THE CULTURAL OMNIVORE

Taylor Foster – Heaven Sent

Born in Miami, Taylor Foster was scouted when she was just thirteen years old. She has walked the runways of Milan, New York, Paris and London for top designers and has appeared in international editions of Vogue, W, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, i-D and Vanity Fair.

I called Taylor and talked about modeling, motherhood and her passion for the culinary arts.

I thought it would be best to start at the beginning. You were raised in Florida, is that right?

I was born and raised in Miami, oddly enough for a freckly red-head. Every time I say that, even people who I’ve worked with for years, look at me and are like, “that is the last thing I would expect”.

But yeah, I grew up there and people are always surprised by that. I remember I was about 13 and I walked to the corner stationery store. I was in there and this woman walked up to me and gave me her card. She was from Ford Models.

Were you familiar with the industry? Typically a lot of people approached are reluctant or suspicious because they don’t know much about the industry.

I didn’t know tons about the industry but I knew enough that I recognized the name Ford and I knew that she was legit even though I was still a little freaked out by it. I remember I went home and I told my mom, who had a brief stint in the modeling world in the sixties.

How did that conversation go with your mom?

She had some bad experiences as a model but I remember she told me that if I was interested then I should check it out.  She always kind of let me do whatever I wanted.

What happened next?

I had an older sister I dragged along with me and the agency signed us both. I remember my first shoot ever was with her. I wish I had those pictures but I never saw them. I don’t even remember what it was for.  I modeled a little bit and then I went to boarding school in Switzerland. I remember I gained a little weight when I was away and when I came back my agent sat me down and told me to lose weight. I was like forget it so I didn’t do anything with it for a few years.

How did that conversation go down with your agent?

I just remember thinking I’m not going to do that. I felt fine the way that I was. I mean, thankfully I didn’t get all crazy about it.

Many girls at that age are so impressionable and influenced by the media. I think it’s great that you were able to be so confident and knew your value at such a young age.

I just had a very strong sense of self.  Maybe it was the way I was raised,  I don’t know. It didn’t feel like some ultimate thing that I needed to aspire to. It wasn’t a big deal for me to walk away from it. It just made sense and that was it. I finished high school and then I went to a year of college and then I decided to go to culinary school.  At the time, there was a waiting list to get into the culinary school that I wanted to go to.

I had applied to a couple of programs and I wanted to travel. I remember I went back to Miami and thought maybe I should try the modeling thing again as a ticket to travel. I walked into a different agency in Miami Beach and I met with someone and he turned me away. As I was walking out the door, another agent came after me and told me the other agent didn’t know what  he was talking about. I just wanted to  go to Europe so then off I went and I lived in Milan and Paris. I did some shoots for ELLE and things like that and they kept trying to draw me back into the business. I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Modeling was always a means to an end for you then?

It was, yes. It’s interesting for me to see girls that are really into the business. It’s just now that I can understand, appreciate and be compassionate about it.

It’s refreshing hearing you talk about it in this way because I think, particularly nowadays, it’s such an aspirational career for women .

I came back to the states and I bought a Volkswagen bus and I drove cross-country and I lived in Berkeley for a while. I got accepted to culinary school and I went did that. While I was on my externship, my agent in Miami had a booking for me for a one day shoot in the Keys for $1500 for the day. I was making $4.25 an hour at the time so I thought do I really hate it that much?

At the time I was broke and I was just getting by. I made the decision that when I graduated from culinary school I would give modeling one last try. After I graduated,  I moved to New York which is another thing I never thought I’d do because I never really wanted to live in the city. Within a few weeks of being in the city my agent sent me to Paris for the shows. As soon as I got there, I booked a Prada exclusive. It was just perfect timing for redheads and that was when I met Emily Sandberg.

I rode that wave, but even at the time I remember thinking it was a lot to deal with it; running around and flying to this place and that and doing all that work. I managed to save money and open a bakery so it worked out.

How do you feel about the industry now compared to when you began?

I think it’s still a challenging industry and I think it still has a rigid set of guidelines that you are held up against for sure. I’m older now and with experience I appreciate the opportunities modeling has afforded me more than ever.  I’m grateful and excited to still be working. I feel that I can offer more of myself on shoots now compared to when I first began in the industry.

Now that your dream of owning your bakery has come to fruition it must be very rewarding for you. It’s something that you worked very hard for and it’s been very successful.

Last week I sent a box of baked goods to someone and the rave reviews I got for those baked goods made me so proud. It’s hugely fulfilling and the fact that I’m teaching cooking classes at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY is thrilling to me. I’ve seen my picture in French Vogue and it’s cool, but the fact that I’m in the Omega Institute catalogue is amazing.

How do you achieve balance in your life? You’re a mother, you’re getting back into cooking, you teach and you’re modeling.

I’m constantly trying to find balance and figure out how to spend great time with my son, build the baking business back up, model, do yoga and teach.  I guess that goes back to what I said earlier. I like to keep myself really busy.

Follow her on Instagram

Find more information about Heaven on Main Street

Posted on by theculturalomnivore in Female Models

Anastassia Khozissova On The #Lifeofthemodel

Anastassia started her fashion career in Milan at 18 after finishing high school. Her debut at the Armani runway show was quickly followed by an appearance on the cover of Italian Vogue.

During the course of her career, she has appeared on international covers of Vogue, W Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, i-D, Elle, V Magazine and L’Officiel. She has done countless runway shows in addition to advertising campaigns for Valentino, Chanel, Dior, Lagerfeld, Vivienne Westwood and Ralph Lauren.

Tell us about how you began your modeling career.

My career started in Saratov Russia when I was 15. It was a spontaneous decision. I never thought I would get far and to be honest, I thought it would be just a temporary thing in Russia. I was scouted by an Italian agency and left for Milan. It was my first flight and first time out of the city. It was a priceless experience. Since then I’ve been modeling for 20 years.

What values instilled in you have served you well in your career?

I believe respect and helping others has taken me far. Smile at life and she will smile at you back.

You have been a part of the Ralph Lauren brand for a number of years. Tell us how your relationship began.

I’ve been part of the Ralph Lauren world for the last 10 years. It all started with the Aviator collection. I went for a casting and they were looking for a fit model. I was more of a runway and editorial model at the time. I had just moved to New York and was not having an easy time. He chose me to be his girl and it practically saved me, though he probably doesn’t know that. I love and respect the brand and specially Ralph for believing in me and seeing in me what others could not see.

How has working with the brand changed the course of your career?

It changed everything. I quit doing other shows and working with other designers and focused on my work and learning a new side of the fashion business at Ralph Lauren. I learned more than anyone could directly from a master and that’s more than you can dream of.

Tell us about why you started your brand AK Consulting.

AK Consulting is my consulting company which has the brand #Lifeofthemodel. I’m working on a consulting basis with the Yoox group, Carlo Pazolini, INGA and others.

What are short-term and your long-term goals?

I don’t like to talk about my goals until they are done and ready to be show to the world.

What have you learned about yourself through modeling?

I’ve learned so much; networking, fashion history, fittings for designers, research, styling, branding and business are just some of the things I’ve learned over the course of my career. I also had the privilege of working with designers who are no longer with us including Gianfranco Ferré and Alexander McQueen. I am very lucky to have worked with almost every brand in the world.

What is your spiritual practice?

I like to maintain a healthy lifestyle which includes a lot of walking, working out (Pilates) and cooking is my meditation. Even on bad days, I try to find happiness. I believe in God  and in myself.

Follow her on Instagram

Images courtesy of Marco Piana

Posted on by theculturalomnivore in Female Models

Victoria Janashvili Discusses Her Book Curves

Photographer Victoria Janashvili has shot for magazines GQ, FHM and Maxim in addition to many others, but it is her latest venture that is creating a buzz. Shot over many months in various locations, Curves is an art photography book that features models of all shapes and sizes as it celebrates the female form in all its beauty. I called Victoria to talk about the inspiration behind the book and how transformative the process was for her.

Let’s talk about where the idea of the book came from.

As a fashion photographer I’ve shot all kinds of sexy women and supermodels for magazines like GQ and Maxim – so I had background in the fashion industry. The way that the body image awareness campaigns started was that a friend of mine invited a plus size model for a test shoot in my studio. We did a nude shoot and then the images appeared on the Internet and blogs republished them and so many people started sharing the story. It was very surprising and unexpected – I don’t see women as sizes, so to me these images never were that shocking. I read a lot of comments and I heard what people were saying and a lot of times they were putting slogans on the images that I didn’t agree with like bigger is better. This is not what I think and this is not what I do. I think that size in a woman or her color for instance, is a very secondary quality and doesn’t affect the overall perception of her beauty. I realized that it would be a good idea to show how I see women through photographs so I spent three months shooting the book and I was working seven days a week and traveling all over the place. A lot of people flew to New York or LA for a photo shoot and I can’t even describe the amount of work that has been done on this project. The way the book started is very different from what it became. The women that I photographed helped shape the look and the ideas behind it. Every single woman brought a new angle. The book features very different women – the smallest model is a size 00 and the biggest is a size 20, they range in age 18-64. I shot women of all different backgrounds, I even have women who are handicapped.

In the photographs the women show what their bodies are like and they also write a little paragraph where they speak about what it is like to be confident in their skin. I have supermodels who talk about growing up too skinny and too tall and how kids didn’t like them. I have women who battled eating disorders, I have older models who talk about how it feels to see their body change with age and what a struggle it is. There’s so much more – but I don’t want to give too much away here.

How did your view change from the beginning of making the book until the end?

The book is a journey of discovering what female beauty is. It might sound too dramatic but it indeed was life changing for me. Who I was as a person and my views on beauty changed a lot since I started this project. Funny enough I’m less sure of what beauty is now than I was before the book started. I tend to think that beauty is absolutely everything these days.

I think that there is a lot of emphasis placed on the way that women look and they are only seen as commercially viable if they are young and thin.

Yes, and it doesn’t make any sense. If you look back in time it hasn’t always been that way, very different types of beauty were celebrated throughout the human history. In our time, women are expected to look pretty and perfect all the time, which is impossible especially since the picture-perfect standard of beauty is barely reachable by anybody. So girls and women develop very strange issues – I barely know any woman who genuinely feels comfortable in her own skin and it’s so unhealthy. Plus obsessing about looks takes so much of our time and mind and we could definitely use all that energy in a much more positive and productive way. I spoke with a lot of men about what they find attractive and honestly I didn’t find too many men saying they’re are attracted to thinness or larger women. They were attracted to personality and looked at the women as whole.

Were people open to you making the book?

Most of the people who I worked with knew my point of view and they trusted me.

Why do you think people connected so much with the subject matter?

I think it’s an issue that most people care about deeply. We are living in a looks-obsessed society and I’m trying to help people like themselves, look at themselves or people around them with a little bit more love and kindness.

To purchase Curves click here

Posted on by theculturalomnivore in Beauty

Introducing Noma Han

Korean model Noma Han has starred in campaigns for Benetton, GAP and Tommy Hilfiger in addition to appearing on the cover of Dazed, Fantastics and Elsewhere Magazine. These days Noma balances his time between modeling and his passion for tattooing.

Tell us how you got started in fashion.

I got started in fashion when I got into the modeling industry. Before that I was just a high school kid that loved buying clothes.

Coming from Korea what were your initial impressions when you  moved to New York and began modeling?

At first, my initial impression was “this is pretty much the same as Korea.” Then after I started modeling, I thought this city was so much different. Everything is big, scale-wise. It was just crazy.

What are your aspirations and goals for the future?

In the future, I want my life to be balanced between tattooing and modeling. I want to be happy about whatever it is that I do.

What do you hope to get out of your modeling career?

People, memories. I have met a lot of people from modeling and I have lots of memories that made me both happy and sad. It’s all precious and I wanna keep it.

How do you handle the pressure and rejection that comes with modeling?

It was hard at first. I got stressed and smoked a lot of cigarettes. Now I work out and that releases the stress from pressure and rejection. At the end of the day it is just a business.

If you weren’t modeling what would you be doing?

I’m not sure. I never had a dream before I started modeling. When I became a model I met lots of friends and people who inspired me and made me interested in many things, such as tattooing.

What has been the highlight of your career thus far?

The highlight of my career so far would be the time I made my decision to be a tattoo artist and model at the same time. For my modeling career highlight, it would be my third season in Europe. Everything just went really smoothly. Every casting that I went to went well and I did bunch of shows.

What have you discovered about yourself through modeling?

I used to be very quiet but I discovered that I’m actually loud and love having fun. I can be very comfortable in front of the camera.

What would people be surprised to learn about you?

I’m not sure. They might get surprised to find out that I stopped smoking.

Follow him on Instagram

Posted on by theculturalomnivore in Male Models

Supermodel Cameron Russell on Her TED Talk, Interrupt Mag and Space-Made

Since beginning her modeling career at the age of 16, Cameron Russell has worked with numerous photographers including Steven Meisel, Craig McDean and Nick Knight​.​ She has graced the pages of various international editions of Vogue, W, Self Service and Numéro in addition to campaigns for Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Armani, Oscar de la Renta, and Yves Saint Laurent.

In October 2012, Cameron​,​ a Columbia University alumna​, gave a presentation at TEDx Mid-Atlantic. The talk would go on to become​ one of TED’s 20 most popular talks of all time. In addition to starting her own magazine, Interrupt, and grassroots organization Space-Made, Cameron continues to challenge perceptions and defy expectation.

Your TED talk was one of the 20 most popular TED talks of all time. What does this recognition mean to you?

On the one hand, I know that the very thing I was critiquing — mass media’s obsession with a narrow definition of beauty; skinny, youthful, white, and etc — was also responsible for my talk’s popularity. On the other hand, people email me and come up to me and talk about specific things I said. In those moments, when the talk seems to have inspired real thought, real feelings, in people, I feel confidence in my ability to be vulnerable, to tell stories, to teach, and to write.

You described Interrupt Mag as a “non-hierarchical, anti consumerist, inclusive fashion magazine for the (un)scene.” What do you want readers to get out of this?

Interrupt is an experiment! While we are making each issue, updating the site, editing and re-editing for print, we are always talking to our readers and editors and contributors about what they want media to be. That quote is our most recent declaration of our ideal media outlet. My dream for Interrupt was never to build the most successful magazine, but to constantly interrogate what a media platform is and then try to actually build it. For example, after the first two issues we decided Interrupt should have a rotating editor-in-chief (hence the “non-hierarchical”). Since then each issue has had a different person who curates and creates content.

Feminism has been in the zeitgeist for a number of years, yet of late it has suffered a backlash. What does feminism mean to you and what place does feminism have in 2015?

Feminism is a belief that if we root out gender inequality and find ways to improve women’s social, economic, and political freedom, the world will be better off, there will be less suffering and more happiness. I think in 2015 specifically feminism has served to organize lots of young people, especially online, and focus our conversations and even political action and protest.

The media doesn’t tell you what to think but it does tell you what to think about. What do you think about the role of mass media today, in particular the representations of women?

“Women have less opportunity to contribute to conversations, because they are less likely to own media, be asked for their opinion regardless of their qualifications, be published or be given the chance to tell their story.” – Women Action Media

We need to fix that!

I admire your fearlessness in your pursuit of the truth. It would be easy to rest on your laurels yet you have advocated for women and groups that are marginalized. Why is this advocacy important to you?

I think my generation has to be the activist generation. Not because we are particularly different from any other generation, but because our time demands it. We have to face climate change, and I don’t think our leaders will do the work for us.

Tell us about the genesis of Space-Made and how you plan to evolve the community.

When I started Space-Made I was really inspired by the social justice work I saw artists doing all over New York. I wanted to support, connect, and collaborate with artist activists. I’m not sure exactly what will happen next, but the collaborations and relationships that have come out of the network are really exciting to see. Because social media is being used to organize large groups of people I think media makers who want to get involved are at a really exciting moment. If you can communicate an emotion or message that works millions may regram, repost and respond to it.

Follow her on Instagram

 

Posted on by theculturalomnivore in Female Models