Dissatisfied with her multimedia journalism major, Teresa Johnson decided to withdraw from Georgia Southern a week before spring semester started in January. The junior decided to pursue what many would consider an unlikely dream: launching a professional modeling career.

A few weeks later, she was showing off Anna K’s “Guest from the Future” line on a runway in New York during the famed Fashion Week. Also, she appeared in a show presentation by designer Danny Nguyen. Photos of Teresa modeling at the event have appeared online through Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, PopSugar and Zooey.

“It really went from small to ‘Bam!’” Teresa said, laughing.

The road to the runway

Teresa and her family moved to Statesboro from northern Virginia when she was 10 years old, and she always, she said, had an interest in modeling on some level. Pictures from her childhood show a little girl perpetually posing for the camera. But she did not really start modeling until late high school, when she began reaching out to Statesboro’s salons and boutiques. She turned on the catwalk of a GSU fashion club called D.I.M.E.S., which stood for Designs Inspired Magnificently Exhibited in Style. Slowly, she began to branch out on her own while continuing with her journalism studies.

“I was kind of following what my parents wanted from me and not really making any decisions on my own,” Teresa said. “I wasn’t really listening to what I wanted.”

And what she wanted, she decided in December, was to pursue modeling fulltime. Earlier in 2015, she had signed with a talent agency out of North Carolina called Three Blackbird Management, which she had encountered while she was modeling at Charleston Fashion Week in March. Shortly after she signed, the agency told her they would be going to New York Fashion Week, and Teresa decided the time was ripe “to really work hard, show who I am and just go after this.”

“I told myself, ‘Okay, Teresa. If you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it 120 percent,’” she said.

First, however, she had to break the news to her parents.

“Of course they weren't happy — you know, they're my parents,” she said. “Modeling is very short-lived, and a lot of people think that it's not a very good career.”

But now that she has gained a little momentum, “They're really excited about it. They're really happy about it. It's kind of funny because before they were so against it. They knew I liked modeling, but they never thought something like this would happen.”

"I have to admit, I'm very proud,” Bonita Johnson, Teresa’s mother, said. “And of course I share (her pictures); I'm very proud. It seems like just yesterday she was this little kid with long pigtails, and now here she is.”

She added, “My priority has always been her education, but she wants to try. Her father and I are very supportive, so we're just standing behind her and letting her see what she can do with it, and take it from there."

More than ‘just standing there’

Teresa is the first to say that while her success has been quick, she has not quite “made it” as a model. But she’ll have plenty of opportunities to do so in the future. She’ll be rejoining young designer Anna K in September, flying all the way to Italy for Milan Fashion Week.

As a mother, Bonita is naturally a little nervous for her daughter to travel so far.

"But, you know, she's 22,” she said. “I don't want her to look back later and think, 'If only I could have,' or 'I should have.' She's young, and we've got to let her grow. I try to protect her as much as I can, but it's time to let her blossom and fly.” 

While the travel is glamorous, and while walking down a runway may not look like much work, Teresa said casting—the process by which a model auditions for a show—is so grueling that “it should be a sport.” Like a freelancer or an actress, a model is constantly pitching herself, she said.

“Some models will have shows and, as soon as they're done, they have to run to a casting, and have another casting after that,” Teresa said. “I feel like people don't really see the hard work that goes behind it.”

Additionally, she said, there’s an element of business sense and street-smarts a model needs to succeed.

“You can't just think that because you look a certain way — tall or skinny or pretty, whatever — then it's just going to (happen),” she said. “You have to know where you're going. You have to make a schedule for yourself, have to get to know and build relationships with these people because that's how you get hired.”

But that unpredictability is one of the elements Teresa loves most about the business. As for the fashion, Teresa is just as interested in the designers’ work and stories behind their clothing as she is in the clothing itself. She enjoys asking designers about the “mood” or “tone” they are trying to achieve with a piece, which in turn helps her model it the way the designer envisioned.

A future in the industry

Teresa knows that a model’s career on the runway is short-lived, but that doesn’t mean she intends to jump ship from fashion. She has never wanted to become a designer, but she has thought about applying her multimedia journalism skills to fashion photography or behind-the-scenes films and documentaries. One day, she said, she would love to own her own agency that could “promote positivity with bodies and self-esteem.”  

“I really want to help change where the industry is going as far as diversity,” she said, adding that when you look through the photos of the Anna K runway show, she is the only African-American girl in the lineup. She herself has been turned away from a modeling gig — even after being booked for the show — after the casting director decided her curly, voluminous hair stood out too much from the other models.

“When designers are looking for models, they'll have, say, a certain number of black models,” she said. “It's not enough. There needs to be more. There's more to the world than just a certain look. Everyone needs to be represented, and outside of color, there are shapes and heights and sizes — everything.”

In the meantime, she is working hard to make a name for herself, focusing on staying true to herself rather than what the industry’s standards of beauty might want her to be, and sharing her story with others who also might want to pursue a career in fashion.

“Hopefully (my story) will inspire someone to go after their dreams like I have, by working hard and having unwavering faith and determination,” she said.