When we first met, I was laced into a 16-inch corset, wearing waist-length blue waves, and wearing fashion inspired by my Mount Rushmore of Fashion: Lee Alexander McQueen, Thierry Mugler, Galliano-era Dior, Vivienne Westwood.

At one point, when the Daily Mail asked what I had to say to people who thought I didn’t look “normal,” my answer was simple: my hair is blue. What part of me looks like I’m trying to look normal?

Fashion was the first place I learned that fantasy could exist in reality. But before the editorials, the runways, and the references, there was my mother.

She was the first person who taught me how to bring imagination into the physical world. I watched her sketch gowns and fashion looks, then followed her through fabric stores as she chose the materials that would become something entirely new. Later, I’d watch her transform fabric and thread into bespoke pieces of art.

As I got older, I started sketching outfits I wanted to bring to life, and my mother would take those ideas and create them for me. I designed pieces inspired by my favorite designers to wear to events, photoshoots, and to build a wardrobe filled with things you couldn’t find on a rack. I’m so grateful for her. She gave me one of my earliest and most important lessons in world-building: that an idea could become a silhouette, a mood, a character, a body in motion.

So fashion was never just about clothes to me. It was a way to tell people who you are before you ever say a word. What you stand for. What you worship. What world you want to live in.

I fell in love with fashion editorials because they understood that. Grace Coddington, Steven Meisel, Tim Walker — they didn’t just style images, they built universes. They taught me that the difference between a good story and a great one is usually hiding in the details.

That love of storytelling is what I brought into modeling. Then Tumblr arrived. Then Instagram. Suddenly, I had somewhere to put my thoughts, my references, my images, my strange little world. I was posting from New York and somehow reaching people in Japan, the UK, Germany, and places I had never been. (yet) The internet opened the world to me before I fully understood what was happening.

I was 4’11”, curvy, alternative, and repeatedly told I didn’t fit what a “real” model was supposed to be. But just because someone else can’t see the vision doesn’t mean I have to adopt their reality as mine.

So I bought a work light from Home Depot, propped my phone up on a stack of books, and started bringing my imagination to life. I worked with photographers who could execute my art direction. I learned how to be talent, producer, director, stylist, and set commander all at once. I learned how to make an image feel intentional before I ever had the official title for it.

Back then, being called an “Instagram model” was meant as an insult. Funny how often the insult becomes the industry. What people dismissed as unserious became a multi-million-dollar career path, a new form of media, and eventually, the future of marketing.

I’ve always had a good eye for what’s coming next. That’s probably why marketing made sense to me. I didn’t just want to be seen by the internet. I wanted to understand how it moved.

From there, I worked for a fashion house and helped launch their social presence, not realizing I was starting my career in social media before most people understood it as a career. I went back to FIT and began my next chapter behind the camera.

The internet raised me. Experience refined me.

What I learned quickly is that social media moves faster than any curriculum. By the time something is printed in a textbook, the platform has already changed its mind. Social is alive. It shifts, mutates, misbehaves, and rewards the people who know how to pay attention. That’s what I love about it. There is always a new puzzle to solve, a new language to learn, a new way to connect with people.

For the past decade, I’ve worked behind the camera building the kind of digital ecosystems most people only see once they’re polished and posted. I’ve led social strategy, creative direction, production, campaign planning, paid social, content calendars, influencer programs, video, copy, and the unglamorous back-end decisions that make the front-end feel effortless. I’ve managed the idea, the execution, the edit, the rollout, and the results.

I’ve won beauty awards, grown brands, shaped campaigns, built teams, studied audiences, and learned how to turn a point of view into something people actually want to follow.

And after years of shaping stories from behind the scenes, I felt the itch again.

To step back in front of the camera. To bring the strategist, the director, the model, the internet kid, and the world-builder into the same room.

So here I am, building new worlds, telling new stories, and inviting you inside.