My desire to be an actor or a model precedes my identity.
Acting wasn't even in my world at all. My oldest sister worked at 'Glamour' magazine and said I should model, but I had no interest.
I was a pin-up girl. I did it for 30 years and, quite frankly, it gets a bit boring.
I started modeling when I was 13 or 14, I think.
I started modeling at the age of 14, when I was in Std 9.
I started modelling from the age of 16, and within three years, I was bored and decided to shift to films. But I love modelling because it gave me independence.
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 is the world that I feel most welcome in.
I rarely had the opportunity to work as a full time model or to pursue a professional career in modelling, because school was always my priority.
During the four years I had spent in New York, I had achieved top status as a model and had worked for the best photographers and designers in the world. I had grown used to hearing that I was exotic and high-fashion.
I'm photographed a lot walking my dog, not the most glamourous!
When I was little, I never wanted to be a model or really thought of doing this job. I'm from a small city, Yongzhou Hunan in the south of China - not a big place for fashion.
I started modelling in college, but it was part time since I was kind of nerdy and wanted to finish my studies.
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.
On 'America's Next Top Model,' I mentor girls on television. When that TV goes off, I actually mentor other girls in the modeling industry - girls that have not been on 'Top Model,' but who appear in 'Vogue' worldwide.
I started modeling at 14. It's simple. You respond to what the photographer wants and wear other people's ideas. I got bored with it, though, so I went to university.
There was really no friendship in modeling, though a certain amount of warmth comes from running into models you know on shoots, because you end up in so many unfamiliar places, from Alaska to Africa.
I loved my career as a model, and that evolved into being an actress.
I went to New York to be a model. That's all I wanted to be.
And I only do what I do in life, which is model.
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.
You're in a bathing suit pretty much all year round working for Victoria's Secret. There's so many shoots, and we're always in lingerie, so you kinda always have to be prepared and ready.
I started modeling before '1992,' and I had already done Calvin Klein and Target and Gap and Diesel, Reebok, so I had been modeling for a little bit.
I always knew I wanted to be in television when I was a kid, and I knew I wanted to model.
