Like virtually all of the women I know, I spent my teenage years battling with my body and feeling I wasn’t good enough. A lot of that negativity is because I was pursuing a career in modeling and was told countless times that my body was too big. My hips and thighs were too wide.
I was embarrassed about modeling. When you’re at school and you’re modeling, it sounds very glamorous, but I didn’t want to do things that no one else was doing. I didn’t want to be the odd one out. I wanted to be part of the gang.
Modeling teaches you to be completely conscious of the camera. Acting is being totally unconscious of it.
While in Paris, I got into modeling – photographers would literally stop me on the street.
In a lot of ways, the cool thing about modeling is that other people and artists I look up to are able to project their artistic visions onto me, and it was really exciting to be a muse in that way and carry out a vision.
My friend Chloe Bartoli is a really cool stylist. I’ve talked about fashion with her a lot over the years. And I love Rihanna – she’s rad. Through modeling, I’ve gotten to know a lot of designers that are really cool. Stefano and Domenico of Dolce & Gabbana have been really sweet.
Before ‘The Bachelor,’ I was out in L.A. kind of dabbling in modeling a little bit.
Some say a model’s tenure is relatively short compared with other careers. But I disagree. Models of all age groups are needed, so I think modeling can be a lifelong career.
The ideal girl is driven, working on something other than modeling or being a singer.
Every country I would go to, even if it was just on a modeling job, I would go to their markets. If I went to Morocco for ‘Elle’ magazine, I would be in the spice markets during my off time and just come back with a suitcase full of stuff that I really wanted to try.
I remember, one day, I just printed out about a hundred CVs, and I was running around London. I was going to modeling agencies, temping agencies, anything. I was so desperate.
I always wanted to have a family – that was one of my big wishes. And in school, I’d taken drama, and I’d always wanted to act. I did go to drama school in New York, Los Angeles and London, and I did small parts here and there, but I never really had the time. Modeling was always paying more.
After I grew some facial hair, I looked a bit older, and I guess that’s what the modeling world wanted because I started booking more luxury brands.
Modeling was a great door for me, for taking responsibility and traveling.
I love modeling.
I’m not too worried about that. I am a big believer in modeling.
When modeling agencies were saying that I was too big and gaining weight, my mom said, ‘OK, we’re going to discuss what they’re saying over pizza, and we’re going to plan the future of your career which doesn’t involve you having to be skinny.’
I had a really negative look at the night-life side of Hollywood, which I really didn’t like. I went to New York to focus on modeling, and then of course found that New York was not any different from Los Angeles.
I was in Fiji for some years. From there I went over to New Zealand to work as a store manager. But I was modeling for various companies at the same time.
No, I always hated modeling. I developed an early hatred of modeling just from having to do it; having won Miss Teenage Memphis, I had to model, and I hated it. It bored me.
I did makeup for a plus-size model a month after I officially quit acting. It was just fate. The photographer was like, ‘Have you ever thought of modeling?’ It may have been the one thing I never thought was possible for me.
I did the Vines first, and then I chose Instagram because the filters were better, and you could post the best picture of yourself, which I figured would help my modeling career.
I wrote a play that I directed and I was in, and I paid for the sets and the costumes and to put it up in a theater all through modeling. It really afforded me a lot of creative control in my life.
In the past, modeling influences were largely confined to the styles of behavior and social practices in one’s immediate community. The advent of television vastly expanded the range of models to which members of society are exposed day in and day out.
The problem with middle age, at least when it comes to modeling, is you seldom see a model who is past 27, 28. If they use anyone older, then it becomes automatically a ‘personality’ story.
When I was modeling in Japan, I could blend in a little because of my hair, but my roommates with blonde hair got harassed. People would touch their hair and grope them in the subway. Actually, a lot of groping happens in the subway in Japan, but that’s probably true of subways everywhere.
I had already been approached to do modeling, but in the beginning, I didn’t want to hear of it. Then, after two months of delivering pizza, I changed my mind, and I presented myself at the agency.
Modeling is really what I do during my free time. It’s fun for me, so it doesn’t feel like work. I choose to do it.
I feel like modeling can be a little surface.
Modeling has given me the opportunity to travel outside of Brazil and see the world. I have been meeting many interesting and talented people along the way.
I want to be Gary Barlow and peak when I’m 40. That’s my plan – he’s who I’m modeling myself on. Most people are completely beautiful when they’re young, and then there’s always a point when they get older where they say: ‘Oh, what happened?!’
I was lonely as a young teenager and my only companion was an acoustic guitar. I would bring it with me on modeling trips.
I always had career goals. And I figured out a path I wanted to take to accomplish those goals. If that meant calling the best modeling agency in the world, that’s what it meant.
I’ve, like, lived in a bikini my entire life, so modeling bikinis was, I don’t know. It was just so natural to me.
I never looked at magazines before I started modeling. I was 13 or 14, and none of my friends were into magazines. We were into the fashion of the day, though.
I never had only one job. I was either playing ball or writing or doing TV or modeling.
I happened to be spotted by a modeling agent who offered me a part-time job at 16. Everything happened very quickly after that – advertising campaigns, fashion shows, editorial shoots.
If it weren’t for my Irish dancing, I wouldn’t be modeling.
My mom cooked pot roast with noodles and frozen vegetables. Or she’d make spaghetti or hot dogs, or heat up TV dinners. Before I started modeling at age 19, I was 5’8″ and weighed 165 pounds.
I work hard, but my modeling career gives my views undeserved attention.
When I first started modeling it taught me to face rejection. In the industry and life in general there are going to be a lot of people who don’t like you or understand you, you have to be ok with the fact that what other people think really doesn’t matter.
Modeling was never a passion of mine.
Basketball is my main sport, which I got a lot of scholarships through, but I chose modeling over basketball, though.
32 in modeling years is like 60.
To people who traditionally charge $10,000 for a 3D animating app, we say you should be free-to-play and generate a revenue stream. Think of a 3D modeling package almost like an RPG.
Modeling is basically ‘Buy more stuff! Don’t you want some more stuff? It will make you look ten years younger and men will like you!’ If I’d wanted to be a salesperson, I would have got a job selling.
It’s been an extraordinary journey. I have learned so much along the way. I entered the modeling industry as a business person already. I always knew I belonged on the other side of the camera.
Modeling can be a bit brain damaging. Starting my own brand was what I needed to do. I only model if there are such good jobs that you don’t want to say no to. All that dressing up makes me say, ‘What do I want to wear?’ and, ‘What do I want to do with Topshop?’ It all kind of leads into the other things.
Modeling sucks.
Not just in modeling, but in society, there’s so much pressure about what a woman should be, and, of course, it’s just so unobtainable. You can never become that thing, because it’s such a projection.
Until you prove yourself, modeling the behavior of iconoclasts is dangerous.
The biggest thing is the heart. If you find the heart in what you do, if it’s stage work, set work, modeling, you find the heart of it, that’s where the truth actually stems from. Our true personality shines from within.
I was real into theater, and then I tried soccer, acting and ballet. Both my parents didn’t want a child-star model, so I didn’t get into modeling until I was 14.
When I went back to finish my undergrad, after a long and ignoble absence, my very first class was Intro to C for Cognitive Modeling. Unlike any educational experience before, I aced the class.
Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women’s lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.
I was spoiled growing up. My dad would really spoil us. He would bring us to high-end stores and ask us to please try on those clothes. He’d make us try on all the pretty clothes, modeling like that… He liked dressing us up, my dad and my mom they loved dressing up.
