address on my first sitting down. From that minute on I by no means stopped doing work." Valletta, now 40, continues to be shooting covers. Thus far she has had sixteen American Vogue addresses - over Shalom Harlow and Kate Moss combined - and it has appeared about the go over of dozens of other publications, also as becoming the facial area of Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein and Versace. She has also cast a prosperous job being an actress, with much more than twenty credits, including the movie Hitch (2005) as well as television drama Revenge (2011-2014). A short while ago, along with Sean Bean, she begun shooting the brand new series Legends, a thriller produced by among the producers behind Homeland and 24. And just as if getting a supermodel and actress were not adequate, she also launched an online store, Learn & Muse, in September last year. It features designers who focus on "ethical consumerism": "As a woman who loves fashion but wanted to buy things that had been responsibly made, I know that there was nowhere to do it… Eventually I'd like to start my own label, but I wanted to understand the business to start with." It is, she suggests, her most fulfilling role to date. "In acting and modelling I am always part of someone else's vision. I love having a little bit much more control over my destiny." She arrives at the West Hollywood hotel where our shoot is taking place wearing a vintage white billowy shirt, vintage jeans and brown suede ankle boots from Yves Saint Laurent. She claims that she doesn't spend much on clothing. "I'm not really an excessive person. I'd rather spend far more on other things, like my garden." Her confront bears no trace of make-up (at least, before the make-up artist gets to her) but her distinctive pale-green eyes and angular bone structure make her instantly striking. At 1st she is a little clipped and aloof, but she mellows as the day goes on. She is very much in control of what is happening around her, suggesting outfits and changes to her make-up, but she is polite and friendly, calling everyone "honey" or "girlfriend", and making a point of thanking each person individually, from the photographer's assistant to the hair stylist. Throughout the day she fuels herself on miniature bottles of ferocious-sounding juice combinations such as "ginger, lemon, cayenne and echinacea". Born in Arizona, Valletta grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and endured a rough childhood. Her parents separated when Amber was two and her mother battled to keep the family afloat. "My mom in no way gave up. She was broke sufficient to be taking food stamps but she worked her a- off to keep us in school and to put food over the table. She waitressed, then begun delivering mail for the post office and worked her way up into the corporate part on the post office." Valletta says that she draws much of her strength from her mother, who was a forceful activist, landing herself in jail on one occasion for protesting against a nuclear plant. "It was pretty scary hearing that your mom got put in jail - but I saw what it meant to fight for something you believe in. My family is matriarchal. The women are definitely the rock of the family. We call my grandmother Queen Mary. I think it was just engrained in me to be a strong woman." She spent weekends and holidays on her grandparents' farm. "They bred horses, but nothing fancy. We had goats and peacocks and a creek that ran through their farm so we experienced snakes and fish and frogs. It was really, really fun. I feel blessed that I had such a great childhood having a really strong family." Yet a few minutes later she is talking about "letting go" of trauma in her childhood. "I've forgiven both of my parents. They're human beings and they tried the best that they could." She doesn't specify where her mother went wrong, except to say: "She made mistakes, she was young and experienced two kids and no education and was trying to make ends meet." When Amber was 15, her mother enrolled her in modelling classes and, at seventeen, she was offered a summer job modelling in Italy. "Looking back now there's a part of me that wishes I experienced taken 1 more year to be a kid at home." As she rocketed on to the international modelling scene, she says she often felt overwhelmed: "So much was happening and, although I had been street smart, I wasn't worldly smart, I didn't know anything about anything. I had been terribly insecure. I hadn't caught up to currently being a big supermodel." The very first design who made a real impact on her was Carla Bruni. "She was a very gracious woman. The 1st time she saw me in a manner show, she came up and introduced herself. I remember a season or two later, after I'd hit my stride and was probably feeling a little bit big for my breeches, I walked into a room and didn't say hello to her. She came over and stated, 'Don't be impolite' - and I really heard it." She remembers meeting Kate Moss for the prom dresses under 100 uk initially time when Harlow, who was living with Valletta, brought Moss around: "She was just this tiny little thing and nobody knew her. The three of us begun running round together and then she hooked up with Christy and Naomi. There were pods of us - we have been like sorority sisters. We experienced a lot of fun. "I can't give you any details simply because we are all sworn to secrecy. But what we did was ridiculous, the stuff you would do if you have been in college - like dressing up within the middle on the night and knocking on people's doors. Can you imagine opening your door and Kate and Naomi and I are standing there in wigs and sweatshirts?" She states that she became friends with all the supermodels of her day. "Christy, Naomi, Linda, Shalom and Kate were my crew. And Kirsty Hume and Stella Tennant too - Stella was hilarious. I remember she couldn't walk from the Versace shoes… When I see Stella now it's like seeing a sister, plus the same with the other girls." But it wasn't all fun. Valletta suggests she was susceptible to the many temptations of her new-found world, particularly alcohol. But she doesn't blame the industry per se. "Let me put it this way: I would have found it if I'd been in college, wherever I used to be, because that is part of who I am. I've been clean and sober 15 years now. I had been an all-or-nothing kind of girl and it was not doing the job for me. I really believe I'm an addict through and through. It runs in my family." She thinks the negative connotations around addiction are unfair: "It is a real disease, like currently being allergic to sugar or to bee stings. And it's nevertheless treated as something shameful: if you had been strong ample you would fix it. If you had been strong plenty of, could you fix breast cancer? No: you have a f- disease - it's a biochemical, physiological disease." Occasionally she remains tempted but by no means succumbs. "Every once in a while, I will miss a glass of wine. And there are drinks that cheap prom dresses under 100 I've in no way tried and I think, 'S-, I should have tried that.' But I'm so much greater without it - the risk I take if I have something is too big. I don't know where it will lead me." A few years ago she went into rehab but for different reasons: "It was an internal house-cleaning - I needed to learn how to let go in the wreckage and live freely now." Valletta's very first marriage, at twenty, was to the French male product Hervé le Bihan - but the couple divorced two years later and she is now married to the Olympic volleyball player Chip McCaw. She experienced bumped into him when she was home in Oklahoma visiting her mother. "We met in a shop with our parents and they set us up on a date." Was she resistant? "No, I thought he was lovable." They have a 13-year-old son called Auden who "towers over me at 5ft 11in". Turning forty was not a big milestone for her. "It meant a lot far more to everybody else around me. I didn't want a big party, I just wanted to do 40 great things this year. So far, I've learnt to surf properly. I rode a mechanical bull. I went to Austin with my son. I went to see Justin Timberlake…" And a couple of days before we meet, she pierced the top of her left ear. "I was scared s-less, but I wanted to do something fun and slightly rebellious - I've always had a rebellious part of me." She confesses to having experienced second thoughts. "I asked my son, 'Do you think this is embarrassing?' and he stated, 'No, it's cool.' If he didn't like it I would take it out." Valletta made the switch from modelling to acting mainly because, she suggests, "I needed the stimulation of something more and felt I had to do something else to be taken seriously. Experienced I known back then the kind of sacrifices I would have to make for acting, I really don't know if I would have gone for it. It monopolises everything and it's a really tough business. You hear 'no' way much more than you hear 'yes'. I'd by no means experienced that in modelling. You have to have thick skin." Although resigned to the fact that some people will only ever know her as a product, she says that these days much more people associate her with acting. "Sometimes I get a text saying, 'Oh my God, I saw you on a cover'. They think it's a miracle and I'm like, 'Dude, were being you not here 15 years ago? You would have seen me on every go over.' It's funny. I'm known in so many different contexts. I like that. I don't like becoming stuck in a box." On the list of benefits of turning forty, she claims, is that she no longer cares what anyone thinks. "I can do whatever I want. I don't feel I have to prove anything to anyone anymore. I could start singing if I want - which won't happen due to the fact I'm terrible." And, she professes, she is now the happiest she has ever been. "In the last decade I have really grown to be the person I am currently. I finally understand who I am." And who is she? "Who am I?" she asks using a burst of laughter. "I'm a work in progress, that's for sure."athenadresses prom dresses under 100