Meet Ashourina

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashourina.

Ashourina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m from California. I grew up in Northern California, graduated from San Diego State and quickly, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in Television. Every job I had, up until that point, involved kids, so, I knew I wanted to bring those things together. When I was little, I was overweight, I had big curly hair and a deep voice. I’m also Black and Assyrian, so, there weren’t many women in the mainstream media, who looked like me. As a result, my plan was to get hired at a major Network, work my way up, and ultimately, make a show to inspire little girls of color. Well, that’s not what happened. No one hired me, and I took another job working at an afterschool program. Which also didn’t work out. Then I became a social media intern, cater waiter, babysitter, and a rental car agent, all at the same time.

During my internship, I was prompted by a few very lovely women to submit to modeling agencies. It took about six months but I finally did, and I signed with Natural Models LA. It’s been almost four years, and I just realized that I’ve been doing what I wanted to do. I’m that representation for those little girls. I’ve been in commercials and campaigns for well-known companies like Nike, Old Navy, and Target. My life doesn’t look like what I envisioned at was 21, but I worked really hard, and now it’s even better. I get messages from women all over the world, who say they’re inspired by me, which is still shocking. I always appreciate it but I haven’t always taken it in. Now I do and now I’m excited to find a way to take it further.

Has it been a smooth road?
I’ve been blessed with so many great opportunities early in my career, so, in some ways it’s been smooth. On the other hand, you have to have tough skin in this industry. I’ve done a lot of self-reflecting, reading and podcast listening to finally get me to the place I am now. This is my favorite and most helpful anecdote. If you’re a purple crayon and you’re going to a casting where they’re looking for a yellow crayon, you can do two things. The first is to try to replicate yellow crayon, which they’ll most likely see-through. The second is be the purple crayon and they may not use you this time, but when they need a purple crayon, they’ll think of you.

It’s very cliché, but the best thing you can do is be yourself. It was very hard for me to quickly show who I am so, it was very “fake it till you make it” for a moment. However, when I gained that confidence, it was freeing. I would go in, be myself and if they liked it great and if not, I had another casting across town in an hour.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I’m a model. I used to add plus size but if you’re looking at me, it’s redundant. Don’t get it twisted, I’m extremely proud to be a part of that community, I just want to change the standard of what a model is.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Diversity in Fashion has been slowly making progress but after everything this year, there’s a loud demand for it to speed up. I know there are brands that genuinely care about being diverse, but it’s very obvious most are just checking off boxes. “Do we have an Ethnically Ambiguous/Black girl? Great! And she’s plus-sized. Perfect! Can you ask her to come with her hair straight?” This isn’t a real conversation, it’s just a thought I have when I see who is on set, and that’s just in front of the camera. I hope to see an increase in models of color in major campaigns and magazines, as well as photographers, fashion stylists, creative directors, makeup artists, hairstylists, etc. I hope to see exponential growth in small brands that do embrace us. #SupportBlackBusinesses

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Aushosays

Image Credit:
Hannah Hiller Photography
Brandon Hicks
Danny Reyes

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