'I wasn't looking my best that day':Meet Maya Gunn, the science-loving, rock-climbing 16 year-old who's just made her modelling debut for Burberry

"I was not looking my best that day" says Maya Gunn, self-deprecatingly.She"s talking about the shopping trip she was on last year with her Mum and sister at Westfield when she was discovered by NEXT models"Ross Young,"it was a last minute trip, so I was a little surprised."

On Monday, Gunn swapped shopping centre for catwalk as she made her modelling debut at Burberry"s first ever see-now, buy-now show at Maker"s House in Soho.With her button-nose, huge blue eyes, mane of dark hairand eyebrows to rival Cara Delevingne"s, its easy to see why Gunn stood out among the shoppers and has been singled out by Burberry as a girl they want to work with exclusively.

"We like to take our time to really prepare and develop our girls for their catwalk debut" explains Young, head of the New Faces division at NEXT models."Maya was scouted last summer and we worked with testing photographers to first build her confidence in front of the camera" he tells The Telegraph, "then we introduced Maya to Burberry who fell in love with her for their show."

"Maya has a true beauty with a uniquely cool edge that is so rare and specific to British girls so we???re very excited aboutwhat???s in store for her," says Young.With a mixture of British and Spanish genes, Gunn"s beautychimes with a new focus in the fashion industry on models with a look all of their own."The trend is there is no clear trend; the rule book is being re-written.The catwalk is becoming increasinglydiverse with all races and heights being embraced, a huge leap forward from where we were 5 years ago."

Young puts thisnew sense of variety down to the rise of social media which means that fashion isvisible (and shoppable) for customers around the world."Brands now have truly global reach through the internet so designers have realised that their runways need to reflect their consumers."

Every catwalk look from the Burberry AW16 show

Back to Gunn, who used to model as a child, and she"s taking her catwalk debut in her stride."Luckily I knew a few of the other models from a Juergen Teller photo shoot I"d done a few days earlier soI wasn"t too nervous as I knew I wasn"t the only one doing it for the first time" she reflects.

And like any promising model, she"d been sure to master the essentials."I have been practicing a lot in the high heels as preparation for the show" she says, although in the end a rather awesome pair of fringed bovver boots were earmarked for her look, so awesome in fact that she hints she"s keen to add them to her wardrobe.Perhaps she"sbeen studying the quintessential off-duty model uniform, but the 16 year-oldsays her look "depends on basics, really I???m a jeans and t-shirt kind of person, and I have a collection of different bomber jackets."

Refreshingly, Gunnhas plenty of perspective, juggling her modelling workwith studyingand rock climbing.

"I"m in my second year of A-levels in Maths, Chemistry , Biology and Art" she says, "hopefully next year I will go to university to possibly study Natural Sciences and I hope to do something if the field of science after that."She"s also been rock climbing for a few years, and is now in herclub"s youth squad."I like the physical and mental challenge of working out the routes I have to climb.This summer I went to Fontainebleau in France with the squad to climb outdoors for the first time which was so much fun."

Diverse models