Heavenly Creature

Cara Delevingne was impossible to miss at the spring collections. The 20-year-old British model, who also stars as Count Vronsky’s virgin marriage interest in Joe Wright’s recent film adaptation of Anna Karenina, was everywhere—walking in almost 40 shows in New York, London, Milan, and Paris, all while clogging the Twittersphere with news that she was dating tween heartthrob Harry Styles of One Direction. But omnipresence aside, the bushy-browed wild child, who cites Charlie Chaplin as her style icon and the Milan-based street-wear brand You Need This Shit as a favorite label, simply has a quirky sense of cool that the fashion world has found captivating. The photographer Mario Testino has called her “the new Kate Moss,” but given Delevingne’s rather posh pedigree—her father, Charles Delevingne, is a property magnate, grandfather Sir Jocelyn Stevens was the owner and publisher of Queen magazine, and grandmother Janie Sheffield was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret— she could just as easily be anointed the new Stella Tennant. After all, while most American catwalkers are harvested from the Corn Belt, many of England’s runway stars—Tennant, as well as India Hicks, Honor Fraser, Iris Palmer, and Alice Dellal, to name a few—have substantial social credentials. For Delevingne, who off the runway often sports Jeremy Scott’s Bart Simpson–emblazoned crop top and isn’t too upper-crust to tweet pictures of herself dressed as a hot dog, the camera has afforded an outlet for her odd-duck ways. “Being a model wasn’t a dream of mine,” she says, noting that music and acting are her true passions. “But I love it, and if in 10 years I’m still doing it, I’ll be lucky.”

Hair by Anthony Turner at Art Partner; makeup by Hannah Murray for Topshop Make Up; manicure by Antonella Fortuna. Model: Cara Delevingne at Women Management. Production by Nina Qayyum for North Six. Digital technician: Nico Fallet for D-Factory. Photography assistants: Pierre Persson, Clay Gardner, Stian Foss. Fashion assistants: Felicia Garcia-Rivera, Jack Borkett, Lacey Lennon. Special thanks to Palazzo Biscari and Comune di Noto.