Model Student: A Tale of Co-eds and Cover Girls

It’s the late 1980s—hair is big, Lycra is rampant, and supermodels rule the earth. Every girl in America dreams of becoming the next Cindy, Claudia, or Naomi, and seventeen-year-old Emily Woods is no different. She looks different, though—striking enough to start a career. Despite the protestations of her hippie parents, she plunges into the glamorous but grueling world of professional modeling. But Emily is more than just a small-town beauty with stars in her eyes: She’s been accepted to Columbia University, and she’s not about to let couture and klieg lights get in the way of an Ivy League education.

Thus begins Emily’s double life: cramming for a final at an exotic swimsuit shoot in the Caribbean; fighting the freshman fifteen to avoid the wrath of her agent; owning a closet full of Versace but nothing to wear to a frat party; sitting in a women’s studies class while ads featuring girls she knows are picked apart; juggling the attention of both college guys and the sought-after fashion photographer of the moment.

But as Emily pursues her chic fantasy of Vogue covers and prestigious cosmetic campaigns, her priorities start to shift. In the ultra-competitive quest for supermodel fame and fortune, strutting off the runway to study Shakespeare might mean letting another pretty face snag her stilettos, and Emily’s thisclose to getting a leg up on her dreams.

Before long, the seamier side of the fashion industry—cocaine and cads, collagen and implants, fad diets and eating disorders—becomes close up and personal. All of a sudden, Emily realizes how far she’s strayed from her dream of having it all. With sliding grades that threaten her future at Columbia and spotty bookings that put her career as a model in question, Emily is finally forced to make a choice between style and substance.

Dazzling, dramatic, and as real as it gets, Model Student shines a spotlight behind the scenes and reminds us why you can’t judge a book by its cover girl.


From the Hardcover edition.