Meet Sherin Sam. A super model who is working with the famed Ford model agency. Did we forget to mention she is a Kochiite? :D How did it go at Montenegro? It was an amazing experience because being a Malayali girl on an international level was great, I took the experience as it came to me, it was easy as I got trained in India itself, in Bombay. I had to do some shows over there for some big designers, walking the ramp and the exposure gave me a lot of confidence. Well I have no words to explain it and we were like 40 girls from different countries and we got the opportunity to share our cultures, we learned a lot of things.sherin_sam_model_kochi_india (1) Well the ford model agency is not that well known to most Indians, though on the international scale it’s a popular agency, it must be great to be a part of it. So what was your involvement in Montenegro? We had our grand final and I stood top 15. Age was a factor as they preferred girls as young as 14-15 to compete, and there ARE girls of that age. It’s only in India where they only allow girls of 18 years and above. Although age wise I stood back everyone liked me and we had sections like how to walk and how to talk to people, etc. We were given bags or shoes and we had to accessorize properly, even if they don’t fit well. They check all these aspects. There was this incident when I was hardly 2 months into modeling the director of the show had come over and asked me whether I could carry the dress as it was my first go at fashion show, and I confidently replied that I can. And after the show out of the 14 models the designer came to me and said that I carried his dresses the best, I was totally overwhelmed. I heard that people were unaware that it was your first time walking the ramp. Tell us your reactions A lot of people didn’t know that fact and when they found out they came to me and said that no one figured that it was my first time and I was like “never”. And the designer was asking me how I could carry the dress which weighed like around 10kgs if it was my first time with so much finesse. I felt great and like I had it within me, and i had to bring that out because it was like my country had sent me and I had to prove them. sherin_sam_model_kochi_india (3)Who is you favorite designer? Well I don’t want to name any.Being a model I don’t have any favorites . Of all the dresses I have worn of all the different designers i haven’t found any that I didn’t like or I liked more, and again being a model I have to appreciate them all. Who is your favorite photographer? Well I would say the one I had at Montenegro, his name was David. He was amazing and really good at what he did, especially because he knew what I wanted. It was like he could read my mind. In Bombay there a photographer named Praveen Talal and in Kerala Jamesh Kotakkal and one more called Binoy. These are some of the people who I love being on photo shoots with. sherin_sam_model_kochi_indiaHave you ever had prior modeling experience? No, I never had thought about it. Actually one of my friends had pushed me into it, for the southern pageant and I got picked by the ford agency as they considered that I had some international possibilities in me and so I picked Ford over Femina. I was planning on doing my pilot training before I had thought about modeling, but then I decided that I had it in me to go for this line of work and there was no harm in trying it out. So how long has this journey of yours been so far? How’s it treating you? It’s been 8-9 months. It’s treating me very well, other than the fact that before I joined up I used to love traveling but now I am kind of tired of it. It’s because I am not able to enjoy the place since its mostly work. But besides that I am enjoying everything, its showing me different things, people. I am learning a lot. The Montenegro experience gave me a chance to see a lot of the background of the 40 other contestants who had come from different parts of the world. They used to ask me how I count the numbers in my language, say the days of the week and so on. Some of them would ask me for some spicy food and I’ll just quickly cook something up and they would find it very spicy. I used to get them to try new stuff and they liked me a lot for all those. The ford agency wanted me to join them again but as of now I cannot as my folks need to think further on it. What do you think is the toughest part of this industry? Well there is nothing like that, if you have it within you then it’s easy for you, what i have to say is people has this notion that the fashion industry is morally wrong but I believe that in every field there is bad and good, its how you go about it that is important. If you go badly, you are bad, If you go good then you go really great. You get a lot of exposure, you get to travel around the world. So going to the other aspects like casting couches, wardrobe malfunctions, is it really a farce. Is it something people just exaggerate? Yes,Its blown out of proportions! Did you watch the movie fashion? Do you consider it over hyped? Yes, in that there were two aspects, in the beginning she goes through a bad path to achieve success and later she realizes what had gone wrong and chooses the right path. It’s how you choose to reach your goals that later decides your future. To an extent it is an exaggerated version of a model’s life. Would you agree to me if I say that modeling has a very short shelf life? No I wouldn’t agree to it. I don’t know why people have that mentality. Even in Kerala there is a lot of great talent who are genuinely interested in this field. But due to this outdated mentality which is present in their families they cannot explore their potential to the maximum. And a sad thing about the current industry is that Malayali talent isn’t given that much of a chance. Even if they are better or at the least stand their ground alongside models from elsewhere, they still go for models from Bombay and such. It’s high time to change that sort of preferences because we have so many budding talents that require space to explore. Local talent isn’t given opportunity. For example most of the textiles in Kerala prefer talent from outside Kerala, even though we have such a variety talent in our own state. It’s high time we try and change that mindset. People have to open up their minds. We are trying hard to change things in Kerala. Being a Malayali is like we don’t have the standards compared to other models from anywhere else. The Malayali tag is demeaning us professionally. So what do you see yourself doing after modeling? I am planning on sticking with this career for one more year and then I am thinking of gradually getting into movies. But not in the Malayalam industry because I don’t think I’ll fit into the genre of actresses this industry currently prefers.