Elle Macpherson

For more than a decade she was the Body.
For nine months she was the Belly.
Now she is one of the world's most famous working mums. In Auckland this week, Elle Macpherson talked babies, weddings and exercise with SARAH-KATE LYNCH.

Let me tell you, straight up, there is no bad breath, no BO, no dandruff, no cellulite, no wrinkles, no grey hair, no craggy cleavage.

No matter how hard you look, Elle Macpherson seems perfect.

So perfect she isn't even "up herself" in the way we usually like the rich and famous to be up themselves so we have a reason other than jealousy not to like them.

She's chatty and funny and friendly.

Elle is sitting at the other end of the three-seater taking up much less than her third and explaining that of course she worried that having a baby would make her boobs droop but it didn't.

It's seven-and-a-half months since Flynn, her son with French businessman Arpad "Arkie" Busson, entered the world and changed her life. But the multi-million-dollar curves look just as good as they did when she entered the modelling world 17 years ago. Don't you hate it when it does that?

"I had a fabulous pregnancy. I just had a brilliant time," the supermodel smiles. "In fact, when I had the baby I felt a bit sad. I missed being pregnant."

Don't worry - she's not going to tell us that he slept through the night from day one and never cried. Even supermodel hormones rampage.

"I was like an animal," says Elle of the first sleepless weeks of motherhood.

"It was like Chinese water torture. I can really understand why they used that during the war. I was feeding only every four hours but just as you were drifting off to sleep it would be time to get up, feed the baby, change him, put him back to bed and then you'd just be getting back to sleep and it's time to do it all again.

"I cried all the time but now I can hardly remember it."

Like any mum she gets that slight I've-just-joined-the- Moonies look when she talks about her baby, but don't even think about getting a look at the blond-haired, brown-eyed boy.

"If he's with me I won't stop in the street and talk to people," she says. "I'll stick a scarf over his head but strangers still come up saying, `Little baby Flynn. Can we take a picture? Please, we want to take a picture.'"

Mum and Papa are adamant his will not be a famous face.

"I live with a man who is not in the public eye," Elle says of Busson. "He abhors the press. He's a very serious person who deals in finance and he really doesn't appreciate seeing himself in magazines. It's not a good thing for business."

As yet, there are no plans for the London-based couple to marry.

"I'm not the right person to ask about that," she says politely but pointedly.

The Body has walked down the aisle once before - in the mid-80s with photographer Gilles Bensimmon, wearing a stunning Azzedine Alaia gown that laced from the knee to the spine, then turned into a backless body and was covered with a long-sleeved top with a hood.

"I looked like a madonna," she says. "I loved that dress but you know what? I would really have liked a princess dress. You know, with tulle and a sweetheart neckline? That's what I was secretly dreaming."

But we're not here to talk about fairytale weddings, it's knickers and bras that have brought Elle back to our shores for the second time in four years and this time, she's been showing off a little something for the gents. "It's kind of exciting for me to get men interested in themselves," she says of her men's underwear range. "Most have probably been wearing the same underwear their mothers bought them."

Elle wants men to try something new, something see-through, perhaps. Something you might wear on the outside. Something that might hold you in and make you look thinner, even.

"It's fun - like taking someone to a restaurant and trying to get them to eat something they've never tried before."

Chances are, though, that the men's knickers are more likely to be bought by the female of the house who will ignore the deep, throaty cries of, "You've got to be bloody joking," and insist on them. She may herself be wearing something sexy and slinky designed by the Body for her Bendon range.

"This new range of women's lingerie is the closest to what I have always wanted to do," enthuses Elle, who is specially proud of the increased sales of her g-string knickers.

You won't be picking the Elle Intimates out of your privates, she swears. They've made the thong as wide as the gusset.

Naturally, she's wearing all her own inner wear. Just how many other women of 35 are thin enough, brown enough and waxed enough to flip their skirt and show you their matching knickers?

It was one of those healthy, no-carbohydrate diets while she breastfed that helped the Body resume its position. But during her Auckland visit she's eaten junk food and lain on her bed watching telly instead of exercising.

"At home I swim or run for an hour a day and I've just joined an all-women, state-of-the-art gym ,so I'm going to make myself go for an hour a day even if it's just for a wax or a massage," she says, wrinkling her perfect nose in mild distaste. "I always feel better after exercise so the pain or bore of doing it is usually outweighed by the pleasure. You just have to be on a roll. Right now I feel toxic."

But surely looks are everything for a supermodel with a movie career that has already seen her star opposite the likes of Hugh Grant in Sirens, George Clooney in The Mirror Has Two FacesThe Edge, directed by New Zealander Lee Tamahori.

"It was interesting working with him," she says, not meaning it in a bad way, either. "It was a real boys' film. Boys and bears. Bears and boys. We had a wonderful time, though, and I've remained good friends with Anthony Hopkins. He was one of the first people to call and congratulate me on the baby and he invited me to his 60th."

So never mind feeling grubby on the inside because of too much hotel food, you might expect Elle to bounce out of bed every morning, stare in the mirror and shout, "God, I'm gorgeous."

"I don't even look in the mirror," she says. "I get up, brush my teeth and walk out. Ten minutes."

What? No stopping to admire the trademark tresses that have been moisturised and conditioned by her very own, brand new range of hair care products?

"My hair has been tortured," says The Body. "It was red for The Mirror Has Two Faces because that's what Barbra Streisand wanted. I had extensions for The Edge. I've been every shade of blond for years, my hair is completely destroyed and when I was pregnant - hormones!" So far, though, she has resisted the temptation to lop it all off.

"My head's too small."

See. No body is perfect.
--Weekend TimeOut, 03/10/98