Tanzanian model HERIETH PAUL is the new Maybelline Girl! I met her a few years ago with Bahati Chando, Top Model Worldwide licence holder for Tanzania, after a kind invitation by designer Mustafa Hassanali to a model casting for Swahili Fashion Week. Her amazing personality bowled me over. She noticed and said to me, "you are star struck aren't you? "
Well, having blogged her countless photo shoots for famous names such as TOM FORD, GAP and other designers, I was in awe of how a young Tanzanian girl, barely out of high school, could command such a presence in an almost next to impossible industry to penetrate and succeed in the USA.
She then turned round to Bahati, who was much more composed , and asked her if she was a model? I smiled, thinking, there is some serious role reversal here, but it was her way of putting us both at ease: after which our conversation continued effortlessly. Her mother beamed proudly in the background a sturdy but invisible force behind her.
She is charisma personified, an energetic, charming and humble young lady without an "ounce" of vanity in an industry where narcissism is a prerequisite to get to the top. She is a true role model in all senses.
I had never met a seventeen year old girl who knew who she was, what she wanted and where she was going.
May your blessings continue inspiring others HERIETH PAUL and congratulations on landing a contract many can only dream of.
LILY AN for TEAM MARIDADI
