Throwback Thursday

I found this old picture of me while trying to clean up the files on my laptop.  It's a fun photo because it hearkens back to the days when I was a teenager.  I'm guessing I was probably sixteen in this picture, and behind me is the wall of models (and the odd celebrity) that I had painstakingly assembled.  I had decided that I wanted to model when I was about ten years old, a dream that was encouraged when I was scouted on the street at the age of 12.  My parents were not supportive of that dream so it wouldn't be until a decade later that I would get to move to New York City and give it a go.  Lucky for my ten-year-old self that I actually grew up to be pretty tall and fairly thin-- two requirements for the job.

You can also see in the background a page from a coloring book that a friend had gifted me with (I wish I could remember which friend!), an Abbey Road poster (I was obsessed with the Beatles), my Cabbage Patch Kid's birth certificate (Fredrika Henrietta Winnie-- that's the name she came with-- not mine), and a high school poster with the dates of the football games. (I was never into football, but as a member of the marching band colorguard, I was required to attend all of the games.)  The dress was purchased at a thrift store, and if memory serves me correctly, about three sizes too big.  One of my then favorite models, Niki Taylor, whose smiling visage looms over mine in the photo, I got to meet and work with a few years later when I won a modeling contest on MTV.  She was the first celebrity I'd ever seen in real life, and a personal hero of mine, and I remember being so excited about seeing her and getting to talk to her.