Jacquetta Wheeler

By Sara Templeton

Is jealousy a good thing? Probably not, but sometimes it's hard to not feel ill will towards another human being.

Especially when you're standing in line waiting to get into the trendiest night club in town, freezing your midriff off, trying ignore the biting cold that turning your extremities to ice.

Jacquetta Wheeler, a British model, doesn't have this problem, and sometimes that makes me a tad jealous. "I never have any trouble getting in; the doormen can spot a model a mile away," Wheeler once said.

But, while superstar model Jacquetta may be able to waltz into the most popular establishments with not a worry in the world, I don't have to put up with uppity fashion designers telling me to lose weight and how about the nutbag sycophants?

In hindsight I'll take the freezing midriff option, and now that I'm peace with the world again it's time to see exactly how Jacquetta Wheeler came to be the dazzling model that she is today.

Born on October 16, 1981 - which makes her a Libran - in England, Jacquetta's parents were very well off, able to give their daughter everything she needed as a child. Her father Stuart was an entrepreneur and her mother Tessa a photographer.

The fashion industry beckoned when Jacquetta turned 15. It was 1997 and she was at the family's holiday house in Tangiers Morocco, when she was introduced to Stephan Jansen, an Italian designer.

Jansen was immediately impressed by not only her photogenic face, but also the way she carried herself and so requested that the teenaged Jacquetta accompany him to Milan to take part in his fashion show.

She agreed, but was very much of the opinion that it was nothing but good luck and she was just going along for the experience.

A year later in 1998, she was stopped by none other than world-famous photography Mario Testino on the streets of Knightsbridge in London.

Realising that it wasn't luck at all and that her first meeting with Jansen was more than a fluke as well, she decided to go with the flow.

From appearing in an one-off Milanese fashion to meeting Mario and being thrust into a photo shoot for French Vogue, Jacquetta went from nobody to somebody in the fashion world quite literally overnight.

By the end of 1998, the now 17-year old 5'11" tall model was on top of the world, having showed an impressive work ethic while piquing the interest of many big name fashion labels, including the house of Gucci.

The Italian company signed up the British model and requested her presence in Los Angeles, for which she cordially obliged.

When back at school after her trans-Atlantic exploits, the still-at-school young model was leading a life unlike most of her fellow students. She had appeared in advertising campaigns for all the big names, heading off after school to work with the likes of Prada and Givenchy, and often being flown out on location to shoot with international labels.

Aged 20, Jacquetta's enigmatic visage had helped her conquer almost all facets of the fashion industry, making a mint along the way.

She'd done the ad campaigns and fashion events for the likes of Valentino, MaxMara, Versace, YSL and countless others, and Britain's popular 'The Face' magazine had previously voted her as Model of the Millennium.

That means she's the hottest model in the last 1000 years - quite a plaudit.

Spending more time in the US, she said of her career "New York is the only place to be as a model. This is where the work and the money are and you can't be taken seriously by the industry until you move here." But whether she was in the US or Europe, she was definitely being taken seriously.

In 2004, at age 23, Jacquetta's rapid rise to fame and fortune didn't turn her into a celebrity monster, our to devour all those in her way, and in fact wants to go to university to increase her knowledge.

Jacquetta is contracted to a number of agencies, including IMG in (New York, Why Not Model Agency in Milan, Take Two in London and VIVA in Paris. In her spare time she rides horses and parties

Living in England with her beau, Polish photographer Alexi Lubomirski (who was also Mario Testino's assistant photographer), Jacquetta Wheeler still has plenty of gas left in the tank, but whether she decides to keep on truckin' is another question altogether. And who am I kidding? Sycophants or not, if I see a leggy blonde with a impish smile jump the queue next time I'm freezing my knickers off outside a club, expect some blue language...