The music boomed and lights flashed as junior Sherin Nowrouz strikes a pose on the runway at New York Fashion Week.
Nowrouz had been practicing for this for months. She started in November and has worked towards this very moment.
Nowrouz arrived at NYFW on Feb. 10 at noon. It was a runway area on Broadway street.
At the runway, before she went to walk, she was able to meet her idols, Tyra Banks and Whoopi Goldberg. By 7, Nowrouz walked down the runway, cameras flashed and the crowd was roaring.
“The experience was phenomenal, it was really loud but I loved every moment of it,” Nowrouz said.
Nowrouz had the rare chance of being able to walk down a New York Fashion Week runway.
“I was handpicked by my designer to be there,” Nowrouz said.
This opportunity, especially for such a young model is hard to achieve. Many models work for years to land a spot at a NYFW runway.
“It was a stressful process at first, I took the modeling classes provided by the agency and I was getting through it,” Nowrouz said.
Her agency, Genesis Level, was scouting for new models and to her surprise, she got accepted the first day she was scouted. This process would usually take a week but her agency saw something in Nowrouz.
“I guess my height, being 5’10, of course, is beneficial and is why I’ve become more successful,” said Nowrouz “But my agency signed me because of not only my height but my skin and face as well.”
As a child, Nowrouz was made fun of for most of her childhood years.
“Honestly, I hadn’t ever really seen myself as a model till people kept telling me I should become one,” Nowrouz said. “Growing up I was always self-conscious about the way I looked and was bullied for my height and facial features.”
The modeling industry has been a stressful and time-consuming industry. It was often called a silent profession. The diets, exercise and maintenance of the “model body” are often hard for others.
When you open up a magazine you are so used to seeing models with chiseled features and slender bodies but this all adds up to the amount of work that models have to put in so they can be a professional model.
Nowrouz is trying to defy that perception and to bring a different type of modeling to the table.
“I exercise every single day, usually at home,” Nowrouz said. “But sometimes, I go to the gym. Also, I’m also doing track so that helps with toning and cardio.”
While some students struggle to juggle all of their quizzes and tests, Nowrouz has to balance the additional busy schedule of jump starting her small modeling career.
Nowrouz is one of the youngest models at her agency. Since most of her peers are older than her, it feels as if it is a competition for her to reach her top spot as a professional model.
“I’m one of the youngest models there,” Nowrouz said. “I’m surrounded by 20+-year-old models and of course it is intimidating, but that’s how the industry works.”
But for Nowrouz, her modeling career has many limitations. Her religious beliefs stop her from doing anything raunchy or modeling with revealing clothing.
For every photoshoot, she lets the cameraman know that she’s a Muslim model ahead of time and they always comply with her beliefs and make adjustments to her outfits.
Also, coming from the background that Nowrouz has, she has never, and will never, dye her hair, or do anything drastic to change her appearance.
Most models want to be the best, on top, the elite but for Nowrouz, she wants to gain a larger following and work with more influential people.
“The larger of a following that I will get will let me use it as a way to expand my platform in regards to my activism.”
In the past months of her starting her modeling career, Nowrouz has done a lot. From getting signed to an agency to walking into two major fashion shows.
“I’ve done photo shoots with amazing photographers, and overall, gained confidence as a model,” Nowrouz said.
Before Nowrouz started modeling, she never even thought of this industry.
“I never saw myself as a model till recently,” Nowrouz said. Now, her agency provides fashion classes monthly that Nowrouz has never attended until she got accepted.
For most of her day, Nowrouz is at school, keeping up with her grades and doing her best. But when it is time for her to model, she is always professional. As someone who’s silly and goofy in her free time, she puts up a sort of mask where she’s professional at all times at the agency.
She is incredibly patient especially with clients and photographers because, at the end of the day, this is money and exposure for her.
“I’m not going to jeopardize my career by being impatient,” Nowrouz said. “I’m sort of open to client’s requirements, but if I don’t want to do something, I say no off the bat.”