Top model Grace Elizabeth covers the February 8, 2019 issue of Porter Edit, styled by Tracy Taylor in Burberry, Isabel Marant, Gucci, Valentino, Givenchy, Chloé, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, Prada, Fendi and more for the cover story ‘Most Wanted’. Photographer Hyea W. Kang is in the studio, with Jane Mulkerrins interviewing Grace Elizabeth about why she’ll always be a southern girl at heart.

The rise of Grace Elizabeth from Lake City, Florida to top model status has been a family affair.

“In my town, you go to the grocery store and it’s ‘How’s your Momma?’ Everyone knows everyone. And here I was, in this ginormous city of people, and I knew nobody.” Undeterred, she found an apartment and gave herself a six-month deadline. “But my parents had put everything they had into my modeling – put money on credit cards, remortgaged the house. We’d put too much effort in for it not to pan out. And then, at that six-month mark, work started picking up.” She got the call from Miu Miu, with Miuccia Prada herself delivering a pre-runway pep talk. “She was like, ‘You’re beautiful, you’re strong and you’ve got this. You’ve got this.’ It was a statement, but also kind of a question,” laughs Elizabeth. “So I was like, ‘I’ve got this.’ That was the turning point.”

The girl who used to eat fried Oreos for breakfast is now studying online for a nutrition degree. “I’ll be licensed in only six and half years,” she deadpans. She also shares a memorable recollection about the first time she tried on Victoria’s Secret Angel wings.

At the fitting . . . she was shocked, she says, by the weight of the enormous pair of pink wings she was given to wear. “I did squats with dumbbells and bars on my back, and I tied a broom to my back with a scarf, put ankle weights on the end of it and walked up and down the hallway of my apartment,” she laughs.

As for her handsome Germany boyfriend, you’ll have to check him out on Instagram.