But as Valerie Campbell glides into the fashionable bar and folds her slender body into a plush armchair, it is difficult to believe that this youthful-looking woman is the mother of a 37-year-old daughter.
Her caramel-coloured skin is devoid of even the barest touch of make-up, unlined and glowing. Like her supermodel daughter Naomi, she is all long limbs, clad casually in a model's daytime uniform of tight designer jeans and a white T-shirt.
Valerie out on the town with Naomi
Sitting next to Valerie, it is easy to see where Naomi gets her incredible physique from. Both women share the same sultry almond eyes, huge round cheekbones and famously full (natural) lips. Lips, incidentally, that immediately insisted on sipping only the finest Dom Perignon champagne - at £32 a flute.
There is no question that Valerie has attitude. In another life, she would have been a catwalk diva in her own right. But what strikes you instantly on meeting her is that there is no sign of Naomi's legendary and explosive mobile-phonethrowing-temper.
At 55, Valerie is a polite and surprisingly playful woman who has calmly defied not just her age, but all that life has thrown at her.
Her story has all the hallmarks of a good drama: the triumph of pride over prejudice and of burning ambition and sheer hard work over childhood deprivation.
But two years ago, Valerie faced her greatest test when lumps under her right arm, which she had previously been assured were benign, were diagnosed as advanced and life-threatening cancer requiring urgent surgery.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the impact of a disease that kills more than 12,500 women each year in the UK, Valerie reveals that she had a mastectomy and is now in remission, though she won't be given the final all-clear for another three years.
"I hadn't been that concerned-about my appointment at the Royal Marsden Hospital," she said.
A lump removed from her right breast in 1997 had turned out to be benign and she had been reassured by a nurse that all was well during a routine mammogram six years later.
"But when the doctor told me more than two years ago I had cancer and it was at a very advanced stage, I couldn't take his words in. When he said the cancer was in my right breast and it had to go if I wanted to live, it felt as if he were talking about someone else.
"It had only been at the last minute that I asked my sister Yvonne to go with me to the hospital and it was she who started crying. I was just stunned and in shock.
"At first I didn't want anyone, especially my children, to know because I didn't want to worry them. But I was persuaded first to call Naomi and then to tell my 21-year-old son Pierre, who had just returned from New York. He's a drama student there.
Naomi at home with her mother when she was 23
"Pierre pretty much collapsed in tears when I told him. That was the only time that I really broke down because it was then that I truly recognised that the cancer might actually kill me, as I suppose it still could.
"My daughter was amazing," Valerie says of Naomi. "Despite her fears for me, she was rock solid. She was on assignment somewhere in Asia whenmy sister rang to tell her.
"She was ready to drop everything to be by my side. I think she was going through a court case with one of her employees and she had recently lost a very close friend to breast cancer. But she pulled out all the stops to be with me when I needed her most.
"I really wanted to be treated in the UK because it meant I would be close to my whole family. My parents are still here and they are both in their 80s. But Naomi insisted that I fly to America for a second opinion.
"I ended up having six months chemotherapy in Britain and the mastectomy at the Mayo (the worldrenowned group of cancer centres).
"There was no point in railing against what was happening. Losing a breast is not like losing my life. I told myself: "This thing is not going to control my life or change me." I'm not a person to back down in the face of a fight."
Valerie's eyes brim with tears as she recalls without flinching that Naomi 'flew tens of thousands of miles to hold my hand' when she went for her first chemotherapy session. The multi-millionaire catwalk superstar also paid for private medical treatment both in Britain and America.
"The rest of the family got very emotional and were probably too pampering," says Valerie. "They fussed - which I hate - and worried, while Naomi was more into doing practical things, like getting a nutritionist to prepare my body for chemotherapy.
"She cried a few times, but she kept reassuring me that everything would be OK. "Don't worry Mum," she would say. "We'll get through this together.î We come from a very religious family."
Valerie found great strength from her faith which, she says, has informed much of her life.
"Of course I turned to my Christian faith. I read my Bible every day and I go to meetings three times a week. I was brought up in the faith, as was Naomi. But I only got baptised when I was in my 30s and since then I've studied the Bible and tried to live by the scriptures.
"When some people wonder how my faith sits with me having worked as a dancer or Naomi being a model, I tell them that this is not a religion that judges people. There's nothing wrong with a Jehovah's Witness being in entertainment. We are involved in all walks of life, including showbusiness.
"Naomi and I have always been close and I believe she had faith that God would somehow give us the strength to cope with whatever the outcome."
One of the most frightening time for Valerie was when she suffered a twisted intestine just co-incidentally during chemotherapy and had to undergo further life-saving surgery. Her treatment was complicated by her refusal to receive a blood transfusion, which is against her religion.
"The scriptures tells us not to take other people's blood. It also says your lifeforce is in your blood. That is why we are told to abstain from transfusions. I don't want anyone else's lifeforce in me.
"We also won't eat blood products, meat that has been shot or strangled, or not well cooked."
"They asked me and I said no. So they found an alternative - they gave me an infusion of artificial blood and it seemed to do what was necessary."
It is clear from talking to Valerie about the past traumatic few years that she is full of love and admiration for Naomi. But it is a complex relationship.
The supermodel was conceived when Valerie was an 18-year-old dancer in a troupe called Exotica, who performed around the world for the likes of Aristotle Onassis and the Shah of Iran. She has never named Naomi's father. "Perhaps I was born with an adventurous streak," she says in a throaty voice.
Her accent is pure 'sarf London' with an occasional Jamaican lilt - she left her native Jamaica at the age of five and was brought up in Streatham.
"It was hard," admits Valerie. "But I had dreams for Naomi and dreams have to be paid for. So I danced my way around the world."
At first Naomi travelled with her mother, but later she lived with Valerie'smother, Ruby, in Streatham.
Valerie insists: "Naomi always knew how much I loved her, that she was the most important person in my life."
She was determined that her astonishingly beautiful daughter would get a head start, professionally, at least. As a five-year-old, Naomi was enrolled at the Barbara Speake stage school in London and seven years later at the capital's Italia Conti Academy. By 16 she had her first modelling job.
Valerie fiercely denies being a pushy stage mother. "The truth is she led and I followed. She is the most driven person I know," she says.
Valerie's cancer has helped forge a new, more mature bond with Naomi, but she admits their relationship has sometimes been volatile.
"We've had our disagreements over the years," she confesses. "I've not always approved of some of the things she's done. We had a big row over the Madonna book [Naomi was reportedly paid £100,000 to appear in Madonna's soft-porn coffee-table book, Sex] because I didn't think it was necessary for her to do something so sexually explicit.
"I've also had my say about other aspects of her life. I'm not afraid to tell her when she is in the wrong. When that happens we have it out and the phone may get slammed. I'm not saying that she's a saint. I know that she has a sharp tongue and quick-fire temper, but there isn't an ounce of real spitefulness in her.
"She's like me in that we might blow up in an instant, but once it's over it's forgotten. There's no malice in her. Even when Jodie Kidd called her a "f****** monster" last month, Naomi didn't take it to heart."
Valerie stands firm in her belief that most stories about Naomi are either made up or exaggerated, but chooses her words carefully. Asked about Naomi's self-confessed drugtaking, her response is measured.
"Look, many stars go through a difficult patch sometimes where their feet leave the ground and they get caught up in a lifestyle. It's not a good thing, but that's showbusiness.
"I can lecture Naomi all I want, but ultimately she's a grown woman who will make her own choices. I was proud that she put her hand up and owned up to it.
While there is no denying that Valerie made big sacrifices to give her daughter a head start in life at expensive stage schools before she was spotted by the head of a model agency while shopping in Covent Garden, it is also true that Valerie's own career took off only after her daughter achieved fame.
Valerie was in her mid-40s when she started modelling and caused a sensation on catwalks. She also became a fixture around town, hanging out with celebrities and members of high society.
For several years she was, by all accounts, an inamorata of the late Duke of Northumberland, although she remains coy about the relationship. She insists it could never have led to marriage because 2I'm a Jehovah's Witness and can only marry someone of the same faith".
Despite Naomi's generosity, Valerie is fiercely independent and has always paid her own way. After modelling, television-presenting and fashion-designing, she recently launched a range of sunglasses and jewellery and is also working on her own skin-care products.
"I'm speaking out now because I want other women who have been through the same ordeal to know that losing a breast does not make them any less of a woman," says Valerie.
She now plans to volunteer at the Royal Marsden to help other breastcancer sufferers with beauty treatments and grooming.
"I don't feel any less of a woman because one of my breasts is missing. Women should not be ashamed of the disease. It's important to have a positive outlook, to eat well and not develop a victim mentality.
"Naomi has offered to pay for me to have reconstructive surgery, but I'm not in any hurry. I don't want to go through another major operation any time soon. I look in the mirror and I'm not frightened or embarrassed by the sight of my scars."
The disease, however, has a constant impact on Valerie's life. "When I fly I must wear a surgical sleeve and glove to help my circulation because my lymph nodes have been removed," she says. "I take medication every day and have to watch what I eat.
"But I'm alive and that's what counts. You've got to be strong mentally and keep a positive outlook. If anything, this disease has made me more determined than ever not to let life slip by, but to go out there and enjoy it to the full."
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