Alessandra Ambrosio says motherhood has made her less comfortable posing in lingerie.
Alessandra Ambrosio on the cover of The Edit
The 34-year-old Brazilian model is one the most famous Victoria's Secret Angels and has been working with the underwear giant since 2004.
Alessandra was always "100 per cent comfortable" stripping off and slipping into any lingerie garment, no matter how revealing, but since she had her daughter Anja, now seven, she started to worry about how she would explain why she wore so few clothes for her job.
Recalling a Maxim magazine cover shoot she did last year in which her modesty was only protected by a newspaper, she said: "I used to be 100 per cent comfortable on lingerie shoots - then I had a child, and it was more of a mental shift than anything else. Somehow it felt a bit weirder to be in lingerie once I was a mother. Although I did that cover for Maxim last year, you don't see anything. When my daughter saw it, she asked, 'Mummy, why do you have no clothes on?' And I said, 'Mummy actually has a G-string on - it's just so small you can't see it.' "
It's not the effects that pregnancy has had on her body that has made more self-conscious about unveiling her figure.
Alessandra - who also has three-year-old son Noah with her husband Jamie Muzur - believes her body looks better now than before she had kids because she has worked hard in the gym to get in shape.
Speaking to Net-A-Porter's weekly digital magazine THE EDIT, she said: "Your body will never go back to exactly what it was before pregnancy, whatever people tell you. It can't. But I think I have a better body now than before I had kids. It's partly because I work out, whereas before I didn't, but also to do with the shape - it just looks more formed now and I feel better about it than I did. Not that it was easy getting back into shape post-pregnancy: after having Anja I only had three months to lose all the weight (before doing the 2008 Victoria's Secret Show) and I was on this 1200-calorie-a-day meal-delivery service that I hated. I couldn't do that again."
To see the full interview with Alessandra Ambrosio read The EDIT at Net-a-porter.com/magazine or download The EDIT's free app for iPhone, iPad and Android.
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