FASHION: U.S. Vogue solo shoot a first for an Indian model

She is the lone South Asian face strutting catwalks in the West and now model Lakshmi Menon’s profile will get a further boost thanks to U.S. Vogue booking her for a 12-page shoot in this month’s issue of the magazine, reports an article on divaasia.com

The shoot is a first for an Indian model.

“Everyone around me was pretty thrilled about the whole thing,” Menon told British newspaper The Independent.

“But I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago when my agent said to me, ‘Do you know how big this is?’ Your first solo editorial in U.S. Vogue has huge prestige, I believe.”

According to the divaasia.com article, London stylist Nicola Formichetti picked Menon for the cover of last month’s Dazed & Confused magazine as well.

Formichetti says Menon is the “girl of the season… personifying the powerful modern woman.”

Menon’s high-profile cover shoots started with Vogue India, which has put her on its cover twice already, describing her look as “unique and arresting.”

Menon reportedly started modelling to earn pocket money while she was a student of psychology at Jyoti Nivas College in Bangalore, India. She began her international career in 2006, after several years of modelling in India and is the only Indian model regularly seen on the runways in New York and Paris.

Why the interest in her in the U.S.? Menon attributes the sudden spike in American interest in non-Caucasian girls to U.S. president Barack Obama’s election. The launch of Vogue India in 2007 has also been a factor, she thinks: “Being part of Condé Nast, all the Vogue magazines are circulated within the company so U.S. Vogue sees what’s going on in India and vice versa,” she told The Independent newspaper in London.

She thinks that India’s spot in the limelight has been a long time coming.

“You see groups of girls from certain countries who dominate the business for a period of time – the Brazilians, the Russians – it would be great to see something like that for Indian girls,” she says.

Tags: Lakshmi Menon