A Runway Model Takes Us On Her Cattle Calls

Meet Selina Khan. She grew up in Martinique, where she just graduated from high school, and she’s been modeling since her early teens. We asked her to take us to all her castings and show us what modeling’s really like.

Khan — whom you may remember from such Jezebel posts as this one and this one and this one — was very open with me and videographers Woody Jang and Eleni Crush about her working and personal life. She grew up in a small town, studied Latin in high school, lives in a models’ apartment, and sometimes kills time waiting for castings to start by reading Cosmo or hiding out in department stores, because they always have a place to sit down. Post-modeling, Khan wants to learn the real estate business.

This is her fourth season in New York, and Khan has walked for designers including Ralph Lauren and Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti here, and has featured in campaigns for Lacoste. That being said, she told us that the one season that she and her agency tried to translate her stateside fashion week success into work at Milan and Paris fashion weeks, she hardly booked anything at all. Is it harder to be non-white in this industry? “Not in New York,” she says. “But in Europe — yes.”

In this clip, she talks about the logistics of castings and what it’s like to face poker-faced casting director after poker-faced casting director, never knowing if you’re booking anything at all until the options and confirmations come through. As for Selina herself, this week she’s walked for Betsey Johnson, Band of Outsiders, Daniel Vosovic, and Rachel Comey. With hopefully more to come in the next few weeks.