Seraphina Russell dreams big.
Bigger than her hometown of East Chicago. Bigger than her current home of Gary. Bigger than the high school she graduated from last year and the local college she’s now attending.
The soft-spoken woman is an aspiring model with dreams of a life in the fashion industry. She knows the odds are against her.
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted, since I was 6 or 7 years old,” said Russell, 19, a business student at Ivy Tech Community College in Gary.
In person, she’s low-key, a bit shy, and talks almost in a whisper. In photos, she’s more emboldened, more provocative, more of a risk taker.
“I feel vulnerable in person and in photos, just in different ways,” she said.
Since childhood she’s dreamed of modeling in New York City, Paris and Madrid. It’s all part of her bucket list.
In April, she will be flying to London to take part in Top Model UK, a runway fashion show competition that searches for male and female models. Last year, Russell submitted her digital photo portfolio to the company and she was invited to compete in the April 6-7 event at the Hilton London Metropole.
“I’m getting my passport today,” Russell told me when we met last week in Gary.
Her photo entry for the event’s “charity public vote awards” can be found at http://topmodel2018.everydayhero.do under the worldwide category. Money raised on the fundraising page goes to the charity Children with Cancer UK. Of the 41 women in the category, Russell is joined by only one other American.
Russell will be traveling to London with her mother, her sister, her aunt and her boyfriend. They will be in London for a week, giving Russell a taste of the life she hopes to someday attain.
“I believe Seraphina is very motivated and she can go far,” her mother, Sheila Russell, said. “I support her dreams.”
This is all any young dreamer can ask for.
The Top Model UK website states: “Top Model has a proven track record of discovering new model talent, launching careers and creating dreams. Many of our finalists and winners have signed with agencies, worked as professional models, been published internationally, traveled internationally and walked at London Fashion Week.”
The company offers no guarantees to young models. No assurances. Just the promise of hope and the allure of hype, which adorn every dream. Russell’s visit to London may be the only trek there in her life. This is not what Russell wants to hear at this point, but it’s a realistic possibility.
This is the potential downside of such grand plans. Crashing back down to reality. Many of us already know this. Russell doesn’t, not yet anyway. This is a good thing. Why taint an A-list dream with a Plan B settlement so early in life.
How many of us once dreamed of a grander life, a more rewarding career, or a shot at something big, much bigger than what we later settled for?
“Hopefully, I’ll bring home the win for this city and every other aspiring model who often feels discouraged,” Russell said.
In her adolescence she felt discouragement too often with bouts of low self-esteem and, at times, doubt in herself. She also felt alienated from other teenagers.
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“Fitting in seemed to not be my thing,” she said. “That’s when I realized that I only had myself and my dream. Somewhere deep within I knew I could still pursue it.”
During her freshman year in high school, she “ate, drank and slept” modeling.
“It was the only thing I thought about, and it began to become one of the only things I felt I could do,” she said.
During her junior year, she began collaborating with local photographers to create her modeling portfolio. She began making things happen.
“I knew it was go time,” said Russell, who goes by “Llessur” (her last name reversed) on social media. “I want to be different.”
She applied for modeling jobs, submitting her digital portfolio to 40 different agencies.
“The majority either replied with a rejection email or didn’t bother at all,” she said.
She traveled to Indianapolis and Chicago to pose for magazines, and then accepted the London opportunity.
“I’ve always had a vision of me being bigger than my existing world,” Russell said.
Russell feels she is scratching her only lottery ticket. She’s hoping to hit the jackpot of a modeling career that will escort her across the runways of the world. Or into the top fashion magazines of the industry.
“My dream is to be in Vogue,” she said, her voice dripping with idealism.
So far, she has been published in two magazines – Salyse photography and beauty magazine, based in Maryland, and Here magazine, a local publication profiling the people and places that make this corner of Indiana unique.
“One of the main tenets of Here magazine is to promote local, upcoming artists such as Seraphina who may not have a platform otherwise,” said Julia Huisman, the magazine’s editor and publisher. “Whether they are writers, photographers, artisans or models, we hope to get their work out there for more people to see and appreciate.”
This is all that Russell is asking for, a platform to showcase her talents and maybe a springboard to bigger things.
“I’m not only grateful for my journey, but also for where I am going,” she said.
Twitter@jdavich