Like most supermodels, 20-year-old Karen Elson is running late. When the towering, striking fashion sensation does turn up, apologizing profusely (her family is in town), all is forgiven. Kicking back in her local joint, Tribeca's earthy Juniper, the redhead uncoils her scarf, bums an American Spirit Light from the bartender and orders a caesar salad.
"I wasn't the model type," Elson tries to convince me. "At school I got harassed so badly for being too tall, too thin, too pale - too everything that has gotten me where I am now, which is quite ironic." A modeling scout discovered a 16-year-old Elson on the street in her industrial hometown near Manchester, England, and soon she was off to London. "It was completely insane," she remembers, her ocean-blue eyes widening. "But I got off on the fact that I was looking out for myself." After little success in London, a penniless Elson relocated to Paris, where she shacked up in a matchbook-size flat near the red light district. "I didn't even have a mattress and there were cockroaches all over the place. No phone. No TV. I didn't know anyone in Paris. I was totally depressed." Soon she was sent to Tokyo, where she made some money. "I totally let my hair down in Japan. It gave me some soul to continue." Elson then tried Milan before moving to New York just before her 18th birthday. She lived first with Eileen Ford and plugged along until a fateful meeting with photographer Steven Meisel changed everything. After a Meisel spread in Italian Vogue, Elson shaved off her eyebrows and chopped her flame-red hair into a blunt cut. The startling look landed her on the cover of Italian Vogue. "It was a strong image. No one had ever seen it before and it catapulted me into this whole new realm. It was a catalyst," she explains. "That's when this whole crazy madness started. I haven't stopped working." After rooming with her best friends, models Erin O'Connor and Maggie Rizer, Elson moved on her own to a cozy place in Tribeca with a view of the Hudson River.
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