Wednesday 31 May 2017

Lea T

Lea T is a Brazilian born transgender model, her last name T stands for Tisci. She is 36 years old and was born in 1981. She is the daughter of a well-known Brazilian football player and is part of the LGBT community. In 2011 she stated in an interview that she was going to be undergoing sex reassignment surgery. Her surgery went ahead in 2012, it took 2 weeks after the surgery before she felt happy with the results. Even before she had the surgery she was already in the modelling industry and became the face of Givenchy in 2010 as well doing her first runway at Sao Paulo Fashion Week.

Working in the industry she has worked for Vogue Paris, Interview Magazine, Cover Magazine and Love Magazine. In one of her covers on Love Magazine she is featured with Kate Moss another incredibly well known model. She has been named by Forbes Magazine in 2015 as one of the 12 women who have changed Italian fashion. She was very proud in 2014 when she became the first openly transgender model to front a global cosmetics brand which was a hair company from America named RedKen. Come 2016 she was still making her way through the industry and creating a name for herself when she lead the Brazilian team in the Olympic opening ceremony into the stadium on her bike in RIO. She has had so much opportunity in the industry and has taken all of it to better herself and help show that being transgender does not make you unable to be in the industry.


Lea’s Givenchy’s add was her break in the industry. This campaign was created to fund Lea’s surgery as she was struggling to find the money since her family were unsupportive of the idea at the beginning she and even considered selling her body for prostitution to get the money. Tisci was not in agreement with this which was what inspired him to create the campaign. There were a number of transgender models used in this AW campaign in 2010, when creating the campaign Tisci did not worry about the impact of using transgender models would have on his campaign he just wanted the campaign to be successful. Even now years on after the campaign Tisci and Lea are still close friends.



In an interview that Lea had with New York Magazine she was asked “you don’t see yourself as a 
beauty icon?” and she stated that no she didn’t. Also she stated that she believed since Caitlyn Jenner became transgender people have started opening their minds more to the idea of people being transgender and that more people are opening up as it. She is an inspiration to other transgender people who are in the industry as well as those who are looking to break into the industry. She believes she was put on earth for a reason and this is what she was made to do. 

Wednesday 17 May 2017

Diandra Forrest

Model and actress Diandra Forrest is 27 years old was born in the Bronx in NYC she has a unique look that is albinism. It is a condition that only affects every 1 in 17,000 people and causes a loss of pigment in hair, skin and sometimes the eyes. More models in the fashion industry are popping up with this look now, since it is becoming more accepted. They are great role models for younger people who suffer from the condition.

Diandra Forrest is African American and was the first female model with albinism to be signed to a big label to start her career. Her look is unique and has caught the attention of a lot of designers and magazines in the industry. She grew up with 4 brothers and sisters and realised she was an albino at the age of 9, only her brother and herself inherited it. Many of her friends asked if she was adopted because she had a different look from others in her family, as well as this there would be adults who laughed at her as a child and she struggled to understand why. When she was a child she was moved to a school for children with special education to try and stop the bullying she was experiencing. She believes this was all due to a lack of understanding on their behalf and believes that is also how things are now, people don’t understand albinism fully so don’t know how to react to it. Finding confidence in herself really helped her get into the industry but she still hopes for change in the future and that people won’t have to go through what she went through. She wants to work with children and parents of those who have albinism to support them and help them to understand the condition.

She has done some great work in the fashion industry from magazine covers to music videos. Discovered when she was out shopping, she soon after joined the agency Elite Models NY. Now more deep into her career she has worked with models such as Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier and MAC cosmetics. She has featured in a couple of music videos including Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts” video and Kanye West’s music video for his song “Power”. These artists are massively known around the world so it created a lot of attention for Diandra. In 2016 Diandra walked the New York Fashion Week runway holding her seven week old child. On lookers had different opinions on this as some thought it was really nice that she got the opportunity to do that but some believed she was actually breast feeding whilst walking – which wasn’t true – and frowned upon this for putting her baby into an environment like that.


Since she is so interested in supporting other with albinism, especially younger people with the condition. She worked with an organisation called Tanzania called Assisting Children in Need, they are there to fight discrimination against the Tanzanian albino community. She is another model who would like to known for being a model and not be defined by something that makes her different from others. 




Tuesday 2 May 2017

Jillian Mercado

Jillian Mercado who was born and raised in New York, started her modelling career in 2014. Born with Muscular Dystrophy she is one of the small amount professional models with a disability therefore making her unique in the industry. As a wheelchair user she is an inspiration to all those who suffer from disabilities as it shows it doesn’t stop you from achieving your dreams. Her love of fashion came from her parents who were a dress maker and a shoe salesman, so it is an industry she grew up close to. As she grew older she became a fashion student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and interned with Veranda and Allure magazine which were great opportunities for her. After this she continued to attend fashion week as a volunteer to create more contacts within the industry and created the opportunity for her to cover society events for a photographer at PMc magazine. 

In 2014 Diesel were the first to use Jillian in one of their campaign which then led her to gain a modelling contract with IMG Models in 2015 who also have contracts with models such as Gigi Hadid, Miranda Kerr and Kate Moss. She has also done a few pieces of work with Nordstrom who own a chain of luxury department stores as well as being part of the CR fashion book.

2016 took an even bigger turn for her as she was announced as one of the three models to appear on a campaign for BeyoncĂ©’s own website promoting merchandise featuring lyrics from her formation album and her 2016 Formation tour. This being one of her biggest pieces of work yet it then later that year landed her editorial features with Glamour and Cosmopolitan magazine and again early this year in February 2017 she appeared in Glamour.

Jillian has been set on creating more diversity in modelling since the beginning of her career as a disability activist. She has teamed up with Instagram and other models who want to see more diversity in the industry recently to create moving pictures for Instagram showing its ok to have different looks in the industry. The modelling industry was never something she had planned to get into as she didn’t believe it was something she would be accepted into but as she met more photographer friends who she modelled for as a bit of fun she considered it as a possibility. Looking how far she has come in the past 3 years is incredible showing her determination to get her name out there. Throughout her career she has worked alongside many models with unconventional looks including Ashley Graham and Winnie Harlow who you can find information about in previous blog posts. She wants people to know her as a model and not be seen as a ‘disabled model’ in the future as she believes at some point people won’t label people just because they aren’t all the same.