from corsica
to cosmo
Laetitia was discovered by a photographer at the age of 15 while she was splashing in the water with her baby sister on a beach in Corsica. He pointed her out to a friend who ran a modeling agency in Paris, and they approached her. Although her father was leery, he took Laetitia to Paris a few weeks later, and when he realized they were legitimate, he let her sign with the agency. It’s not that Laetitia had grown up wanting to model—she just wanted more than anything to get out of going to school. “I never related to girls my own age,” she explains with a thick French accent. “And I always thought the school of life was more interesting than books. When I was in class, I was always daydreaming about being somewhere else.”
     After only a few months of modeling, she landed her first magazine cover and quickly became fashion’s darling. But it wasn’t long before that exciting time gave way to the ugly reality of the modeling business. Bookers suggested that Laetitia get her teeth straightened and bleached. She refused, but their criticism made her self-conscious. A stylist who worked with her on early shoots remembers that Laetitia would keep her lips together so no one would see her teeth. But whenever she laughed, the photographers would urge her to keep smiling. This gave her the confidence to say no to all the other outrageous suggestions.
     A modeling agent told her to get a boob job (with a C cup, she certainly didn’t need any enhancement), and many designers wouldn’t use her on their runways because at 5 feet 7-1/2 inches, they thought she was too short. (Jean Paul Gaultier and Yves Saint Laurent put her on their runways anyway.) And her modeling agency wanted her to lose weight. With perfect, albeit not model-thin, measurements of 35-24-35, they told her that she was too round and curvaceous to make it in the fashion world. “Ten pounds, they kept saying,” recalls Laetitia with a giggle.
     But Laetitia had faith in herself, and she believes that’s what saved her. “Every time a person would say to me ‘You can trust me,’ I knew that I could do anything but,” she says in her confident yet reserved way. She took advice from no one, and every time she saw her image on a billboard, she secretly patted herself on the back for sticking to her guns.
     There was one thing Laetitia knew she had to fix though: She needed to learn to speak English. She did it by listening to oldies songs on the radio—a learning method that had some funny side effects. Once, when a guy broke her heart, she remembers asking him, “Why do you build me up just to let me down?” (reiterating the words to the Foundations’ song “Build Me Up Buttercup”). At least she didn’t add “buttercup baby.”

runaway success
After just five years in the business, Laetitia had become the face of Guess Jeans, appeared on the covers of many top magazines, including Elle, Marie Claire, and Cosmo, and been selected to go to Kenya to shoot the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. “It was so fantastic for me to be in that place, to call home and tell my family about it,” she says. She admits she loved wearing the barely-there bathing suits. “I feel comfortable with myself, so I love to model bikinis,” she says. “It’s very sexy, and I think it’s stupid not to be comfortable with the body you have.”
     That I-look-good-and-I-know-it attitude helped her nab a coveted Victoria’s Secret modeling contract. From there, she became the face of L’Oréal and the muse of Yves Saint Laurent. According to photographer Patrick Demarchelier, who has shot six of Laetitia’s Cosmo covers, she was the obvious choice for such jaw-dropping jobs. “Laetitia’s a pro. She doesn’t have to work at being sexy. It was like she was born that way,” he explains. “When the camera is on her, she fixes those eyes on you and you know it’s the perfect shot. She was made for magazine covers.

model behavior
At the shoot for this month’s Cosmo cover at Demarchelier’s studio, Laetitia danced around to Madonna songs, wearing her low-cut jeans and a Snoopy tee shirt with her hair in curlers. She wandered over to the food table, grabbed a cold slice of gourmet pizza, and gobbled it down. She polished off a chocolate bar just as quickly. She claims she eats whatever she wants and never exercises. She likes her body to be a little soft and feminine, and this is part of the reason she is such a hit with both men and women. Guys love her because she’s a sexpot, and women like her because she’s not super skinny like the majority of models. Even other catwalkers admire Laetitia’s looks. Kirsty Hume concedes: “Laetitia is one of those other models—the ones who look great in bathing suits. I’m part of the tall runway group.”
     Even at the shoot with those curlers in her hair and her face free of makeup, she’s so breathtaking, you can’t take your eyes off her. But Laetitia swears that when she’s on the street in her home cities of New York and Paris, she walks around unnoticed. “People don’t recognize me. It’s because they think of me as larger than life, like on billboards,” she says. “And I am really just a little thing.” When fans do recognize her, she is polite, but standoffish. This is how she acts on shoots as well. She’s nice and friendly but keeps to herself. And she has never been known to throw hissy fits—which many models do all too often. A stylist who works with the top catwalkers says, “I’ve seen models throw tantrums over what they’re being asked to wear or how they’re being asked to pose. But Laetitia’s not like that—she comes in, puts on the clothes, and just gets to work.”

undercover mother
Laetitia believes that while her image belongs to the public, her privacy still belongs to her, which is why she refuses to talk about her boyfriend. In a way, it’s that attitude that’s helped her stay on top. She deliberately keeps a low profile so her name never turns up in the gossip pages. And while some young models would never consider having a baby for fear it could ruin their career, Laetitia couldn’t wait to get pregnant because, she gushes, “I always pictured myself as a mother.” Within months, her body had retuned to its prepregnancy shape and she was back in front of the cameras. Photographer Dominique Isserman, who has worked with Laetitia many times, says she’s more mature than other models her age. “She does her job with such perfection. She has always kept her head above water while the sharks were trying to pull her under.”

role model
These days, Laetitia is adding movie actress to her already challenging roles of model and mother. She nabbed a small role opposite actors Gérard Depardieu and Robert Benigni in the 199 French action cartoon Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar and then landed a part in a French miniseries set during World War II called The Blue Bicycle. She has made two films since then: the 2001 movie Savage Souls with John Malkovich (in which she ages to 95 years old) and this years Street of Pleasures, a love-triangle in which she plays a prostitute. And she’s about to start shooting a movie in her native Corsica about how a baby affects a couple’s relationship.
     Laetitia may be an up-and-coming movie actress, but she doesn’t see herself as the next Nicole Kidman. In fact, she refuses to ever compare herself to anyone. “I am very much my own person. I never look at anyone and think, I wish I was them.” Why on earth would she?