The model with metal legs

Aimee Mullins is munching French toast at her favourite greasy spoon in Manhattan's West Village. She's tall, slim and blonde with wide, hazel eyes, wearing Stella McCartney cords and high-heeled sandals. It's only when she hoists a leg up on the table and reminds me that it's fake, that the illusion of physical perfection is shattered.

Aimee, 25, had both legs amputated just below the knee when she was a year old. She was born without a fibula in her lower legs, possibly caused by her mother taking antibiotics before she knew she was pregnant.

The next few years were spent in a wheelchair, and doctors warned that she would never walk. Unfazed, Aimee taught herself to walk with artificial legs and by the age of 10, she was also running, skiing and playing softball.

"My parents never told me that I couldn't do something," she says. "They expected me to excel." And she did. Aimee did her internship at the Pentagon, broke world records in the 100 metres, 200 metres and long jump at the 1996 Paralympics, and has been voted one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People.

But when she was chosen by Alexander McQueen to appear on the catwalk in his 1999 London show, she suddenly found herself on the front pages, being hailed as the "new, disabled supermodel". She loathed the label. "I hate the words 'handicapped' and 'disabled'. They imply that you are less than whole. I don't see myself that way at all."

Photographer Nick Knight had called Mullins after seeing her on the cover of a design magazine, showing off the metal legs she wore to compete in the Paralympics. "He asked if I would be interested in doing a shoot with him and Alexander McQueen.

"They ended up shooting me topless, but it was all done very tastefully and I wasn't embarrassed, partly because I thought it was unlikely that my parents would ever see it. I got on really well with Alex and he asked me to model in his next show."

Aimee strutted down the catwalk on intricately carved wooden legs that were designed by McQueen to look like long, ornately detailed boots. "It was so exciting, I felt just like one of the other models. The aim wasn't to make a big

statement or anything. Nobody in the audience knew that I didn't have legs until after the show - then the newspapers just went crazy."

McQueen was criticised for turning his fashion show into a freak show - he was even accused of exploiting Mullins's disability. "That wasn't what it was supposed to be at all," says Aimee. "Alex was just trying to expand the idea of beauty, but I ended up with reporters camping outside my home and I had to stay in a hotel to escape them."

She is thrilled to be coming to London next week to officially open Bodycraze month at Selfridges, where real women are invited to take part in a series of events that will, hopefully, make them feel good about themselves, not dread the changing-room mirror.

"Part of the reason I wanted to model was to push the boundaries and challenge the perceptions of what a beautiful body is supposed to look like. Why should I feel any differently about looking good than anyone else?"

Like any successful model, Aimee is deluged with designer freebies. But unlike other models, she has to buy a new pair of legs before she can slip on that latest pair of designer shoes.

"Prada has just sent me some fabulous shoes with five-inch heels. But none of my six pairs of legs will work with such high heels. I'm going to have to get a new pair before I can even try the shoes on," says Aimee.

HER collection of legs is designed by Bob Watts, a British prosthetist, and includes a shapely silicone pair and the carbon-graphite stems she wears for sprinting. "Each pair of fake legs is designed to be worn with a different heel height. I take the shoes to Bob and he makes me legs to go with them," she says.

"I trust him to give me the ankles that I deserve. Most people are only missing one leg, so it's easy enough to model the fake leg on the one that is already here. But with me, Bob has to start from scratch. The legs that I

have made are far more perfect than the ones nature would have given me - my mother's side of the family have awful legs. It's very difficult going through those metal detectors at airports. My legs contain metal and they always set the beeper off, but they look so real, with follicles and freckles, that nobody believes me when I say they're fake."

Aimee jokes continuously about her fake legs, but you can't help wondering whether there is some bitterness lurking beneath the good humour. "Not at all," she insists. "I remember being angry when I was about 12 and miniskirts were all the rage, but apart from that, no.

"I haven't had an easy life but at some point you have to take responsibility for yourself and shape who it is that you want to be. I have no time for moaners. I like to chase my dreams and surround myself with other people who are chasing their dreams, too.

"You have to be fearless and go after what you want and that often means humiliating yourself and not being afraid to fail or be laughed at. I call that the 'So what' factor. You think to yourself: 'So what if I fail? So what if I get laughed at'."

She attributes her fearlessness to a happy, supportive childhood. "We grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania and I was surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins as well as my mum and dad and brothers, Thomas and Brian. It was like being in a little nest of a family - it was very nurturing. None of them ever made me feel that I was different or that I couldn't do whatever I wanted to do. I was just an ordinary, capable kid."

That attitude stayed with her as she grew up, and she says she got over any complexes about herself years ago. "It takes some women till their thirties, even their forties to realise that what makes them beautiful is not what makes them the same as everyone else, but what sets them apart.

"I've always felt that I was pretty, but ask the average man whether he could be attracted to a woman who had no legs from the shin down and he'd almost certainly say 'no way'."

She has a long-term boyfriend, and has never struggled getting a date. "When men see me in the flesh, they do find me attractive, and I'm always being chatted up. I get complimented on my legs a lot - I always tell the guys I'll pass the praise onto my leg designer. That shocks them. But I'm just trying to show that having no legs doesn't make you less feminine, less beautiful or any less of a woman."