Yet as the ELLE Beauty Team thought guiltily of the toothpaste-stained pair of joggers that make up our own behind closed doors ‘loungewear’, Freja Beha Erichsen the 25 year-old model from Denmark took time out from the Maybelline calendar shoot and joined us for a vegetable juice on the rooftop terrace of New York’s Pier 59 Studios to reveal her secrets to surviving the fashion circus.

The bad news is that the slim, skinny black jean-ed legs that go on forever are not kept in shape with a blood, sweat and tears exercise regimen. Less of a Pilates devotee or treadmill pounder, she’ll don the old Rick Owens shorts and do a few stretches in the comfort of her own Brooklyn or Denmark home. “I’m not into any particular style but friends have taught me some yoga poses that I do to chill out after a long flight,” she says in that sleepy Danish lilt that makes us go a little bit gooey inside.

She’s also a stickler for vitamin D and calcium supplements and eats organic – most of the time. “I love a good steak - and you can’t beat the Eggs Benedict and coffee in NY model hangouts, Café Gitane and Blue Bottle”. Having a trusty pot of chocolate mousse topped with fresh berries is never far from her clutches when she needs a quick boost during the whirlwind shooting schedule she’s been on for , , H&M – and now Maybelline – since she was scouted seven years ago.

Being able to catnap for Denmark also helps keep that pale skin peachy and shadow free. Forget wonder creams that fake eight hours of shut eye, (Bioderma’s Crealine H20 Makeup Remover is about as complicated as her skin care gets) – a few pages of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and she can curl up anywhere for a quick forty winks.
Music and movies are her comfort factor, (“Taking Woodstock always makes me smile,”). Unravelling those legs, she fishes her iPod out of her pocket, waves us a cheery goodbye and plugs in, (the new xx album, since you ask) and cool as a cucumber, prepares for her next close-up.

Now if only chocolate mousse, coffee and the odd cobra stretch could make us look like that.