TAYLOR HILL IS WINNING! How she became the world’s most influential model

She’s the epitome of modernday celebrity: a 21-year-old model with a 24-hour selfie habit. Cosmopolitan finds out why the world is following Taylor Hill’s every move ›

“I was a shy teenager and at school I was made fun of”

You can tell a surprising amount about a person by the followers they have on Instagram. Taylor Hill, the 21-year-old model and Lancôme ambassador, has 8.4 million. Among them are a few familiar names. There’s Paris Hilton for a start, and, oh look… Selena Gomez and… Penélope Cruz. Fellow model-of-the-moment Ashley Graham is there, too, as well as veteran supermodel Cindy Crawford. And hang on a minute, is that Romeo Beckham, Jessica Alba and Craig David? The fact her legions of fans reads like the guest list to The Met Gala (OK, Craig David notwithstanding) tells you everything you need to know about Taylor Hill. Like Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin, this is a young woman who transcends the role of simple fashion model.

Scouted back when she was just 14 years old, in the past 12 months Taylor has become the youngest-ever face of Lancôme, walked at every major fashion show and earned herself a place on Forbes’ list of the 20 highestpaid models in the world, alongside the likes of Gisele, Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne. These days, a social post averages 400,000 likes, and so desperate are the general public for a taste of her life that even her dog Tate has his own burgeoning Instagram account, @tatetheminidoodle (24.9k followers and counting, thank you very much).

Within minutes of meeting her you understand the hype. Of course she’s obscenely pretty in the flesh, with vertiginous cheekbones, perfectly unkempt eyebrows and a smile as wide and well-proportioned as a Parisian boulevard. But she is also drop-dead charming. Not charming in the Tom Cruise BS (before Scientology) school of charm, more The Great Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan school of charm: a quiet, sweet charm that makes all who meet her want to know more.

She arrives bang on time at the London studio, whispering a velvetsoft “hello” as she walks in.

“I was a very shy teenager and sometimes at school I was made fun of for being bashful,” she reveals later.“I was never really part of a gang, and all I wanted was the company of my close friends. When you’re a teenager, you’re not sure what you’re doing, you still have to work on your self-esteem. But then you learn to manage your insecurities.” It was while she was studying at Pomona High School in Colorado that Taylor was scouted by photographer and agent Jim Jordan. He was on location at a ranch near her home doing a photo shoot when he spotted her horse riding there. At this point, modelling hadn’t even crossed her mind and she was more interested in snowboarding, gymnastics and Harry Potter. Taylor, who has two sisters and a brother, has admitted previously that both she and her parents (a beautician and a gas engineer) thought he was “insane” when he approached her. She has said in the past,“I was the opposite of cool. I had all this frizzy hair I didn’t know what to do with; I wore my sister’s hand-me-downs, which I was too tall for, so nothing ever fitted.”

But Jim saw potential in her and soon after Taylor was signed to model agency IMG, who also look after the likes of Bella Hadid and Miranda Kerr. What did her school peers think of that? “I was famous, but I never felt different,” she explains. “Thanks to the love of my sisters and brother, and my friends, I could just be myself. They have always supported me, and are my biggest fans. This is the source of my secret superpower,” she says.

She graduated from school aged 16 and within two years was being booked for jobs by some of the biggest names in the fashion industry. By 2013 she had walked for Victoria’s Secret, becoming an angel in 2015. And Taylor is reported to have made £3.1 million from modelling last year alone. Who inspired her growing up?

“My favourite model is Christy Turlington,” she says.“[She is] an extraordinary, magnetic and sweet woman with a strength of character I really admire. But the women who inspire me most in everyday life are my sisters.”

While Taylor’s career has grown at a phenomenal rate, so too has her social-media presence, which has become a huge part of her brand. Her account is littered with pictures of her snowboarding with her siblings – sisters Logan Rae, 22, Mackinley, 19, and brother, Chase, 18 – hanging out with her beloved dog Tate and hitting up Coachella with friends.

As designer Thakoon Panichgul said of Taylor last September when

she walked for him at New York Fashion Week,“You know girls like her from school. You want to be friends with her. It’s about a girl’s personality and charisma, too. Taylor has all that.”

Taylor tells me,“For me the basis of social media is being authentic, and true to yourself. I talk to my followers as if they were friends, even if I don’t know them, although many of them actually do end up becoming friends!”

She adds,“I don’t pay any attention to online nastiness. I’ve learned never to focus on the negative side.”

These days Taylor (“Tay” to friends) lives in New York with her boyfriend, Michael Stephen Shank, 31, a model, and their dog. She prefers not to talk about Michael but when it comes to her “hairy boy” (that’s her Labradoodle by the way) you can’t stop her.“I opened an Instagram account for him, so I can see him when I’m away. When travelling on business, I often call my family and talk to him on FaceTime.”

When she’s in New York, she likes to hang out with fellow models Romee Strijd and Jasmine Tookes, eating pizza, watching films and going shopping like any regular 21-year-old. Taylor is fairly low-key when it comes to her appearance as well. Her mum still cuts her hair like she did when she was little, and she likes her make-up to look as natural as possible. “A bold eyelash is always sexy,” she says. As Lancôme ambassador, she swears by their Monsieur Big Mascara (£21, see right).“It thickens my lashes without making them look false. I usually add winged eyeliner to make my eyes pop even more. That’s my go-to look.”

Taylor is also very close to her siblings. As with the Hadids and Delevingnes before them, the Hill family are slowly becoming famous in their own right. Mackinley and Chase were both recently signed by IMG and Logan Rae is now a photographer.

The four of them also have their own YouTube channel called The Hill Sisters And Chase, which has over 38,000 subscribers and documents everything from family holidays to car trips to the mall. These videos can garner nearly one million views each.

Taylor smiles when I mention similarities to the Hadid family.“You can’t compare us, even though we’re on the same scene,” she says.“There is no rivalry between us.”

After seven years in the industry, Taylor is keen to ensure her siblings have the best advice possible.“I always tell them the world of fashion is a stage, but it’s crucial to be yourself, not to hide behind a mask. This is what really gives you the strength to go on, to deal with whatever comes your way, and to cope with being turned down. It’s part of the normal routine in this line of work, and it would be stupid to let it get to you”.

It’s time for Taylor to go. She’s flying back to New York this evening and her car is waiting outside. Before she heads off, I ask her what she hopes to do next. Obviously fashion month is fast approaching and, of course, there will be more campaigns to shoot, but what about further down the line? “In the future, I would love to go into the business side and design my own line of clothing. We models have so many opportunities compared to other girls. We live in an exciting world full of interesting people. We need to make the most of these experiences... What for me is sometimes hard work, for someone else would be a dream. I bear that in mind the whole time.”

“It’s crucial to be yourself, not to hide behind a mask”