Healthy on-the-go thanks to Mason Jars

No need for unhealthy, processed food with these useful canning jars. Mason jars keep your food fresh and they don't leak into your bag; amazing for an on-the-go meal!

Coffee please!

English tea? No, thanks. Seriously, I wouldn’t have survived last week without coffee. After my last post I’ve still been crazy busy. I’ve been doing lots of castings, one job and two tests with cool photographers. A very busy life I’ve been living here so far, but (next to coffee) the city of London gives me loads of energy!

Sometimes models get free lunch, dinner or drinks at particular places. In London the W Hotel offers a free lunch for models if you’ve got a member card. Normally I never use this free model stuff, but since London is so expensive (4 pounds for a coffee! Whhaaatt?!), I thought; a free lunch never hurt anyone! So Julia and I went to the W and ordered a caesar salad. A model lunch it was indeed. So far my attempt to save some money; after these couple of leaves I needed more food to still my hunger. But only after we took some fun polaroids in the hotel!

Last Friday was the kind of day that I should’ve stayed in bed all day. I got the news from my mother agency that a really good option for a job got cancelled, so I was kind of grumpy all day. Julia and I made plans to have dinner and go out on Friday night and we were very excited to go. But, as I told before, you can never make plans if you’re a model. I got a phone call from my agency in London that I had a test the next day early in the morning. Being professional, I decided not to go out and instead go to bed early. If only I knew in advance I would be wide awake until 3 am…

At 7 am that morning my alarm woke me up. I went to the test, tired as fuck and looking like hell. So on my way to the shoot I picked up a delicious cappuccino, which gave me the energy to be my best in front of the camera. The test turned out to be with a very young, cool photographer. She was really cool and I can’t wait to see the results! Hopefully she’ll edit the pictures a bit to make the bags under my eyes disappear ;-) This shoot actually gave me a lot of energy to enjoy the rest of my Saturday! I went to town with Julia and walked around. Because I’ve been so busy all week, I didn’t go to the gym at all. On Saturday I finally had some “me-time” so then I went. I felt great after a good run and some weight training!

The Big Ben

Working it!

Behind the scenes of one of my tests

Yesterday I had my first job in London; I shot e-commerce for New Look. It was a nice team to work with and with the loud music in the studio my working day was over before I knew it.

On Thursday I’ll probably fly back to Amsterdam for a couple of days because I have an option there. Yaaayyy! I’m super excited to see my man for a bit and to sleep in my own bed for a few days. Sooo, fingers crossed and hope that I book the job!

x

Mexican style stuffed sweet potatoes

These stuffed sweet potatoes are super easy to make, healthy and very filling. Even my boyfriend, who eats a lot, was very full after one of these babies and said I needed to add this recipe to the “all-time-favorite-recipe-book”. So ladies, surprise your man (or whomever) with this lovely recipe!

Is this the beginning of the end of too skinny models?

This week there's been a lot of debate and commotion whether France is going to approve a law to ban super-skinny models. Click here to read the amendments! 

London, baby!

Hellooooo from London! I’ve been here for 2 days now, living this crazy hectic busy life. I left Amsterdam on Monday and a taxi, a plane, a train, a metro and another train later I arrived at my agency here in London, Leni’s. Of course I had this super heavy suitcase which I had to run all over town with (after all these years I still can’t manage to bring less stuff with me...). 

Anyways, I met all the nice bookers at Leni’s and collected my sedcards (they’re like business cards for models, with contact details from your agency and some of your photos and your measurements). Unfortunately there was little time to talk, because I had three castings to go to. Leaving my heavy suitcase at the agency, I bought an English simcard and headed to my castings. After a really busy day rushing all over the city, I arrived at the apartment, which I share with my friend Julia Wieczorek. It was really nice seeing her again after a couple of months, so we had lots of fun catching up.

This morning I woke up at 7.15 am. I jumped into the shower and after I chatted to Julia while eating our favorite breakfast – oatmeal with banana, raisins and cinnamon. The perfect breakie to get ready for a busy day of castings! It was pretty cold outside, so I made sure I dressed up warmly before I took the bus to my first casting. At that casting I bumped into Michelle Zwaal, a Dutch friend of mine who happened to work there that day. What a small world! In the afternoon I had two more castings and went to the agency to chat with the bookers and have some polaroids taken. By then it was 2.30 pm already and I was starving, so I grabbed a healthy almond flour curry wrap at this cute little market nearby the agency. Although I try to eat lunch between 1-2 pm, being a model it’s basically impossible to maintain a daily routine. It's difficult to plan as it depends on what time and how busy castings are or when the client wants to have a lunch break.

Back in my flat I washed the city off my face and put on comfy pants and a warm sweater. I crashed on the couch; both exhausted and satisfied, with a big cup of green tea to write this story for my blog. Then I FaceTimed with my boyfriend, who is unfortunately back home in Amsterdam. After dinner I relaxed and laughed a lot with Julia. Now I just got organized for another busy day of castings tomorrow. Good night!

Michelle & me

Almond flour wrap

Working on my blog

My first post!

Hey!

I'm back home in Amsterdam for a week now after six weeks of working in Cape Town. I went there last year as well, where I became good friends with my roommate Charelle Schriek, who happens to be Dutch as well. This year we decided to go back to Cape Town together very last minute.. We got sick of the weather in Holland, didn't have much work... so us two Dutchies headed back to the beautiful 'motherland'! 

We arranged a beautiful apartment in Sea Point, overlooking the promenade and the swimming pools. That swimming pool definitely saved our lives on the day that it was 42 degrees.... What was really special is that sometimes you could see whales in the ocean. Not a bad way to wake up with a bowl of oat meal, spotting whales on my balcony in the morning sun. 

On top of Lions Head

Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been; the nature is beyond beautiful with the enormous Table Mountain and the smaller Lions Head, with the city built around it. I climbed Lions Head twice. It only takes about 45 minutes to go to the top. It's a nice workout and it's definitely worth the effort once you reach the top. The view is amazing!

Next to all this fun, I also had to work of course. Every night I got an email from my agency in Cape Town with the schedule for the next day; most of the times it were castings I had to go to and every once in a while I had a job. Every day you basically stroll around the city heading from one casting to another, with nice coffee- and lunchbreaks in between. I hear you think - how do you fill your day with just castings? Well.... mostly there are a lot of models that cast for the same job. And when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. Models spend a lot of time traveling to castings and then wait for their turn to cast. Sometimes you wait for 3 hours for a casting that only needs 1 model for the job..... 

No 91 and 92...

Behind the scenes of one of my jobs

Next to castings and jobs I also arranged some 'tests' with photographers I knew from last year. A test is a shoot where neither the photographer nor the model gets paid for. It is just to update our portfolio, or as we usually call it, our 'book'. It is important to get new material in your book so clients see different, new photos of you. I did a test with Henrik Purienne for example, who you might know. He's a very talented photographer, originally from Cape Town, but travels a lot between Cape Town, LA and Paris. I was lucky enough he was in town when I was there too. See one of our shots here on the left.

Now I'm back in Amsterdam again, preparing for a trip to London. I leave on Monday and I'll stay for about a month, depending on how work is for me there (every city's got a different market). That's the thing with modeling, you never know if you'll work or not. But I'm positive and I'm ready for a new adventure!

x,

Laura.

My recipe of delicious, guilt-free seed loaf

I try not to eat carbs a lot, so I don't eat a lot of bread. Last week when I was still in Cape Town I ate the most amazing bread I've ever tasted - only made of healthy seeds and nuts! As soon as I got home I tried to make this seed loaf myself, and I got to say... so easy yet sooo delicious. Click on the image for the recipe and try it out yourself!

About me

Hi!

My name is Laura, I'm 25 years old and I'm based in Amsterdam. I live with my boyfriend Kimmy in Westerpark and I just love that place! I've been working as a fashion model since 2010 and since then I've been traveling regularly. Although there really is no place like home, I feel very privileged to be able to see so many beautiful places in the world. Modeling is often depicted by (social) media as a jetset life, first class flights, private drivers, five-star hotels, tons of money, free clothing... (at least, that is when your name is not Doutzen Kroes or Gisele Bündchen). Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Us, 'normal' models are mostly traveling by public transport, fly Economy class, live in dirty old model apartments sharing a room with numerous roomies and working long days in order to make a living. With this blog I take you with me in my daily life as a fashion model; my day to day life, the way it really is. I write about castings, jobs, sports, the most beautiful places and the coolest hotspots - of course accompanied by photos. No nonsense, no distortion: the real deal.

Next to writing I love to cook (and to be honest I love eating it even more). As a part of my healthy lifestyle I'll share some of my favorite recipes and useful tips on nutrition. Also, I'll write about models, new trends, cute stores and more that involves fashion. 

With love,
Laura.