I started modeling when I was 13 or 14, I think.
Modeling for a year taught me a lot. I got very involved in the fashion industry and met a bunch of people who I admired.
I started modeling at the age of 14, when I was in Std 9.
Actually, I never really thought I would be a model. I never knew a lot about fashion and magazines, and I never paid attention to it. I was a young girl, though.
Throughout the years I've been working as a model, I've gathered lots of information on the process of creating fashion without even trying.
Modeling was something that fell into my lap. It was fun to travel and make money, but it always seemed like a hobby.
Before I started my modeling career at 20, I used to replay fashion show videos on-line and study how famous models walk and pose on runways.
I think modelling was like the university of life, really. You get to travel but you get thrown into this adult world, which is kind of quite scary.
I actually started modeling in Ethiopia, because that's where I grew up, and I started out by just doing little fashion shows for school, and I liked it so much that I started pursuing it.
I didn't really enjoy modeling in Bombay. I floated through it in the hopes that I would get my ticket to the next big thing. There was no real joy that I got out of it, to be really honest.
I did a lot of lingerie modelling, like, for plus-size, like Macy's and Dillard's and Bloomingdale's. I was, like, on a billboard in New York one time in, like, a bra and underwear. Yeah.
I am affirming that the casting couch for men exists in the modeling world
I was 13, and my dad actually sent photos to two different agencies of all of my family, and I had no idea. I was such a tomboy. I was playing basketball, living in Sweden, I didn't give a sh*t - I mean, obviously did not have dreams to be a model.
I did a modeling gig once, but I am not a model. I want to be a model because it's a lot easier than acting.
I think models have a lot less power than they did in the '80s, when there were, like, only 10 supermodels who could dictate the rules, whereas now there's so many, and that changes the power dynamic and makes it a more insecure business.
Modeling was another job like some of the other ones I had. Working as a cashier, I delivered newspapers, I worked in a retirement home feeding elderly people. . . so I never stopped and thought about, boy, I'm a successful model.
And I only do what I do in life, which is model.
[There is] a breed of fashion models
I went to almost all of the agencies in New York when I first visited. A lot of them wanted to sign me but also kind of indirectly were telling me that I needed to change in some way. Some directly told me that I wouldn't be a model unless I changed the way that my body looked.
I went to New York to be a model. That's all I wanted to be.
I've done modeling since I was 18, but it didn't take off until I moved to Los Angeles. Modeling has always been something I've been really good at, and has been something that's helped pay bills.
A professional model is like a stuffed owl. These girls are alive.
I had 30-something years' experience in modeling, which is rare.
I suppose I have stopped modeling officially. I've not done any for a good long while now. I think it was four years ago when my feelings were changing towards the industry. I didn't hate it, but I was yearning to do something different. I was on a gradient. It was a gradual thing.
I'm a model as a job. I'm Gisele, the daughter of Valdir and Vania. I'm a woman; I am a model. When I go home and shut the door, that's it.
