Why Pies Are More Important Than Food: How My Modeling Career Ended

Any girl under 180 cm sooner or later asks the question: “Why don’t I become a model?” I am no exception. When I was 19, I decided I was too good for this world. By “this world” I meant the benches on the large net of the first humanitarian building of the Moscow State University and the sideboard of the historical library. The buffet was selling the most delicious pies in the world, but that didn’t stop me. I deserve another world, that of haute couture! Let there be no pies in it, but there will be champagne in small bottles with a straw. And also a brilliant podium, flashes of photographers and, in the future, huge fees for a contract with Calvin Klein. If I stay in the history department, a contract with Calvin Klein will definitely not shine for me.

I admit that missing the winter semester also contributed to the decision to become a model. There was no certainty in the recovery – usually I knew much less from the recovery than from the usual change. And, believe me, it’s very bad, because by the usual surrender, I knew almost nothing. So I urgently needed a backup plan for life. Modeling was supposed to be my lifeline.

So, armed with a few photos in which I looked as much like the model as possible – read haggard – I sat down to explore the market for modeling agencies in Moscow. She immediately cut those who promised applicants “study trips abroad and meetings with serious men”. Sure, I was in despair, but not that far off.

Finally, I chose a more or less decent one and sent the photos, honestly indicating all the data. Well, to be honest: all data is minus 5 kg in weight and plus 3 cm in height. Honesty is of course good, but self-esteem must also be protected. The only thing I stated quite honestly is the age – 19 years old.

I didn’t expect instant success. I thought they would answer me from the fifth or sixth agency. However, I am realistic: I understood that I would have to fight for the game and the champagne on the sidelines of the podium. Just a little bit.

But, to my *surprise, the first agency responded the next day. They even responded well. They wrote, they say, yes, the girl is beautiful, but we have long made it a rule not to recruit models over the age of 17. In 2005, the concept of ageism wasn’t used yet, and I couldn’t write an indignant post on Facebook about how I was a victim of ageism. In fact, there was no Facebook in Russia yet. So all I had to do was learn from the rejection. The lesson is this: lie about age too.

So I sent honest photos and data to the following agency minus 5 kg in weight, plus 3 cm in height and minus 2 years.

The agency was headed by the legendary Gia Dzhikidze, the man who discovered Vodianova and Volodina and is about to discover Mikulin. The confidence that my model star will rise in the skies of Milan not today or tomorrow was boosted after a few days later they called me and made an appointment. Foundry! A real cast! A nice girl on the phone asked to bring a bathing suit.

– Well, I don’t know. It’s all disgusting. You will be lined up there with other girls and you will be examined, like in the market. It’s disgusting, – my mother did not share my enthusiasm for the inexorably imminent success of modeling.

I knew my mother was probably right. I perfectly remembered the interview with Natalia Vodianova, talking about her first casting, the one where Dzhikidze spotted her. How she was told to strip down to her bathing suit and line up with the other girls. She felt like one of many and walked away. It was then that he saw her. But the girls in swimsuits were really lined up! Also, I grew up in the 1990s when the country’s main reading material was the Speed ​​Info newspaper. And in it, every third note was about a girl who dreamed of becoming a model, then she was raped, killed, buried in the forest and sold as a slave.

Honestly? I was scary. But I decided to hope for the best and at the same time left everyone the address of where I was going on a cold January day with a bathing suit in my backpack. Who does not take risks does not drink champagne in small bottles, right? .. You have to look at the world positively and hope for the best. With that, I went to the first casting of my life.

When I came out of the Park Kultury metro station, the winter wind whipped my cheeks. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, but Moscow was already plunged into worn darkness. Guess I’ll be leaving soon anyway! I’m expecting a shoot in New York, ready-to-wear in Paris and a weekend in Goa… I’ll probably go back to icy Rus’ in July.

I was shaking with chills – the last two days, getting ready for the casting, I hardly ate anything, so my body was so warm and energetic. I quickly found the address and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not a suspicious barn or a shabby panel house, but an old factory quarter turned into elegant offices. Nowadays, Muscovites have become accustomed to Artplays and Winzavods, and in 2005, I assure you, the impression was grand.

I opened the heavy door and began to shake off the snowdrift that had managed to cling to me along the way. I looked around. Soft music played in a room with brick walls and high ceilings, laconic lamps shone lazily, a coffee machine shone in the far corner. When I asked where the modeling agency was, a silent young man with an earring in his nose motioned up the stairs to the second floor balcony.

On the stairs sat a girl with makeup and high heels. She had a giant folder on her lap. It turned out that she also came to the casting. Despite the fact that the girl was an experienced model – she immediately showed me her portfolio, which consisted of advertising upholstery for sofas – I perked up. For some reason, I felt like a bigger model than she was.

First, I was dressed like models dress in everyday life. That is to say, no way. No makeup, hair in a ponytail, straight jeans and a frayed sweatshirt. Models and at work have enough makeup and stylish clothes. Second, the girl was clearly much smaller. And yes, the example of Kate Moss taught me nothing. Kate is the exception, not the rule.

And when Mr. Jikidze himself looked through the glass door leading to the magical world of fashion, my self-confidence only grew stronger – after all, he smiled at me with a broad smile and asked to wait. He took the model’s wallet out of courtesy, looked at it, and said just as politely that “we’re not looking for such a guy now, sorry.” The girl boldly resisted the refusal, smiled at me and was like that.

“Come in, change your clothes, I’ll wait here,” the arbiter of model fates ordered me. But I could already see from his enthusiastic gaze that the book was in my pocket. Seeing yourself in a bathing suit is only a formality.

Trembling, I entered the room. To my surprise, I didn’t see any other female models here. But in the corner sat a girl with a bunch of dreadlocks. She turned her head to the white laptop.

“Does it matter if I sit here?” The screen is there.

Nothing? Yes, I was ready to kiss each of his dreadlocks thinking that I didn’t need to be alone with a stranger in a bathing suit. I mean, I’ll be in a bathing suit. I don’t think if he was in a bathing suit, it would be easier…

But before letting me go behind the screen, the girl took some Polaroids of me.

“It’s good that I came without makeup,” the girl congratulated me, once again reinforcing me in the thought that I was practically my own in the modeling world.

And so I went behind the screen and put on my favorite faded one-piece swimsuit. He, like a best friend, always emphasized my thinness. I heard the door open.

– Ready?

Here it is – the very moment that every girl under 180cm dreams of. Now I will come out from behind the screen and Gia Jikidze himself will exclaim: “What unearthly beauty! Yes, you are made for a modeling career! The last time I said that to Vodianova and Volodina!

I sucked in air to look even thinner, I took a step, and… There was a silence. Enthusiastic, as I wanted to believe.

“Y-yes…” Gia drawled.

Well, nothing, maybe he just doesn’t know how to express his joy. But when I collected my feelings, I saw in the eyes of Gia Dzhikidze, the scout who discovered Vodianova and Volodin … disappointment.

“Y-yes,” he said more firmly. – What to do with you?

I tried to pull in my stomach even more, but, apparently, the moment was lost.

“No, don’t get me wrong, it’s a good weight for life…”

Dzhikidze went to the table where a girl with dreadlocks sat. She handed him the Polaroids. He looked at them carefully and sighed. Then he looked at me in a bathing suit. grimaced. Wrinkled?!

– Come on. How much can you lose 5 kg? I will be in Moscow at the end of February. Will you make it?

Swallowing (very hungry), I nodded.

– GOOD. Get dressed. 5 kg, no less, you hear? Otherwise it won’t work.

I hid behind the screen and put on my model uniform. It seemed to me, or the jeans began to stretch worse?

Gia was kind to the end: he accompanied me to the exit and said goodbye: “Call me in a month.

But the next day I woke up completely broken.

5kg! How can I lose these 5 kg, if even at 58 kg I almost pass out from starvation! And okay, let’s say I lose 5 kg. But where do I spend 2 more years? I’m not 17, as Gia thinks, I’m 19 – consider a grandmother by fashion world standards. I crawled under the covers with my head. Is it really meant for me to be a fat historian? ..

And I walked to the library to prepare for the recovery. The letters in the manual faded, Lancasters and Yorkes mingled in a meaningless scarlet-white heap.

“Let’s eat pies,” my classmate nudged me by the elbow. On the machine I proceeded to the buffet, on the machine I bought a few pies. She took a bite out of the machine.

Instantly everything – Dzhikidze, bottled champagne, Milan and my modeling events – ceased to matter. What delicious pies! I took another bite. And further. Finished the first, ate the second. I went to buy two more.

Of course, I haven’t called Dzhikidze for a month. Not only did I not lose 5 kg, but I gained a few more.

Yes, my modeling career ended before it started. But I will know all my life that if I was 5 kg lighter and 2 years younger, I would be on the cover of Vogue and be the godmother of another Vodianova child.

But there would be no pies in my life.

* The models are unlikely to have used the word “awesome”. But I haven’t modeled yet.