Erin Wasson is the epitome of 'IT' girl. If she's not appearing on the cover of Vogue, ELLE or Esquire, Wasson is working as the muse and confidant of Alexander Wang, or styling the pages of ELLE magazine. If that's not enough, the model recently lanched a successful jewelery line and womenswear line with RVCA.
Wasson recently spoke to The Daily Beast about her current ventures
On using her modelling to open doors: “I always knew that I was going to do more than just sit in front of the camera,” she says. “When I started modeling in the late ‘90s, a lot of the girls led these really cool lives. They were all involved in arts and their hometowns, and they all had a lot to say, and they were really educated women. But then I saw these changes happen, and the girls got younger. It was that models were supposed to be seen and not heard, and everything became slightly homogenized. And I was like, fuck Erin, you gotta figure out how to turn this into something else.”
On becoming a model: “Dude, I didn’t think it was in my stars,” she says of her modeling career. “I never even looked at fashion magazines. I was a tomboy girl growing up in Texas. I played AAU basketball every hour of my life. I wanted to go to culinary school. I would obsessively watch the Secrets of the CIA. That is what got me off.”
On moving to New York to persue modelling: “I was like, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to go to New York,’” she says. “And I really came to New York bitching and screaming, as crazy as that sounds. I didn’t have a desire, and I thought, nobody’s going to want me, it’s not going to work out for me, and I’ll be able to get back to my life in Texas.”
On staying true to herself: “I think most models are victims of entrapment and a hive mind,” she explains. “I just got back from the shows, and it was, like, every girl back stage was rocking their leather leggings, and their oversized white T-shirt, and their leather jacket, with scarves. But when I first started out in the business, girls backstage at the shows are supposed to wear high heels and skirts—you had to be dressed to the nines, wearing an of-the-moment designer piece; Alaia or whatever it was. I’d get complaints about the fact that I’d just wear holey jeans and a wife-beater. Stuff that I was doing eight years ago is embraced now, but I had to really stay true to who I was back then.”
On getting married: “We lived in a big loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,” she says. “It was a blessing in disguise. Because I’d come home. It kept me out of all the trouble that I might have gotten into in the beginning.”
On picking her projects: “I get approached for a lot of TV projects,” she says.” And I sit in a room with these people and I say ‘You guys realize you’re talking to the wrong girl?’ I’m not your cheesy girl that’s going to dress up in a hokey outfit and say all the sound bites that you want me to say. That’s just not who I am. I’m a total odd bird. I collect prison art and paper mache masks. I keep a journal and rip pages out of books. I think that when you open your mind, you realize there’s art everywhere, there’s art all around us. That’s what keeps the wheels in motion. To create is my ultimate goal. So why would I ever sell out?”
On staying grounded: “Sometimes I just have to touch base with that 27-year-old girl that I am. Yes I'm a model. Yes I'm designing. Yes I do some styling, I got a jewelry line and I know a lot of hats but sometimes I just want to be that girl that wakes up and cooks breakfast and hangs out with her man and hangs out in the backyard and jumps on the bike and goes down to the beach. It's really important to live a simple life sometimes. You know? Back to basics. That’s my mantra these days. Simplicity.”
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