Student models Josie D. ’25 and Irene D. ’27 share their experiences navigating the fashion industry. In this Q&A, they discuss the challenges, rewards, and misconceptions surrounding their careers.
Q: What kind of modeling do you do?
Josie: I pretty much exclusively do runway modeling. I’m not signed with an agency, so it’s a lot more difficult to get print jobs.
Irene: I mainly do editorial and commercial modeling, so advertising and brands. It’s not the stuff you typically think about when you think of a model, but I have a lot of fun.
Q: How did you get started in the industry?
Josie: My stepmom was a part of this fashion show I’d been going to since I was 10 or 12 years old. I absolutely loved to go to those shows. I remember a couple years ago, she told me that there was an open audition for all ages, and that it might be a fun thing to try out and pretend to be a model for a day. I went and expected absolutely nothing to come from that. Then, I actually ended up getting a callback and I got hired, which was totally unexpected, since I kind of just went for fun. That was my first show, and I’m still very affiliated with it— Metropolitan Fashion Week. I gained a lot of connections from that show to other shows in Seattle, and then was able to be a part of those other shows.
Irene: I was really young; I think three years old? I don’t know exactly what brand it was, but it was for baby clothes. The first we heard of it was when I was approached in a mall by one of those agents, and they gave me a card. My parents didn’t really plan this or anything; they definitely weren’t stage parents, so when I got the card, they were like, ‘Oh, maybe this is something fun our daughter could do.’ And then we also had this neighbor, who was a photographer, and she asked me if I wanted to model for this campaign she was shooting. And that’s how I first started.
Q: How do you balance your school life and modeling career?
Josie: Runway shows are almost always over the weekends, so I never have to deal with missing school. Although, a show day will take up the full day. You’re called at 10 in the morning for a show that starts at around 6, and then you’re there until very late. But honestly, it doesn’t conflict too much with school, because it’s really just a day here and there. One time, I had a Saturday night show in L.A., and I managed to take a red eye on a Friday night and then get home on a Sunday night. Somehow, I was able to do that without missing any school.
Irene: This has changed as I’ve gotten older because in my old school, it didn’t really matter too much if I missed a few days, because it was only elementary school and I could make up really quickly. And it would depend on the job. If I felt like, ‘Oh, like this sounds important to do’ or ‘it would be a great experience for me as a model,’ I would miss at most three days, but usually, it didn’t even take that long; an editorial was a quick four or five hours. But now that I’m older, I value my time more since I’m in high school, and if I miss a day of school, it’s a lot of stuff I miss. If it’s on the weekends, it works great. And usually, there’s not much stuff I do after school, and I try to budget my time, because some shoots take a long time, especially commercials. But sometimes I’m like, ‘Oh, this is also a great experience. I might miss a day of school’, so, yeah, I budget my time wisely.
Q: What do you hear the most when people find out you’re a model, and are there any misconceptions that you hear?
Josie: I think there’s a lot of misconceptions around the vibe of being a model.A lot of times there’s that stereotype of models being very cold, only caring about their looks, and being very vain. Honestly, in my experience, I’ve found it to be the complete opposite: Some of the kindest people I’ve ever met have been models I’ve met backstage. Like, when I was in L.A., I was nervous that the models would be a little scarier, but I immediately made friends. I also think, and I think this is because I’ve been really lucky with the shows that I’ve been involved in, that there’s a lot of misconceptions about not being able to eat. I do think that a lot of models put a lot of effort into their body, but all of the shows I’ve been to have had snacks backstage. It’s always, in general, a warmer, friendlier environment than most people assume.
Irene: I feel like people always have positive reactions to it, like they think ‘oh, like that’s a cool side thing to do.’ But I don’t try to tell everyone because I feel like it sounds a little weird sometimes to just say ‘I’m a model.’ So I try not to really talk about it, but I do put it in my bio and places to promote myself.
Irene: And a misconception is when people think I go on a diet because of stuff they hear about the modeling industry. But when you’re a child, they just want you to be you. Like for a commercial, it’d be kind of weird if there was a really skinny or sick child while they’re trying to sell something. So yeah, I never had those pressures. I feel like I was just me.
Q: What’s your favorite project or photoshoot that you’ve done?
Josie: I would say my most recent show that I did in L.A. was probably one of my favorites because I got to travel for it, which I haven’t gotten to do before. I got to wear this really cool matrix outfit that had a leather jacket and a skirt that had a ton of binary on it. That was really neat, but I also remember that in the first show I ever walked in, I was walking out of a plane because we were at the Museum of Flight. So, I was essentially just sitting and waiting in this plane, and then I had to walk down all these stairs in my giant heels. I survived, and then I got to walk down. They had a whole marching band in there playing music. It was just a super fun venue and, for that to be my first show, it was really awesome.
Irene: I did a shoot with Stanley, and what I liked about that was that there were other kids my age, and we were contracted to act like a band. We had our own instruments while they took photos of us. It was to promote their new colorway or something really random, but I had a lot of fun because I thought it was a super creative project, and I got to bond with kids my own age.
