My First Experience in LA as a Model

Being back in LA has me reflecting on my first modeling job out here. It was a location shoot by the great fashion photographer Fabrizio Ferri in the desert town of Twentynine Palms, California for the Escada campaign.

My friend and fellow supermodel Heather Stewart-Whyte was the other model on the shoot. She and I had been flown in from Paris and spent one night at the famous Sunset Marquis Hotel. The next morning, we met up with the rest of the crew and drove out to the location. I remember loving the sunshine and Palm trees of LA and Twentynine Palms. It was such a welcome change from grey and rainy Paris.

The aspect of this particular shoot that stands out for me the most is (the now hilarious) memory of how ill Heather and I had felt for most of the time we were on location.

You see we had been out dancing at a club in Paris the night before we flew to LA and didn’t feel too good on the flight over. Somehow we both managed to eat the wrong thing (maybe it was bad plane food) and we both felt sick and bloated when we arrived. And being that a model has to look healthy and be slim for a fashion shoot, we were nervous that we would not look our best for the job.

So we ran out to a pharmacy in LA and bought medicine. But, what a mistake that was! By the time we arrived to Twentynine Palms we felt worse since our bodies weren’t responding too well to the medication. You might say not well at all.

Throughout the course of the day, every time we could escape the set to run to the bathroom, we would. Our bodies were so dehydrated from the desert air as well as from the medication, that we would both be on the verge of passing out on set at any moment. It was the most physically uncomfortable day I’ve ever had on a shoot. We couldn’t even look at each other without wanting to crack up, since even though we were in physical pain, we found the whole situation to be hysterical.

I learned a valuable lesson that day about paying attention to the kinds of food I eat and the types of medication I use.

I will blog more about that soon.