Petra Nemcova had never heard of Sports Illustrated and when she got sent to do a job for the publication she thought it was to be a job like any other. However, when she got flown first class and arrived to a body guard and a limousine awaiting her she knew that she was onto a good thing.
‘When I come to the party, there were like 15 different TV stations doing interviews and I was like, “Woah, this is really serious”.’
But the life of a model is not always the glamourous one that people portray it to be. Nemcova makes it clear that it is undeniably hard work; it can also be very lonely and the combination of both can be hard, especially when you start so young. ‘It’s a pretty fast school of life.’
But that school of life has obviously not left her looking through rose-tinted glasses and she is happy to admit that there are issues with size zero in the industry, and that although it unfortunately took the lives of a few girls to awaken people to this problem, she is nonetheless pleased that it is finally being addressed.
Hannah Berry
