TOLONO, Ill. (AP) — Rachael Luesse says her job as a high-fashion model in Milan, Paris, New York and Cape Town is far less glamorous than most people assume.
"People think it's so cool, and it is. I love the travel," the Champaign County native said earlier this month, shortly before leaving for Milan Fashion Week.
"But it's really hard work and long days and lots of learning from big mistakes. Nobody teaches you. There's no handbook. It's kind of 'mess up and learn as you go.'"
In an unregulated industry, the work is often rigorous, too: Luesse once passed out while modeling a long fur coat at a tennis court in South Africa.
So far, though, she's never had to go to hospital in a foreign country; one model she knows had to after drinking poisoned water during a shoot in the Sahara.
While working in a foreign city, Luesse shares a two- or three-bedroom apartment with four or five other models. Most of them don't speak English — or if they do, not very well.
And Luesse feels basically alone when in another country because she's not fluent in any foreign language. She tries to be careful about where she goes, especially at night, and to avoid compromising situations.
Numbers add up
Despite what most people think, she's not making loads of money. She might make $20,000 in six months and nothing the next six months.
And, of course, the pressure to remain thin is constant; Luesse has to send her body measurements monthly to her four agencies, one for each city in which she works.
How does she remain model thin? That's usually the first question people ask her.
"Genetics. All genetics. Totally. I've gotten so lucky. Even the girls in other countries I work in ask me, 'How do you eat what you eat?' When I have to stay very thin, at the top of my game, I cut out bread and starches."
Despite all the rigors of her job, Luesse acknowledges she has gone places and had experiences she would likely never have had otherwise.
In Africa, she's climbed the epic Table Mountain and swum with great white sharks off the coast. In Rome, she was blessed by the newly anointed Pope Francis and visited the ancient Coliseum.
For now, Luesse is rolling with what comes her way. The daughter of two educators, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders — in more ways than one.
She's operating with a backup plan. Because her mother, Shelle Hartzell of Sadorus, teaches math at Lake Land College, Luesse takes Lake Land classes online for free.
She's working toward a bachelor's degree in business, with a focus on marketing. After modeling is no longer fun or jobs aren't coming her way, she will work on a master's degree.
But for now, she has the look that's in.
"My look is working right now. That androgynous look is huge right now," the model said. "It's definitely a strange type of beauty."
In fact, super-slim male models with androgynous appearances are modeling women's couture. Likewise, some female models showcase men's fashions.
Competition
That recent trend makes modeling even more competitive. Now Luesse sees thousands of aspiring female and male models pouring into cities like Milan during Fashion Week, seeking work.
Most models, except for supermodels, don't leave home for Fashion Week with jobs already in hand. They have to compete for them.
While in Milan this past week, Luesse went to 15 or 16 castings a day. She waits for 90 minutes or more in a line of 120 models. They're at the mercy of designers who like or don't like their look.
"You're judged completely on your appearance. That's the only thing that matters," Luesse said. "It really messes with the 15- or 16-year-old models. It messes with me occasionally."
Luesse accepts those aspects of her job but acknowledges she finds them and the fact her appearance attracts so much attention "creepy."
For example, in South Africa, because of her height — 6 feet 2 inches - and blonde hair, she's considered a goddess. In big cities, especially Cape Town, a vacation hot spot for wealthy Europeans, she's invited to billionaires' parties — because she's a model.
She enjoys the events for a while but eventually escapes them when she feels uncomfortable with the wealthy older men, old enough to be her father, who want to be surrounded by young models.
"Your appearance isn't something that reflects who you are," she said. "It's just part of who you are. I'd much rather be told, 'You're funny and smart.'" (She is.)
On the job
So far Luesse's image hasn't ended up on magazine covers. Those likely will come her way because she's smart, funny and charming, in addition to good looking.
She's been featured in a number of overseas magazine spreads, and famed designer Giorgio Armani in Milan handpicked her to walk his Prive line in Paris and Rome.
That's been her favorite job so far; Armani treats his models well, she said. (Luesse mentioned the Canadian model Coca Rocha's having started The Model Alliance to unionize the work force.)
In Cape Town, South African couturier Hendrik Vermeulen also fell in love with Luesse. She's modeled for that firm including at the Veuve Clicquot Masters Polo tournament earlier this year at the Val de Vie estate in the Paarl Valley.
"Being a traditionally English sport, there are a few polo rules which I have to say are lost on the South African market," one blogger wrote. "Hendrik Vermeulen international model and muse Rachael Luesse ticked all the boxes. She was elegant and poised all day as if in character on a movie set. Beautiful!"
Also in Cape Town, Luesse for the past year was the "face" of Foschini, a department store. She freaked out the first time she walked into a Foschini and saw a billboard-size image of herself.
"It was strange, to be honest. The whole thing is kind of surreal," she said.
As for Cape Town itself, it's her favorite place to work. She was 18 when she first landed in the city. Being from rural Champaign County, she was astonished by the "genuine, tragic homelessness" and the slums she saw.
She loves Cape Town and South Africa, even though Internet use is limited and texting is expensive.
But, "When you're there you're able to make these genuine connections with people. It's not beautiful per se, but it's definitely real."
Her travels, especially to South Africa, also have given her a perspective most people her age don't share.
"It's insanity how easy it is to live in the United States," she said. "Everything is so convenient, 24/7."
Discovery
Luesse grew up in Champaign and Sadorus, a tiny town south of Champaign, never dreaming of being a model. At Unity High School, from which she graduated in 2011, she was not considered "super pretty."
"In high school I wasn't the hot girl," she said. "I was kind of the nerd. I did a lot of school things," among them the dance team and National Honor Society.
During her senior year, even though she had gone through nearly two dozen surgeries when younger and had almost died, due to having had Kawasaki disease and later a ruptured appendix, the surgery-phobic Luesse had elective surgery, to remove a birthmark on her cheek.
The teasing she had taken for the birthmark had been constant.
"Even when I was a kid people would drive by and yell things out the window about it," she said. "It got to the point where I didn't want to go places in public.
"It was awful when I was younger. I just wanted to be done with it."
Six months after having the birthmark removed, a scout from Factor Women, a modeling agency in Chicago, walked into Le Peep, the Champaign restaurant where Luesse was working at the time.
The agent asked Luesse whether she modeled and then gave her her email and told her to contact her and send her photographs.
"It's strange when you send in your photographs for the first time," Luesse said. "You measure yourself while wearing a bikini. I asked my mom to do it, and she said, 'This is creepy.' She finally managed to do it."
After seeing the photographs, Factor Women asked to meet Luesse. The agency immediately offered her a contract, when she was a high school senior.
She signed a couple of weeks later, in early 2011. That summer she went to New York and signed with Wilhemina, long a top agency for models.
She began building her portfolio, meeting first with photographers to have her pictures take and then taking jobs. But she was still undecided about modeling.
So she entered Southern Illinois University that fall as a freshman political science major. Two weeks later, her father, Joel, was seriously injured in an automobile accident. She came home to help him recuperate.
The call
Her father, a Spanish teacher at Unity High School, recovered. Six months later, an agency called to tell Luesse she'd been offered a job in South Africa. She decided to go for it.
She soon discovered in Cape Town and the other cities where she works that as a model, she was able to get into top clubs and parties. Drugs are free for models, even pushed at them, she said.
Luesse admitted she found partying cool.
At first.
"But you get over it fast."
She's seen younger models get caught up in the frenzy.
When she first got into the industry Luesse was a little older and more grounded, with a supportive family back home. It includes her only sibling, younger brother Aaron, whom she considers her best friend.
Aaron is as tall as his sister and shares her good looks; her modeling agencies have offered him contracts, too.
"As for now, he's opting out," she said.
When she comes home, Luesse shares an apartment in Tolono with Aaron, their father and their dog, Ellie.She tries to return home three or four times a year to spend time with family and friends, among them those she's made at the places she worked: Bacaro, the Sadorus Pub, Jarling's Custard Cup and Curtis Orchard.
Maybe because she's worked at so many places here and due to word of mouth, the international model so far is recognized on the streets of Champaign-Urbana more than anywhere else in the world.
"I have people come up to me and say, 'Are you that model?' It's sweet. It's weird, too, because I have people send me through Facebook pictures of their children, asking whether they could model."
That's not up to her to decide, she said.
