MODELING & HOW SLESHA STARTED

There is a nonprofit called Asha for Education, and when I was in high school, they were doing talent and fashion shows throughout the country They would put on a show, for example, in Kansas City, where I grew up, and there would be a bunch of local performances and designers showcasing their work My dance group, Seva Dance (the word Seva means giving back), was asked to perform at the Asha for Education talent show. After I performed and came off backstage, an agent from a modeling agency that was running the fashion show that day handed me a packet with a contract in it As I walked out to the lobby, there was a photographer waiting there, and he asked if he could pull me into projects he had coming up That photographer ended up helping me build my initial portfolio and introducing me to the agency that I ultimately signed with first.

DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU WERE GOING TO BE A MODEL?

No. I have always wanted to be a doctor since I was a small kid. It's all I ever wanted. I went to med school starting at 18, and I got my white coat But the modeling industry is something that has always pulled me in I've always been asked to do opportunities, and I don't think it's because of anything other than destiny I think that it was written in the stars I think that even though I was a shy, ugly kid growing up, I was destined for this. A lot of my cousins are models as well, so it is something that runs in my family a little bit. But at every point when I tried to turn away from it, something always pulled me back There was one point in my life where I wanted to kind of test it out a little bit So, before I started my master’s program at Johns Hopkins for Health Administration, I had a summer gap between when I graduated with my bachelor's degree and I decided to go to an international modeling competition.

That was in 2015, and I ended up winning the whole thing as one of the only South Asians in the entire competition out of around 1000 models. I won most fashionable, and then I won overall adult female model, so I had a lot of contracts waiting for me. With big agencies, they expect a huge time commitment. So, I had to decide between becoming a full-time model or getting my Master's, which Johns Hopkins wasn't allowing me to defer. I ended up continuing with my master's in hopes that I could model on the side as I had been. But life happens, and at a certain point, my agency was like, “what do you think about going full time now?” So, I've been full time for about a year now.

I'm so glad you asked that because I feel like there are so many tiers. I remember reading in magazines about Pooja Mor, who is one of the world's top South Asian models, and she is a tier one model, and she's been a tier one model for a long time But I think there are a lot of people out there that maybe do one or two professional shoots or maybe just have a couple runway shows and call themselves a model And there's a big difference between those two I think if taking pretty pictures and doing one professional shoot made you a model, every high school senior in America would be a model. I think there is a shift, and there is a job description, and I think that a lot of people underestimate what being a full-time model or even a part-time professional model really entails in relation to maybe what it's like to just do some opportunities here and there as they arise