Doors also opened for her when she visited a boyfriend in San Francisco.

"I didn't intend to model there but I got a bit bored so he asked me to try it out there," she says. Within six months, she became the top-earning model in the city, appearing in the catalogues of big department stores such as Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.

Jet-setting between Europe and the United States, she made a good living, often earning more than $50,000 a month.

Her profile in the US received a boost in 1985 when she decided to visit the famous Ford Model Agency, which has produced top models from Lauren Hutton to Elle Macpherson, while on an assignment in New York.

"I had a few hours before catching my plane so I dropped in to see them. I didn't have an appointment and they said they didn't see anyone without an appointment.

"But Katie Ford (daughter of agency founder Eileen Ford) was walking down the stairs and she saw me.

"Was it luck? Was it the right timing? Or was it meant to be? I don't know," she says.

The news made headlines in The Straits Times. By then, her success overseas had made her a hot commodity in Singapore too.

"It's strange," she says with a smile. "The same people who turned me down were now saying that they knew I would make it."

In 1986, she scored another coup when designer Giorgio Armani handpicked her to be the face of one of his campaigns.

"My agency in Milan sent me out on an assignment. They didn't tell me what it was for. I ended up in this magnificent building in Milan.

"It was like a palace and I remember tight security and walking through quiet corridors before I came to a room. A man was standing in the room."

That man was Armani. She passed him her portfolio, he looked at it, and five minutes later, just said "thank you" and sent her off.

"The next day, I got the job," says Mrs Fong-Chalopin.

The campaign appeared in the pages of Italian Vogue, W and other international fashion magazines.

"It opened a lot of doors for me. After the campaign, I got 11 shows in London without having to audition," she says.

It also got her a husband.