Karlie Kloss felt she looked like Disney's ''Bambi'' growing up.

The 22-year-old fashion model - who is ranked among Vogue magazine's top 30 models of the 2000s - has described feeling ''awkward'' and ''isolated'' as a teenager because she received harsh comments from her peers at school, for being seen as ''lanky and ''gangly''.

Asked how she coped with having striking looks from a young age, she admitted: ''I felt very awkward and isolated in my early teens. I felt like Bambi. It wasn't much fun being seen as the lanky, gangly girl in school and all the teasing and jokes I had to put up with made me feel incredibly insecure.''

The blonde beauty only felt secure about her image once she was ''discovered in a shopping mall'' in St Louis, Missouri at the age of 13 and began her modelling career with Calvin Klein at 15.

She told Britain's Hello! magazine: ''It was only once I started modelling that I began to develop a better image of myself and a sense of being accepted and liked.

''I was discovered in a shopping mall in St Louis, Missouri, when I was 13. By the time I was 15, I was in New York doing Calvin Klein spring collection, then I went to Milan for Gucci. Later, I did Alexander McQueen and Chloé.

''After that I was kind of on my way and I started thinking seriously about modelling as a career. Before that, I was considering following in my father's footsteps and becoming a doctor.''