Beyond the lace curtain: Elle Macpherson on health and happiness

"It was important for me to come into the business with something that was really different, to invigorate the lingerie floor," she says.

Aware at some point we're going to discuss her 2014 split with New Zealand lingerie giant Bendon, she cuts straight to it. While stressing her "respect" towards her past employer – Macpherson received an annual fee to use her name for 25 years – she said the licensing model was akin to "growing somebody else's business" for half her life.

"When you're younger and you need the cash flow, you're happy to front someone's business ... it's a different mindset," she says.

After lobbying Bendon unsuccessfully for years to include a T-shirt bra in her range, it's no surprise to see it as the hero garment of her new brand.

"I was locked in a lace land [with Bendon]. I was having to continually do the same things ... I had to move on for my own wellbeing as far as design is concerned," she says. "I'm 52 years old. Having a licence for another 25 or 15 years wasn't really something I wanted to entertain. I wanted to evolve into a more well-rounded position in my business."

Enter De Winter, whose own business partner is billionaire retail mogul Solly Lew. By January 2015, they were designing Body.

But wind back a couple of years, prior to her 50th birthday, and things weren't going so well for Macpherson.

As we settle down to lunch – Macpherson orders a kale kimchi bowl with "activated charcoal puree" – she tells me that a couple of years ago, she was sleeping only four hours a night, eating poorly and taking too many synthetic vitamins.

"I needed to make changes but I didn't know where or how," she says. "When I was younger I could rely on my genes but now I am 52 I have to make sure my body is well looked after.

"It's very difficult to get all our nutrients from food today. We eat on the run, processed foods, hormones, pesticides ... there's a lot of stuff that's going on that's not helpful to our systems."

A London naturopath diagnosed her with an "acidic" body and prescribed a green "alkalising powder", which Macpherson tweaked and eventually began manufacturing under the WelleCo label, which targets women more accustomed to buying luxury skincare than sunflower seeds.

"Wellness in the past has been brown rice and Birkenstocks and the woman of today shops on Net-a-Porter," Macpherson says.

Like most health supplements, there are myriad positive and negative reviews, although at $145 for the large, glossy tin, many are about the price.

On this trip to Melbourne, she hasn't had time to exercise. For someone who normally rises at 5am and loves the outdoors, a week cooped up in an office and hotel has left her feeling "sluggish".

"I feel like I'm missing that time by myself. I like when my body feels vibrant," she says.

Recently, she went on a vegan, digital detox and hiking trip for a week in Malibu.

"I didn't know anybody ... it takes a little bit of courage to be in an environment I don't know, with people I don't know ... I'm not saying it's like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, which I've done, but it was a step outside the norm for me."

Thumb through Macpherson's Instagram though and it's clear she's happiest at home with her husband since 2013, billionaire hotel heir Jeffrey Soffer, and her sons Flynn, 19, and Cy, 14, from her nine-year relationship with banker Arpad Busson.

Macpherson and Busson remain on good terms, as she does with her first husband, photographer Gilles Bensimon, who shot the Body campaign.

"Gilles taught me everything I know ... well, not everything I know but a strong foundation about art direction, photography," she says.

And about life?

Macpherson pops a cube of paleo bread in her mouth, and says: "That's a whole other conversation. A lot.

"He taught me how to work with women – to see other women as collaborators. It's quite easy if you're a young girl and beautiful ... you could quite easily alienate yourself from other women and he taught me how not to do that."

Still, not every one of Macpherson's female partnerships has been a success. The Murdoch press phone hacking scandal in the UK led to the public and bitter sacking of Macpherson's former assistant, Mary-Ellen Field, after Macpherson accused her of leaking personal information to the UK tabloids.

Field, who worked for Macpherson from 2003-05, has always maintained her innocence, and her version of events has never been publicly challenged.

And in the 1990s, Macpherson was a partner in the failed Fashion Cafe themed restaurants with fellow supermodels Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer.

But be careful how so-called failures look on paper, she says.

​"A thread I am discovering is the value of courage to give things a go. Be curious. Find what you love. Explore. Sometimes it's that old adage of leap and watch the net appear."

Macpherson rarely reads her own press and says she doesn't really know what people think of her.

"I think people want honesty but sometimes they don't like when they hear or see it," she says. "Someone wrote a note on Instagram the other day saying 'Elle is terrible in interviews and she always looks awkward'," she says. "And I feel like going, 'Yeah, I'm nervous. I'm human'."

Despite her life in the spotlight, Macpherson keeps things real with her sons by emphasising the value of quality time, especially since her eldest son and stepdaughter moved away for college.

"I do the best I can [as a parent]. I don't get it right all the time and I'm not super mum – I am just like every other parent navigating parenting."

She's taught her children about commitment, respect, equality and to "defuse anger with humour".

"They've taught me patience and unconditional love ... to allow them to be who they are. Before [I was] a parent it was all about me. Now, it's all about them."

Aside from an interest in learning the ukulele – "it's a cool instrument" – she's content for now to grow her businesses and not launch into any big new ventures.

"Every day is valuable. There's gifts in every day. They don't have to be 'tah dah!', it's just the moments, it's just life. I think it would be easy to characterise me as having big aims and ambition and drive but my reality is my day-to-day stuff," she says.

As for writing her autobiography, don't expect a release date any time soon.

"I'm not old enough to write my own. I still have stuff to do. It's going to take me some time ... I am not in an analytical space in my life ... I'm more about doing. That doesn't mean there's not a lot of reflection going on, because there's a lot. But I am reflecting and doing, not analysing."

The new range of Elle Macpherson Body is out now through Myer and David Jones.

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