an interview with someone you should know



in this post of "an interview with someone you should know," i speak with fresh-faced model and former classmate, hallie hutchinson. while she attended mica for her freshman year of college, she soon moved to the big apple to pursue her modeling career. now 20 years old, hallie lives, works, and plays in the lively city of new york. as a full-time model, she is signed with multiple agencies including modelogic wilhelmina, re:quest model management, and spin model management. past clients of hers include refinery 29, hudson jeans, need supply co., and interview magazine, to name but a few. while it's easy to endlessly talk about one's (exceedingly impressive) career, i also asked hallie to write more personally about herself, which she gladly did. it's good to know that a girl on the road to the top can still be so down to earth.

hallie: my name is hallie hutchinson. last year, i attended the maryland institute college of art in baltimore. i turned 20 on [april fools day]. i’m currently residing in clinton hill, brooklyn immediately south of williamsburg, the hipster capital of the east coast. i live with my two best friends whom i met in art school last year. coincidentally, at the end of the semester, they both applied to transfer to pratt institute shortly after i made the decision to take off school and model full time. it couldn’t have worked out better. living with them keeps me grounded and it keeps me sane. i couldn’t ask for better roommates, honestly. 
since leaving school and moving to new york, my day to day life has shifted dramatically, but i notice that it’s given me more opportunity to self-educate and explore my interests. art- painting and drawing specifically have long been my passion, but i encountered a sort of impasse when i had to do it all the time in a way that i didn’t necessarily like. i wouldn’t exchange my year of art school experience for anything, but it taught me some tough lessons about myself. for one, i’m not sure- at this point in my life anyhow- if what i want, is to make art my business. it was harder to admit this to myself than you might think. currently, i continue it as a personal hobby. it’s liberating to be able to call all the shots with my art again: when, how, what, where. whatever. 
oh and besides art, i’m always trying to read things to keep my mind stimulated. it’s easy to let education fall by the wayside when you’re presented with a career like this. i also love tracking music and going to shows or events in the city. for example, i’m attending a film festival in the east village to support a friend who worked as an editor on the film premiering.

vivian: standard must-know question: when did your start modeling, and how did you get discovered?

h: i began modeling shortly after i graduated high school in milwaukee, wisconsin. one of my closest friends at the time had signed with a local agency and i tagged along to one of her shoots. the photographer assumed i was a model and they ended up putting me in it too. it was fun. about a week later, i went to an open-call for an agency opening a new midwest branch. they called me back and signed me and i did a couple small things over the summer before college. i continued working with that agency, modelogic wilhelmina while i was in school in baltimore. in the early fall, i was propositioned to appear on an episode of a reality show on e! called scouted. i was very incredulous at first. the timing seemed bad, i was just settling in at school. i had never been a fan of reality shows. i always considered them trite. the producers were pretty persistent though and after a couple weeks of convincing on their end, i agreed to do it. i took the train to ny and filmed the show over a couple days with my roommate, michelle. there were top casting directors, agents and stylists. all the big guns were involved in this show. i did a large-scale test shoot and the feedback was incredibly positive. when the episode aired in january, my agent was receiving calls from new york from people wanting to meet me as soon as possible. i remember being so overwhelmed. i had really grown to love my life at mica and now i was faced with this gargantuan decision to leave and do something i knew nothing about. i hemmed and hawed over that choice for months. on the one hand, art school is wildly expensive and working full time would offer more money than i could earn working a couple shifts at a restaurant or bookstore. it also seemed superficial. i experienced quite a bit of anxiety for fear of what would become of me. because i can describe the journey i went through like this, or i can give a short summary and it turns into, “i dropped out of art school to be a model.”
nevertheless, i finally figured it was worth a shot and i would be a fool not to attempt to pursue what was, in fact, a terrific once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

v: describe your experience/process when posing in front of the camera.

h: it’s an interesting thing, being in front of the camera. cara delevigne was recently quoted in a magazine saying, “you have to look at the camera like you want to fuck it.” basically, yes. you can’t be thinking about the photographer, instead it’s all about playing to the camera. cheating your body so you’re at your best angles, thinking about the composition of the shot. and the entire time, the goal is to look essentially natural even if you’re uncomfortable or you’re in some weird-ass contortionist pose. i notice that having an artist’s eye and mindset has really aided me in the process. at it’s best, modeling can employ very artistic and performative qualities. for me, i find that a large element of it is acting because i’m taking on a role other than myself. 

v: were you ever camera-shy?

h: i’m tempted to say that i wasn’t. however, there was a long period of my life where i was cripplingly reserved, but i always felt more comfortable in front of a lens than an audience. 

v: what do you think is your best feature? what do others say is your best feature?

h: i think my best feature is my personality. others usually say it’s my eyebrows. word. 

v: tell us a funny anecdote about one time you were on the job!

h: truthfully, it’s hard to come up with just one. it always gets weird. for one of my first ever photo shoots, the crew rubbed me down with vaseline and doused me in glitter. i was sprawled across these rocks outside that were digging into my back and it was summer so there were horseflies that must have been attracted to the scent of the vaseline and they started biting me and the bites were bleeding and i had a migraine and after the shoot i threw up. i kept finding glitter everywhere for weeks afterwards. like in my ear. 

want more? stay patient! keep a lookout for hallie in future fashion publications and electronic media!




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