— Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Emily Ratajkowski didn’t always have an easy time landing major modelling gigs.
The 31-year-old podcast host recently spoke with the Los Angeles Times, where she discussed her journey into modelling, her high school years and how her height worked against her.
Ratajkowski described her high school, San Dieguito Academy, as “kind of a ‘Euphoria’ high meets’ Lords of Dogtown’ vibe.” However, Ratajkowski didn’t have a niche, and modelling didn’t even cross her mind as a potential career path.
When she got into UCLA, she chose to major in art due to her interest in mixed media. She enjoyed merging collages with her drawings but her parents disapproved, wondering what she would do with those interests in the career world.
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— Photo: WWD via Getty
Ratajkowski eventually dropped out when her modelling career blew up.
“My parents were worried, but what were they gonna say? Don’t make this money? Don’t travel?” she tells the publication.
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However, once she moved to the land of modelling, New York, every agency declined her due to her height: 5 ft and 7 inches.
Katie Grand, the founder of Love magazine, explained that “at the time, you’d only make one or two exceptions for a shorter model per show.” She put Ratajlowski in her first editorial spread in 2015.
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“It was always a bit archaic; for a very long time, it was ‘the model fits the clothes,’ rather than ‘the clothes fit the model.’”
