Forgot Password Create Account. Receive news updates on the go. Select one or more categories. I want to receive news:. Daily: 0. How I did it: Working the fashion runway after At the age of 38, Jacqueline Depaul had reached a point in her life where she was mistress of her domain.
I read some self-help books -- I think a lot of women do that when they are searching for reinvention -- and it just kind of popped into my head: 'You have always wanted to model; why not just try it? Her first steps, she says, were convincing herself that it could be done. I didn't think I was going to be any Gisele Bundchen; I kept my expectations low.
And I started small. There was a community photography school nearby in West Covina, and they needed models for the most basic class. I volunteered, and every picture ended up looking like something out of Zoolander, because I was trying too hard.
But rather than quit, Depaul learned from the experience. So I thought, OK, if you want to do this, you have to lose a little weight, get your teeth whitened and learn to walk a runway. She was asked to walk in an L.
Fashion Week show for a designer she knew -- and she was off to the races. As interest developed in her as a model, she applied her considerable networking skills to speed the process.
