Sisters Ruth and May Bell were just regular jobbing models until Ruth shaved her head.
The identical twins were having dinner in London one evening in June this year when Ruth went outside to take a call from their management agency, Elite. When she returned, she told her sister, 'They want me to do an Alexander McQueen campaign.’
'I said, “That’s brilliant,’’’ remembers May, who is immediately identifiable as the more sanguine of the two 19-year-olds. 'And then she said, “They want me to shave my head.’’’
Slender, fair and blond, with eyes that can look as curious as sea creatures within the delicate structures of their pale faces, they were spotted, aged 16, at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex by a scout from Elite.
When Elite entered the twins into its 2013 national modelling competition to see how they would fare, it was May alone who scooped the top prize, securing her the nomenclature 'Baby Kate Moss’ from the blog The Fashion Spot, and a two-week trip to China.
Born in Dover, Kent, they live down the coast now in Deal, with their father, an accountant, and mother, a civil servant. 'We’ve never lived so far from the sea that we can’t walk to it,’ says May.
They have a 21-year-old sister, who has just graduated in physics from Durham. 'She is the clever one,’ Ruth adds.
Bookmarks