With her bleached crop and androgynous beauty, Agyness Deyn is fast becoming the face of 2007. The Armani girl and muse of the photographer Steven Meisel recently appeared on the cover of Pop magazine, looking out from under her trademark dark, unplucked eyebrows, with the tag: “Agyness: the world’s most Mancunian super supermodel”.

Born near Oldham, Deyn looks set to join the glittering company of her fellow Mancunian and Mulberry girl Karen Elson and the Walsall-born Erin O’Connor — British models who are hip and unconventional. While Elson raises babies with Jack White, of the White Stripes, and O’Connor focuses on her writing career, there is a space for a model with strong personal style — and subversive, boyish looks — to challenge their glossy perfection. Enter Deyn.

The 21-year-old has already sparked a craze for short, peroxide hair. But was it a shock when the hairstylist du jour, Sam McKnight, gave her the crop? “I’ve had short hair since I was 13, and when I was 17, I had a skinhead,” she says, in the broad, Boddingtons-ad accent of her birthplace. “I was dying to get the hair off. I had tried to be more ladylike, but had failed badly. So when I was on a Vogue shoot with Sam, and my hair was in a bob, I said, ‘Just whack it off.’ It was such a relief to have my short hair back.” Deyn (Aggy to friends) describes her natural hair colour as “mousy blonde” — she has it bleached by the colourist Laurie Foley at L’Atelier de Laurie in New York.

When she is not in front of the camera or doing shows, Deyn limits her make-up to black Max Factor eyeliner and mascara, but for a party look, she calls on her inner clubber. “I go for Blitz kids-style fluoro colours, either on the eyes or cheeks — never both,” she says. “And I’d never choose a classic lipstick colour such as red. I’d go for a blue or a purple.” Nor has she developed a taste for expensive cosmetics. “I choose really cheap make-up,” she says with glee. “The stuff that gives you rashes.”

Deyn admits to being a sucker for New York chemists. “They’re great,” she says. “I like the cheap fluorescent nail varnishes they sell. But I only bother with my fingernails,” she adds. “I’ve got really bad feet — they’re so bad, they’re good.”

Her beauty routine is equally unorthodox. “I’ve never had a daily regime,” she says. “All I use is a cleansing wash and moisturiser.” And what about during the gruelling shows? “When my skin is really knackered, I use Embryolisse cream. I also swear by E45.” She is also a stranger to treatments. “I had my first-ever facial in January,” she says. “I went to Jill Ushcroft in Hull. It was great: she had a good squeeze. They threw in a back, face and head massage, all for £20.”

Deyn now lives in Hull with her boyfriend, Josh, the guitarist in the Paddingtons, but she got her break in London — she was spotted browsing the charity shops of Kentish Town by the photographer Stuart Weston. “I was with my best friend, Henry Holland,” she says. “I was wearing a pink Blondie-style jumper and had messy bleached hair.” Holland, a designer, immortalised her on one of his statement T-shirts, which proclaims: “Flick Yer Bean for Agyness Deyn”.

In time-honoured tradition, Deyn’s own look marries the bedfellows of music and fashion. A Clash fan, she is quick to acknowledge her debt to British punk.

“I’d always wear men’s brogues, and I have really messy hair,” she says. “You know, the guy look. I love it when my hair gets big roots and looks a bit punky.”

You might also catch the newest of indie kids on the decks — she recently played with the maverick DJs Knights of Sound — or on her MySpace site, where she has posted a portrait of the Queen. “The site’s really good,” she enthuses. “I can keep in touch with my family and friends.” Not that she has any plans to move from Hull to New York just yet. “I’m resisting it for now,” she insists. When you can get an all-over beauty treatment for 20 quid, why would anyone want to leave?

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