Alice Dellal: born to be wild

It is early afternoon on the rooftop of the Corinthia Hotel and, beneath the crisp blue sky, the views of Westminster and the London Eye are struggling to compete with Alice Dellal. In bare legs and grey slashed minidress, Dellal is staring down the barrel of the lens, stamping out a cigarette with her black-heeled ankle boots, all angles and attitude and mischief. 'This dress,'she observes, 'really rubs your nipples.'

Between takes she heads back indoors, away from the perishing cold. She stalks past the builders currently renovating the hotel and they take in her long legs, her half-shaven hair, and her lithe, sharp body, and look on agog. In the hotel room, surrounded by make-up artist, hairdresser and stylist, she slumps on the bed. 'I've eaten five croissants in the past two hours!'she announces, then embarks upon a reminiscence of the children's book Don't Put Mustard in the Custard, before begrudgingly agreeing to change for the next shots. 'I'm scared of going back up,'she wails. 'It's freezing!'

Dellal is one of Britain's most intriguing young models. At 23, she has appeared in campaigns for Burberry and Agent Provocateur, walked the runway for Valentino, Vivienne Westwood and House of Holland, and starred in a music video for Primal Scream. Her appeal is unorthodox; while her face is beautiful, her body lean, athletic and immaculately proportioned, she subverts perfection with her punkish hairstyle, her tattoos and her distinctive dressing – 1990s grunge, ripped fishnets, cut-off denim hot pants and bovver boots.

But for all her striking appearance, Dellal's attraction, like that of her contemporaries Georgia May Jagger, Pixie Geldof and Daisy Lowe, is fuelled by her social connections. Born in Brazil, she is the daughter of Brazilian model Andrea de Magalhaes Viera and Guy Dellal (the pair divorced in the 1990s and re-married each other five years later), who was once Jerry Hall's bodyguard, but moved into property, like his father 'Black'Jack Dellal, the multimillionaire property developer with a love of gambling notorious enough to merit his nickname. Alice's sister Charlotte is a shoe designer and her brother Alex the owner of London gallery 20 Hoxton Square. For the past three years he has dated Charlotte Casiraghi, daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco. That Alice's godfather is Mick Jagger seems, by comparison, relatively insignificant.

And the intrigue is only stoked further by Dellal's glamorous, hell-raising reputation. She spent her early childhood in Brazil before moving to Britain to attend Bedales school, where fellow model Poppy Delevingne was among her classmates. The Dellal family are an established part of the international jet set, and for a while Alice played along – she was linked to Pierre Casiraghi, third in line to the throne of Monaco and brother of Charlotte. Now she shares a house with her rumoured on-off boyfriend James, Mick Jagger's son, plays drums in an all-girl rock band called Thrush Metal, and is often pictured out and about with the Geldofs, Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw and her ex-boyfriend, gallery owner Ross Tanner. Two years ago, when photographs of Dellal surfaced in the press appearing to suggest cocaine use, her grandfather was said to be so greatly alarmed that he threatened to disinherit her from the family's then £800 million fortune. Alice seemed barely to bat an eyelid.

Today, she is in a more mellow frame of mind, here to promote the work of the jeweller Dominic Jones, with whom she enjoys both a platonic and a professional relationship, as the financial backer of his company since it launched in 2008. Jones, 25, grew up in Buckinghamshire, the son of a landscape architect, and describes himself as 'a real nature boy'. He moved to London seven years ago, dropped out of college and lived in a squat with fellow members of the South London collective !WOWOW! before pursuing his ambitions in jewellery. Softly spoken and unassuming, he hangs about the fringes of today's shoot, looking shy yet content as Dellal models an array of jewellery from his three spiky collections.

'She's her own creature, that's what I really respect about her,'Jones says, as we watch her striking poses on the rooftop. 'In all the time that I've known her, she doesn't bow or change, she's completely honest with who she is.'He hesitates. 'Some people presume her to be contrived, but she's not; she couldn't fake it. She's a scruffy oik when she wants to be – I mean she knows how to dress well for a special occasion, but she's completely true to herself.'
The pair met several years ago at a party thrown
by !WOWOW!. Dellal, a keen photographer, was
taking pictures of the band Ludes. 'We used to see each other about and stayed friends,'Jones recalls. 'She's just good fun, a great person to be out with, always laughing. She's a good-time girl,'he says, before correcting himself: 'A great-time girl.'

They had been friends for some time before Dellal discovered that he made jewellery. Jones had studied at the Sir John Cass School of Art, Media and Design, but left to pursue 'arty things and make-up', returning to jewellery a couple of years ago, spurred on by frustration with the industry: 'It was either crafty style jewellery – bone china with a tooth and a bit of string – or ostentatious £30,000 rings, and when I first started there wasn't a lot in between. Anyone of my age couldn't really buy into jewellery; they wouldn't even think to, because the stuff with any integrity is way out of the average budget.'

He made a couple of pieces, a knuckle-duster and claw ring, for his own satisfaction, and wore them to a house party where Dellal also happened to be. 'She literally took the ring off my hand,'he remembers. 'I was like, "Whoa! Cool! Can I have that?" 'Dellal recalls, half an hour later, shoot finished and arm elbow-deep in a bag of popcorn. 'And he was like, "Errrr, I guess so, if you give it back later,'' 'she continues. 'And I was like, "Yeah, sure, buddy." I've worn it every day since.'

Her decision to back Jones financially she recounts with a level-headedness that belies her reputation. 'He had all this stuff he wanted to do and I could see he was frustrated, and I could understand that, as an artist, he wanted to do as much as he could. I had just made my first money and I wanted to be clever and invest in something I believed in, and so somehow it all worked out.'
Working out, in this instance, is an understatement. Jones's first collection, based on claws, thorns and shark's teeth, became the stuff of cult fashion obsession, worn by Beyoncé, Kristen Stewart and Alexa Chung, as well as Megan Fox on the cover of Rolling Stone, and was picked up by Anna Wintour for US Vogue.

The second collection featured rhinoceros beetle rings, shark's jaw envelope clutches and rose gold cuffs depicting the snout of an alligator. He won British Fashion Council NewGen sponsorship, was worn by everyone from Florence Welch to Rihanna, and even designed a special set of rings for The xx to wear for the night of their Mercury Prize win. His latest collection is inspired by Art Deco, Barbara Hepworth sculptures and the woodcarvings made by his sculptor grandfather.

'Have you ever seen that before?'Dellal asks, shoving her ringed hand forward a little confrontationally. 'I like really offensive jewellery, I like spikes, and heavy, weighty stuff, and Dom's jewellery is just really dangerous and bold and great and different – it's one of a kind.'She wears his jewellery every day, she says. 'I'm all about uniform; I wear the same shit every day. My mother and I are different in that way. I go through phases of things until they die. Though obviously I change my things I have to change,'she says with a throaty laugh.