Selina Cullum-Caradona
It's not everyday that I get to meet a real
fashion model. The fashion industry is “other-worldly” to me, very much
out of step with everything around which my life revolves. So my
curiosity was piqued when I received e-mail from a business
acquaintance asking if I'd be willing to give some advice to a model
who wanted to publish a book on her experiences. We set up a
rendez-vous at Le Pain Quotidien, a salon-de-thé in the 5th
arrondissement that is a favorite of mine for quiet conversation amidst
the hustle and bustle of the rue Mouffetard marketplace.
I
arrived first, and sat at a table at the back of the room but in full
view of the door. When Selina walked in, I knew that my preconception
about models was about to be exploded. Selina Cullum-Caradona is a
“30-something” woman from Columbia, South Carolina. She's married, has
two children, and lives in the small town of Maisons-Lafitte just
twelve miles from Paris. She is tall, but not overly so, and has a real
figure, not the matchstick frame that I imagined she'd have. And most
refreshingly, she has a demeanor that is much more suggestive of her
southern roots and upbringing than her years in the showrooms of New
York, Paris and Milan.
Having
heard from my business acquaintance that I had self-published a book,
Selina contacted me to talk about her project – a manuscript about “the
business of modeling”. In it, she encourages young models-to-be and
gives them an insider's perspective on what the fashion industry is
like. Hers is not a rags-to-riches story, but rather one of success
obtained through persistence, a strong sense of self and of self-worth,
and just the right dose of luck.
Selina
left the South and headed for New York at the tender age of 19, having
swept all categories of a scouting session called “Models of the South”
and being recruited by an agent from the Big Apple. She quickly learned
her first lesson in the “modeling school of hard knocks” when, after
having moved into the home of an aunt and uncle whom she barely knew,
the agent changed her mind about working with her. Selina was then
forced to make cold calls at modeling agencies, facing rejection at
almost every turn. She found New York to be “too cold”, “too big”, and
full of people who were “too mean”. But because of her mother's faith
and constant encouragement to stay “just one more week”, Selina managed
to string those weeks into months and those months into years. Her big
break came at age 25. Having been asked to come to the showroom for
Geoffrey Beene, and then being turned down season after season for
work, one day, the man himself was in the room when Selina was told for
the fourth time to “come back next season”. Beene told his employee to
let Selina stay, and she found herself in her first big 7th avenue
show. She has never looked back, going on to model for houses such as
Bill Blass, Calvin Klein, FUBU and Cerutti. She has agents in both New
York and Paris now; the old days of freelancing are long gone.
Selina
first visited Paris in 1985 when she volunteered for a photo shoot in
France. Though the assignment was canceled due to the hijacking of the
TWA airliner, she did not alter her travel plans. She stayed a little
over two weeks and fell in love with the city. She, her husband Philip
and their two children, Christina and Philip Charles, moved to
Maisons-Lafitte in 1998. The kids have benefited from a wonderful
bilingual school there, but are now enrolled in a French school. And
the town is conveniently located so that both she and Philip (a New
York construction mogul and Paris drummer) can easily come into Paris
to work.
Selina's experiences
modeling in France have been quite different from those in the United
States. Perhaps not surprisingly, she feels that a model's race is much
more important in terms of obtaining work, or more precisely, being
rejected for jobs, in the U.S. In contrast, she says that being
African-American may have been an advantage for her in France, citing
the Yves-Saint-Laurent organization that used black models almost
exclusively during the 1980s.
When
I asked Selina how she measures success in the modeling field, she
replied that her personal definition entails staying focused, staying
away from drugs and alcohol and working steadily. She has steadfastly
refused to compare herself to other models, choosing instead to measure
herself by her own yardstick. More generally, she defines success by
how well a model is know, and whether or not she is asked to do videos,
magazine covers, etc. But this kind of fame does not really appeal to
her, though she admitted that she wouldn't mind the fortune that often
accompanies it!
Selina does
less modeling now – she is pursuing her interest in singing and is
currently a member of Titus Williams' Street Preacher American Gospel
Ensemble in Paris. She would eventually like to switch over to jazz,
but is happy with gospel for now. She hopes to release her book,
tentatively entitled Selina – My Personal Survival Guide Book for
Models.
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