This season, as London fashion week was starting, Vogue posted a video following the new model of the moment Kaia Gerber (who is Cindy Crawford’s daughter). It was so far from the reality of being a model that I almost couldn’t watch it: Kaia walking for all the top designers in her very first season; Kaia entering her ‘home for the week’ (a hotel room bigger than my apartment); Kaia being driven everywhere in a Mercedes SUV; Kaia and her friends jumping around on her massive bed, clad head to toe in Chanel and ordering room service…
When I first started modelling I expected it to be just like that. It’s the picture pushed by the media and the fantasy of teenage girls worldwide. I thought that I’d be regularly flown all over the world for jobs, staying in exotic places with fabulous hotels and making lots of money every day. This has not been the case. And it’s not the case for 99.9 per cent of models out there. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do — but it’s high time to reveal the reality.
My first foray into full-time modelling was when I was scouted to go to Milan for a couple of months. Models are often sent ‘on stay’ to a different city to try their luck at getting work in that market. Nothing is guaranteed. No work. Not a single dime. I shared a tiny, one-bedroom apartment. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. The kitchen was in the 1 metre x 2 metre hallway and our beds were so close that we could hold hands while we slept.
As it turned out, that was good for a ‘model’ apartment. When my New York agency asked me to hop across the pond for a couple of months they said they had a space for me in their model apartment.
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