Pictures from W Magazine, on Fashionologie

Stylist and Fashion director of Vogue Nippon, Anna Dello Russo, is fast moving from object of blog fascination to full-blown celebrity. Her recent spread in W Magazine only goes to show that our obsession with her is well founded; she is brilliantly bonkers and the interview makes for utterly compelling reading. We already knew that she wears designer top-to-toe, regularly changes outfits and hates to wear the same thing twice, but now we have even more intimate details of how her whole life is clothes clothes clothes. Her home in Milan is made up of two apartments – one for her and another for the clothes. Even the kitchen had to go. 'I had to choose between a kitchen and more closets, so I took the closets,' Dello Russo says, as W observes her kitchen, described as "the size of a drinks cabinet" with "fingerprint-less cupboards" revealing only sunflower seeds and San Pellegrino. *sigh* It's fashion porn at its most satisfying.

Anna gave the US magazine the chance to do some serious cupboard-rifling and they counted 4,000 pairs of shoes and 250 black tuxedo jackets. She described her first major shopping spree at age 13; she bought a Fendi handbag, umbrella, tissue holder, wallet, and key chain that she wore all together. 'It never rains in Bari [the part of Italy where Dello Russo grew up], so my friends asked, "What are you doing with the umbrella?"' she recalled. 'And I said, "How should I know? It's part of the look!"'

She’s made many a sacrifice to achieve ‘the complete look’. Not only did the kitchen have to go, but so did her husband; she was married in 1996 and divorced soon after, since her work as a stylist always took precedence. Her amazing body is down to daily doses of yoga, swimming.  She drinks no alcohol (...and those sunflower seeds) and, faced with Juergen Teller’s lens for the shoot she seems unfazed by having to whip it all out. Here she is in a swimming costume and fur boots, here again with only YSL’s shower curtain and a bikini to save her modesty. No one knows exactly how old she is but for at least late forties (!) she looks great. Enviably so.

Oh yes, and one more sacrifice she owned up to making, involved some yellow shoes and a certain family pet back in her school days. Her cat had weed in the shoes the night before — but they were part of her all-yellow planned outfit, so she just rinsed them out. 'But it got hot in the classroom, and there was this terrible stink of cat pee,' she remembers. 'I had to confess because I didn't want anyone thinking I had peed in my pants. They all screamed, "Couldn't you have changed your shoes?"'

Truly, living proof that you must suffer to be beautiful.

- Naomi Attwood