Today I feel a little nostalgic. This is when I become sympathetic and generous. So, there is a nice present for you, here. I'm gonna list the ABC of what to do and not to do if you want to become a model.

If you are a parent of a girl who wants to become a model, you should read this as well - it will help you to supervise your girl's moves and make sure she's on the way for fashion and not for prostitution.

Today in particular I feel some nostalgia for those days, so I'm going to open up.

I am not a top model, but I am someone who did enough jobs to know perfectly how it works. I moved to L.A. two years ago because I had always wanted to (don't ask me why - I just always felt I had to come here) and, since this is the city of entertainment, I thought it would have been easy to keep on making money out of fashion. Well, I couldn't be more wrong - in Los Angeles there is no fashion!!! I mean, there are some jobs that are considered so, but they have nothing to do with the jobs and the money you can get in Milan, Paris, New York, London and Tokyo. So, here we come to the rule number one when you want to start a career as a model...

• 1) MOVE TO MILAN, PARIS, LONDON OR NEW YORK

Wherever you live, if you want to become a model and do the real jobs, you have to head to these cities. Since the major model agencies have minor branch offices all over the world, you can start going to the closest model agency. From there, do your best to be sent to Milan, London, Paris and New York.

When you start working for a reliable model agency, at some point they might offer you to go work for three months in TOKYO. Just go!!! Asia is where the money is, right now. You'll spend your summer break from school working over there and you'll come back to Milan or wherever your main agency is with 80 thousand Euros (which is $ 130.000). Not bad, right? Plus, you'll have increased your portfolio with plenty of jobs!

I understand you might miss your family, regret you are not on a vacation with your friends and loose your boyfriend, but this is the minimum it takes if you are 19 and you want to make that amount of money. Once you start traveling, growing and opening your mind, you understand that all the "sacrifices" you take as a model are nothing compared to all the tragedies our life is potentially made of. But, modeling might be tragic too so, before even thinking of going to a model agency to introduce yourself, make sure to...

• 2) LOOK AT YOURSELF OUTSIDE AND INSIDE

If you are reading this, it means you have the internet. So, you can visit the websites of the main model agencies I am going to list in a little while and read about what body features they require in a model. Apply only if you have them. If you are barely 5'7" as I am, for example, you shouldn't even think of becoming a model - unless you're in the mood of playing a very, very tough game. Or you are particularly photogenic and particularly crazy.

So, if you don't have all the body features they ask for but you want to go for it anyway, at least try to match them the most you can. You probably won't be casted for Versace or Armani but there are still a lot of jobs you can do (commercials, print advertisements, etc.)

Though, I've seen girls who didn't even try to match those standards.

Remember this: being a pretty girl or a hot girl or someone who is popular between the High School boys doesn't mean to be all right for becoming a working model.

For example, here in L.A. my dance school is very close to a music school where top model Amber Valletta takes her son, so I often see her. I love her look but, beleive me, except for me, NO ONE looks at her in the street. She is one of the most famous models in the world, but she keeps a very low profile in her clothes, make up, etc.

This is the proof that being a model doesn't necessary means going around looking hot all the time. Don't try hard to look hot when you go to the castings, for example, because you'd end up looking ridicoulous. Save your hotness for the camera. Just be beautiful in a natural way.

Choose the clothes and the make up that make you look natural, even if you work on them for two hours every morning, before leaving home.

So, be humble and work hard to shape your body and your attitude into those professional standards of modeling. Actually, you have to do the same even if you have all the requirements the agencies ask for. Being beautiful and in shape for modeling is a precious gift from nature, that's true, but it also requires a lot of work. So...

• 3) LEARN ABOUT THE JOB

You don't need to go to school to become a model. Don't go to any stupid school for models!

But, you definitely need to take a look at Vogue and Elle. Buy them. Do NOT buy Vogue and Elle USA, though. They don't teach you anything about fashion because they are all about the Hollywood gossips. Buy Vogue and Elle Italy, France and Japan. They cost a lot in the United States, but you need to learn.

You always need to learn, also when you start working. In fact, you want to tell your bookers to which photographers you want them to send your pictures to.

Look inside those magazines and study the pictures. Go in front of the mirror and try to do the same poses you see in there. You'll feel like a jerk for the first times, but this is how you'll learn how to pose. It's better than you feel like a jerk in front of the mirror of your house rather than in front of a camera for your first photo shooting, right?

Study yourself. Study your face, your profiles, your expressions. Study the way you like to look like. Practice the most you can, like you're learning to play an instrument. Actually, you are learning to play an instrument: yourself.

• 4) TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

Drink water like crazy, sleep enough and deeply clean and moisturize your skin at least twice a day.

Remember that you have to preserve the youth of your skin as long as you can, so invest some money in excellent creams: Dermalogica is one of the best for your skin and for your hair I would say Purology or Ojon. Estee Lauder, Chanel, etc. are very good too, but remember that in these cases you pay for the brand.

For your boby I would just use a supermarket moisturizing cream like Soave, Johnson or Nivea, until you're very young.

I don't need to remind you that your theet must look clean, right? Not fake white, but clean and healthy.

Get vitamins (the ones from herbs are the best, the chemical ones the worst).

Become a vegetarian. You don't waste your money in super expensive dead animals, you eat cheap, you feel like you have more energy and your skin looks younger because you don't eat toxins. Plus, you build up a good karma, which will help you to book more jobs (what goes around comes around!)

Workout. If you have a passion for a sport in particular it is better because you have fun doing that and that fun makes you look happy and radiant. Beside that, a sport always gives you a positive energy, teaches you about discipline and about all those values that will help you to resist under the attacks of insecurity - and it is easy to become insecure, when you have to compete with other 100 models for every single damn job.

• 5) DO NOT RUN TO THE PLASTIC SURGEON

You are not going to become a scarlet starlet. You are not going to become a pin up. You are not going to become the copy of the copy of Pamela Anderson. You are going to become a model. If you have no breast, it's fine. It's actually better, because you can't have a big breast and wear a size 28, if you are 5'8".

If then you become a celebrity like Gisele and you are the main spoke person for Victoria's Secret, you might think about increasing your breast size, if they ask you so. After all, the are paying you millions of dollars to wear their bras in the best possible way. But, until you are just a model, you can avoid it.

And the same is for your other features. Believe me, you'll find out that the most of your customers will like you for your peculiarities. They'll think you're beautiful, that's ok, but you'll catch their attention for details in your face that the plastic surgeon usually makes disappear, instead.

And, again, you want to be a stylish model, not a plastic doll. Style is a prerogative of perfection, but perfection is not a prerogative of style.

• 6) GET READY TO TAKE REJECTIONS (PLENTY OF THEM!)

Do not take them personal. It's just a job. You'll be sent to hundreds of castings and you'll book a job only once in a while. Keep on improving yourself and do not let the rejections get you down. You must be too busy finding a new strategy to look gorgeous and be happy to have some time left for crying over the jobs someone else booked instead of you. To be depressed doesn't help your beauty. It just helps you to end up doing cocaine or only God knows what. If you let the rejections put you down, you'll become weak and easily manipulated by the wrong people. I've SO MANY stories to tell about this diabolic going down... For some reasons I love these stories, but I probably love them because I've just looked at them. I went down myself, but never so much to not find a way to come up again. Some girls I met in the fashion circle never came back, instead.

Any time you're down, remember how lucky you are for being alive, healthy and beautiful and start thanking the universe for that.

• 7) ASK YOURSELF WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY

And please, do not answer "Booking that job I didn't book."

Find your way to keep a close contact with yourself. You need it, because you'll be alone and you can't afford to not be an entertaining company for yourself.

When you go from a casting to another, choose the best route. If you are in Milan, Paris and New York, you have the advantage of walking in gorgeous streets, where you can re-energize yourself between a casting, a call back and a job. Keep your eyes open and allow your vision to bring to your heart beautiful things. Talk to people, smile, pet animals, look at the shops, dream listening to music... do whatever helps you to grow as a human. Maybe you just need to buy a fashion hat, a little present for yourself. Use all the time you have between a job and another like a precious spare time to improve yourself. Find in the streets the inspiration you need to give good performances in front of the camera.

Buy yourself an i-pod or, if you didn't make enough money for that yet, buy a Cd player. When you move to your modeling city, take all your favorite Cds with you. Do not forget the power music has to give you motivation. Spend your day close to music.

Take a book with yourself. Sometimes you have to wait for hours at a casting, so you might want to have something to do rather than only gossiping with other mean models like you ;-).

You'll end up hanging out mostly with other models. Choose the least stupid ones! Be picky and become friends with girls who are not emotionally or culturally retarded. Not too much, at least, or you'll end up talking only about castings, casting directors, agencies, bookers, etc. And, believe me, this limitation in your views won't help your beauty. You'll end up looking sad.

Try not to be envious of other models' success. It makes you ugly and blind. Just work on your success and, if you can, try to be happy for their success. Happiness always makes you look better, even the one you feel for someone else.

Try to be psychologically independent the most you can. Your modeling job already puts you in the condition of depending on someone else's judge every day. Keep a distance from this dependence in your private life, at least.

Do not become obsessed with being a model. Don't forget about the rest. The rest is your golden resource to book jobs as a model. Obsession is your ruin, instead.

Whatever the things that make you happy are, keep on doing them.

8) WHEN YOU BOOK A JOB, STORE SOME OF YOUR HAPPINESS FOR THE FUTURE

I'm sure you'll find a way to use it.

• 9) WHEN YOU BOOK A JOB, DON'T SCREW IT

Respect this opportunity. Be on time. Be aware of what the photographer and all the stuff want from you under a professional point of you and give it to them.

Perform in front of the camera. Play. Have fun. Become someone else. Play the part of different women.

Do not steal the clothes form the stylist and the make up from the make up artist. If you do, don't let them catch you, at least.

Do not eat from the catering like you haven't eaten for days. Probably you haven't, but you don't want to look desperate.

And if you eat or drink or go to the restroom, do not mess up the make up they did on your face. Same thing with your hair. Do not do disasters.

If someone is bad with you, be tough but not offensive. You'll meet a lot of mean and envious people. Fuck them with your smile. Get back to their offenses in a classy way. Make them shut up with nice words. And, if you get to the point where you need some help, look between all the people on the set and find your best helper. For example, if a make up artist is doing a shitty make up on your face, gently ask the photographer or the client (who usually is a person from the magazine or a stylist) if he/she thinks that this is the right make up to achieve the perfect pictures he/she has in mind. If another model is mean to you, ignore her. If the people from the magazine are gossiping about you, ask them if you can help them with anything. If the photographer shows that he/she doesn't like you, tell the people from the magazine that he/she is making feel you uncomfortable and they'll fire him/her. Whatever is the problem you have to face, look around and find the less dramatic solution.

Fuck the people who want to fuck you, but don't build a bad reputation around yourself. You must keep on being someone nice to work with, so they'll call you for another job.

• 10) THANK YOUR CLIENTS

Always. The casting directors, the magazines, the director of that commercial, the representative of the company that has chosen you for that advertisement, etc.... Thank whomever gave you that job. Be thankful for real. Understand that they don't owe you anything. They chose you for that job and this is how now you are making $800 for three hours of work. Don't forget it. Feel lucky for being chosen and show them your gratitude.

11) DO NOT PARTY TOO MUCH WITH RICH MEN

Not even with the poor ones, though.

It won't help your career. It will lead you to be a prostitute, instead. Or maybe a prostitute for free, which is even worst.

Usually the poor men you are "at risk" with are the drivers hired from your modeling agency to drive you around the city from casting to casting, casting to job, job to call back, etc. The drivers are jerks. They call themselves "modellari," and "modellaro" means someone who fucks a lot of models.

Beside that, the most of them carries drugs and is linked to the "traffic of models" of the city nightlife.

They are usually young and pretty, but you should just let them drive you around and check on your make-up or look out the window, when you are in the car with them. Talk over the phone, read your book or listen to your music, but do not give them too much confidence. Be nice, but not too much. They are not your clients anyway - they're your drivers. Just make them drive.

You might get involved with a photographer, at some point. You are attracted to his power of making you look gorgeous. You are attracted to his power of using you for the best jobs. He will, but looking back you might feel disgust for that.

For a little while I was into "something" with one of them. He was a very fascinating man and I shouldn't feel a sense of nausea every time I think of him, right? But I do. Plus, I totally hide the pictures I took with him and the jobs we did together - even if those are great images. All because I know that I was with him for the allure of his job and not for him. He actually was a mediocre lover and a mean man.

Anyway, better the photographer than his assistant, if you really have to pick one (the assistant is usually so poor that you would end up working to pay his bills.)

Linda Evangelista married the president of Elite Model Management France, when she was young. Of course she divorced him right after. He was arrested a few years ago in Milan for having raped a lot of young girls with the excuse of giving them an opportunity as models. Any time I look at Linda and I see how beautiful she is, I wonder if she really needed to marry that disgusting wreck to make it as a top model. Maybe she just needed to be a little bit more patient.

If you are in Milan, there is this club called Hollywood in Corso Como. On Sunday night, all the richest men in town (basketball players, football players, singers, millionaires, etc.) are there to pick up a hot model to fuck with. There will be also poor men who behave like they are rich - all to fuck you. Rich or poor, smart or stupid, hot or disgusting, all men say lies and do whatever they can in order to fuck you.

You sleep with whomever you want, this is obvious, but my advice here is: do not sleep with anyone thinking that it will help your career. Do it only if you have a talent for that. There are girls who are masters at it. If you are one of them, good for you. Otherwise, just go to sleep early on Sunday night that on Monday you have to go work!

Before moving to Milan, I was living in a very small town. One day I read an interview on Elle Top Model. Jerry Hall was interviewing Georgina Greenville. Jerry asked Georgina how she felt about being a model in Milan, with all those "horrible Italians." I took it very personal and I thought Jerry Hall was a racist.

Well, the year after I started going to Milan for the first castings and, believe me, I definitely changed my mind about Jerry. I actually started researching information about Jerry, to see if I could find an interview where she explained how she actually survived in Milan between all those "horrible Italians." And I also started to think that Jerry had also a very compassionate soul - "horrible" is a too nice adjective to describe the ferocious creatures around you, if you are a model in Milan.

Do not follow them in their houses either. It's dangerous. Do not follow them anywhere. In Paris I followed the vice-president of the Madison Model Management in his apartment, one evening, and it is still one of the scariest moments of my career. I was in Paris for this job and I felt honored that the same agency of Laetitia Casta called me for an interview. I was impressed by the agency and all the things he told me. He also showed me the comp card of his Eastern European supermodel girlfriend, so I thought he didn't want anything from me. Well, I was naïve. Once we got in his house, things turned really bad and I walked out of his door holding a knife against him. Once down in the street, he paid for my cab, though - that was nice ;-).

If you're good you can use these men. And if you're very good, you might make one of these rich men fall in love with you and settle down. And if you are very, very good, you might pick a young and hot one. This is when you stop breaking your back as a model and start a real rich life.

Though, they usually want kids, if they marry you. They don't pay you for nothing. So, do that only if you have the vocation for being a good mother. If you don't have it, run away!!!

By the way, in order to take you home, a lot of these men try to make you feel or like a queen or like a piece of shit. This is how they get the control over you. In both cases, just listen to their bullshits with a big smile, then leave them with the excuse that you need the restrooms "for a second" and start talking with someone else.

If your girlfriends don't go home by 1 a.m. but they feel cool following the guy of the night in the hotel's room he booked in the hotel in front of the club (they usually book it one day in advance, a long time before meeting you), feel free to take a cab.

By the middle of the week your girlfriends will call you in tears because that guy (football player, etc.) just fucked them and disappeared. They will be depressed and in an awful shape.

In the meantime, you'll have saved yourself from going down on your self-esteem and booked a few jobs, instead.

• 12) LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF YOUR MODELING COUNTRY

It will help you in a lot of things.

For example, one day I was shooting this commercial with this foreign girl and she told me of how much her modeling agency (Elite Model Management) charged her for her rent. It was a stealing!!!

The agencies make money ALSO on your rent. They put you in their "models' houses" and they take the money out of your jobs' checks. And it's usually an insane amount!

So, learn the language of the country you're leaving in, so you can go and find your own place and be independent.

• 13) THE AGENCIES

They will tell you the rest. They will tell you what I forgot in here.

But, they won't tell you what I told you in here. They will just take your measures, send you to a photographer, then to a casting and see if you start making money.

By the way, do not take stupid pictures of yourself before going to a modeling agency. The agency will send you to their photographers anyway. They have tons of them.

And do not pay for your first pictures. The agency will take that money out of your first job. Unless you did a free test for the photographer, which is very common.

Last but not least, when the agency calls you for a casting, always ask in advance how much the job will be paid, the schedule for the job, etc. And write everything on your agenda. At some point, you'll want to take the control over the whole thing because you'll realize that because of your bookers' stupidity and disorganization you loose time, opportunities and money.

So, here we have some the best names. Go and check their websites in the internet, if you want to start a modeling career:

WHY NOT MODEL MANAGEMENT (MILAN BASED), WILHELMINA MM, FORD MM, BEATRICE MODELS (MILAN BASED), ELITE MM, RICCARDO GAY MM (MILAN BASED), 1&1 MODEL AND ACTOR AGENCY (THE BEST IN MILAN FOR COMMERCIALS), CLAN AGENCY (MILAN), NAMES (MILAN BASED), IMG, WOMEN MANAGEMENT (MILAN BASED), NEXT MODELS, MADISON MODELS (PARIS & NEW YORK).

So, Good Luck!

Don't think I always followed all the rules above. I often broke them, but I am not telling you when, where and which ones. Not now, at least.

What I'll do now is taking this occasion to send some sunny weather to all the girls I shared my times with in Milan. Some of them will read this on the internet (myspace, etc.) and some won't.

For some reasons, whenever I get in contact with one of them and we start remembering those times together, we always end up laughing like crazy.

If you are an aspiring model, I wish you that one day you can do the same.

Best,

Liliana