How were you discovered?

I was very involved in competitive bodybuilding from a young age. At a competition when I was sixteen an artist named Gilberti asked me to pose for him. He did a series of paintings of me over two years and later, at his suggestion, I went to Paris to pursue modeling more seriously. Once I got to Paris I decided on my own to arrange an exhibition of his paintings. It was very successful and attended by Jean-Paul Gaulthier and many other important people from the fashion world.

I was with Click Models at the time and I went to a lot of castings and go-sees, but I didn't really get any work. So after three months nothing seemed to be happening, I was discouraged and I just decided to go to California for a month to explore.

On my way back I stopped in New York for a couple of days and happened to meet Kevin French, a booker and photographer with Major Model Management.

He took some very good pictures of me and after seeing them his agency invited me to come to New York and offered me a place to stay and a visa.

I arrived sixteen months ago and within two days I'd done a shoot for Glamour Magazine and a cover for DNA, it all happened very fast. And later I moved with Kevin to Boss Models where I am today

Funnily enough, almost a year after the exhibition in Paris I met Jean-Paul Gaulthier again in Milan and he engaged me for a show because he remembered me from the paintings. And that's what I like about this whole business — it's not organized at all, everything is chaos, completely unpredictable.