Day 644: Modeling in Mongolia (again)

I (Claire) have always had a vague, stupid dream to become a model for a year in a country where whiteness - and not beauty - is the determining fashion model employment factor. Lara thinks it is insane, and something that I would hate in practice, but Lara has a habit of crushing my dreams. The year we first met, and I told her my dream was to be a waitress, she told me I'd be the worst waitress known to man (something about patience, and sneering).

Lara's disapproval regarding my modeling career aside, I got quite excited when my friend Johanna (the one visiting in Argentina for a few weeks) told me about a "regular guy" she knew doing modeling in Mongolia. She sent me a video of him, doing said modeling, and I watched it with rapture and awe. "Mongolia! Modeling!" I thought. It seemed too perfect.

In the next obvious step, I had Johanna's younger sister who I've never met stalk the alleged model to find his email, to which I then sent a chipper and enthusiastic query about how to break into the booming fashion scene of Ulan Bator. I included my regular email signature, which identifies my role at Hope Runs, the clearly obvious segue into the Central Asian Fashion Industry. And thus began a string of semi-nonsensical emails that, once again, crushed my dreams.

It's a long exchange, and not one worth repeating, but you can understand the thesis of our interaction in said non-Mongolian model's first email to me, which peaked with such baffled phrases as: "I am not quite sure what you mean. You are interested in modeling, like fashion modeling, in Mongolia? And you think I have modeling experience as a side job in Mongolia? Please clarify, thanks."

It turned out he is a regular job/worker/human, and that in fact he was only a model for an hour, when an expat photographer called him asking him if he could look Scottish for lots of cash. He could not, he apologized, offer much solid advice about the industry.

To reflect on when Lara and I actually met real models, and a real blog reader's model photographer in Mongolia several years ago, watch the riveting back story:

First, Claire and Lara watch Jake, the photographer in Ulan Bator, set up a camera, as they reflect on modeling as a profession:



Then the models themselves speak:

1 comment:

sarah mac said...

you can't even begin to imagine how many times we've repeated the phrase, "burrrrritos in Mongoleeeeya?"

i never tire of it. xo

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