Me and My Bitches

Me and my bitches, or should I say bitchiness...

Just kidding.

My name is Nicola. I'm a designer, model and basically a jack-of-all-trades and I currently live in Nova Scotia, Canada. I've had blogs before but I'm awful at keeping up with them. I lose interest, people lost interest, it's basically a snore-fest but for the sake of some of the other ladies in our industry, I've decided to start a blog about modelling.

Now, I'm not a professional model that books shoots in Milan and Paris and jets off across the globe. These are my personal opinions and aren't intended to be offensive in any way, nor do I claim to be the All-Knowing-Goddess of Modelling. I'm just putting down some thoughts and my own personal guidelines when it comes to modelling in the hopes that they will help some of you other girls out there!

So a bit about me. I was born just outside of Montreal in 1990. I grew up kind of all over the world (which most people don't know about me). When I was 6, my parents and I moved to Rwanda for a year. We had a convoy to and from anywhere and everywhere, lived in a "huge" house (I thought it was massive but hey, we all think things are HUGE when we're kids) with a bunch of other people. Anyway, then we moved back to Ontario for two years which is where I met my best friend. Then we moved to Whistler for a year (booyeah! No school on Mondays just skiing!) and then my mom and I sort of moved to Australia for two or three months to stay with my Aunt. I'm glad we don't live there anymore, the spiders freak the shit out of me. After Australia we moved to Switzerland/France (means we did everything in the great CH but lived in F because it was about 1/10th of the price) where we lived for four years. I learned to love pesto (I love that shit...) and ate almost enough croissants to satisfy a former gluten addict (I like bread, what can I say?). We spent most of our summers driving around Europe and seeing all that could be seen (including buying a parmesan wedge in Italy that barely made it home!). Then we went on "Mission" which basically means you can go anywhere. We ended up in South Africa, living in Pretoria. This meant that not only was I at a new school but the system changed entirely, from IB to IGCSE. I have to say I prefer the British schooling system, I found it much more challenging. They also have one of the scariest roller coasters I've ever been on in Goldreef City: The Tower of Terror (I just looked it up and it seems they've changed it. It was a rickety wooden coaster when I lived there and all that was strapping you in to your four man cart was a lap bar.). It's called Goldreef City because they mined a ton of gold there and so the Tower of Terror actually drops you into a mine shaft at a 90 degree angle but first it pulls you up, turns around and holds you on that edge, just waiting to drop. We also did a lot of travelling while we lived in Pretoria, including a trip to Zimbabwe where I went gorge jumping (yeah... I'll post a video of that some time.). Three years later our Mission was up and we moved back to Canada. I finished high school (what a bore) and moved to Nova Scotia for University (NSCAD to be precise). I graduated in a little over three years with a BFA, Majoring in Fashion and Textiles.

What have I been doing since then? Twiddling my thumbs mostly. I've been getting behind the camera, telling others what to do behind the camera (such a bossy boots, huh?) and I sent my clothes to Paris with a good friend who shot them and had one garment published on the cover of a local Magazine: http://www.linemagazine.ca/ (I think it's pretty damn cool). All in all it hasn't been an awful couple of months, a bit bumpy for sure but life would be boring if it were easy, right?

Here's a quick link to my portfolio if any of you are interested in what I shoot, as well as a link to my Facebook Page! Yay!

So, I aim to pass along my experiences and knowledge to you lovely models out there in the hopes that it will help you. Feel free to message me if you have a particular question or if you just need advice.

Be safe, be smart and above all: be awesome.

-Nicola Sasky