sports illustrated: Herieth Paul

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Casting Frenzy

With New York Fashion Week in full speed, a legion of impossibly beautiful and statuesque models have been witnessed traipsing all over Manhattan amidst a casting frenzy. A gazillion pretty faces turned out last Sunday for Andrew Weir's ACW casting at the Hudson Hotel, and with client roster including Hugo Boss, Viktor & Rolf, Thakoon, Hussein Chalayan and Ralph Lauren, the competition to impress Weir and his team was intense. Seasoned veterans Trish Goff and Marcelle Bittar were in attendance whilst newcomers Marihenny Passible, Xiao Wen Ju, Priscilla Kabeya, Allaire and Herieth Paul jockeyed to stand out from the pack. With each season brings a new pool of talent and I look forward to seeing which girls sink or swim.

Marihenny Passible

Liza Golden

Xiao Wen Ju

Lisanne de Jong

Herieth Paul

Priscilla Kabeya

Alina Baikova

Brejge Heinen & Kel Markey

Pamela Bernier

Melissa Tammerijn & Allaire

Trish Goff
All images courtesy of models.com

Friday, August 5, 2011

Transformations

Sixteen year old Herieth Paul has undergone more than her fair share of changes over the past four years. In 2007, Herieth moved from her native Tanzania in Africa to Ottawa Canada, with her diplomat mother. Two years later, unbeknownst to her mother, Herieth walked into an open casting call for Angies Model & Talent in Ottawa and was swiftly signed up. Now aged sixteen, Herieth is being carefully groomed and developed by Women Direct in New York as one of the agency's most promising new faces.

Under the guidance of Women Direct, Herieth underwent a dramatic change in appearance with her shoulder length silky black tresses being traded for a closely cropped buzz cut, accentuating to her delicate, gamine features and lending her more of a high fashion contemporary feel. Herieth's modelling career has since taken off to a promising start with lucrative campaigns for Diesel and cK One under the belt, and editorial appearances in Vogue Italia lensed by Steven Meisel, and for Dazed & Confused, Teen Vogue, American Elle and Black Book magazine.

Herieth appears to be relatively unfazed by the recent changes and is focused instead on achieving her goals of appearing "on the cover of every magazine." In an interview for the Cut, Herieth is equally poised when asked if "it is difficult as a black model to land high profile work as compared to your non-ethnic counterparts", to which she responds, "Well, I'm new to this industry and I never really thought of it that way. But no, I think that if you work hard you get what you deserve."