Anja Rubik: Models can easily lose their identity

ICONINSIDER — Anja Rubik thinks being a model makes you “lose your identity”. The 34-year-old model embarked on a career in the fashion business at the young age of 15 and the star has revealed budding catwalk icon’s are desperate to do their “job right” they are forced to change to suit the team they work with.

Speaking to Net-A-Porter’s The Edit, the blonde-haired beauty said: “When you start young – I was 15 – you’re still developing. You enter a world where everyone is expecting something from you: the photographer tells you how to be, then the stylist, then you have feedback from casting directors. You want to do your job right, but you lose your identity.”

But the style muse has revealed she was never “discovered”, but after watching the late George Michael’s ‘Too Funky’ music video, which starred Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford, she was desperate to do all she could to get signed to an agency.

She explained: “I wasn’t really ‘discovered’. When I was young, I was obsessed with George Michael videos, especially ‘Too Funky’. I would look at these women who were strong and sexy, with the world at their feet, and I thought, ‘I want to be one of those women.'”

And Anja found it harder to break into the industry because she lived in a “tiny city” in Poland called Rzeszów. She said: “But I lived in a tiny city, my chances of being discovered were none, so I took things into my own hands and sent pictures to competitions.”

And Anja has hinted she thinks the industry is more cut throat nowadays, and she believes the key to success is feeling confident in your own skin. She said: “There are a lot of young girls now, way more than before, and they come and go faster; people don’t really give them a chance to build a career. It’s quite sad. Also, since we have such an over-saturation of images and magazines and designers, what you do is not as important as it used to be.

“You can have the most beautiful girl walk into the room, wearing the most gorgeous dress, and if she doesn’t feel confident, you’re not attracted to her. I only started to feel really good in my skin when I was 27. Some people get there earlier, and I envy them. It took me quite some time. When you’re a tall, blond model, unfortunately you’re still very quickly identified as not very smart with not much to say. But that gives you a kick to break those stereotypes.”

Featured image: Anja Rubik (Instagram.com/@anja_rubik)
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