Alexandra Donhoeffner

"I always felt like too cool for school," Alexandra Donhoeffner says about her early feelings on the modeling business. "I thought I was too smart to be a model. My mother is a scientist and my father an entrepreneur.

”My parents looked down on modeling back then, especially my dad. Germany looks at modeling very differently. In the US, beauty pageants are very common. It's common to put makeup on your little kid and put them in a beauty pageant. In Germany, people are outraged about it. It's looked at as the dumbest thing on the planet, because you are pushing someone for their looks and children are getting the worst value system. Their worth is based on how they look and how much lipstick mommy has applied."

However, because of Alexandra’s natural beauty and early, excessive height, fellow Dusseldorfians were coming up to her in the street, insisting that she model -- and not taking no for an answer.

She was an immediate success, walking the European runways for big designers. Her attraction to the business, however, was based on practicality.

"Of course, there was the money aspect," she says. "There were supermodels then, talking about how much money they were making. I thought, 'oh, wow, this industry is very glamorous and these women actually are business savvy.' People kept approaching me and I thought I would make a little pocket money."

She did a little better than pocket money. She had been modeling – for a living – ever since, on many continents. Yet even Alexandra experienced the wrath of rejection, at least at first.

"I went to a well-known agency when I was fifteen," she recalls. "I was incredibly thin, maybe due to the fact that I was very active and I grew up on organic food, very different from the US. I don't think I was even in a McDonald's until I was about fifteen. I had a rather unusual look, with a big head and a tiny body.

"This agency said, ‘you look awkward, you will never be a model, and you are way too skinny.’ I was like, ‘okay, that's it; I am done.’

“The next thing I know, I'm walking down the street, dressed in my funky clothes, and a man starts running after me from inside a store, excitedly shouting 'you're it! You're it!' It turned out that he was one of the top editorial stylists, very flamboyant, but I somehow trusted him instantaneously. A week later, he put me in Style magazine. And I've never modeled before. Everything on the shoot was top notch, very high end. I simply had fun and did not comprehend the impact of this photoshoot."

That started a chain reaction of editorials and runway shows that built her book to overflowing, resulting in a long, warm and easy relationship with the photo lens.

"To be in front of the camera," she says, "I think it comes just like the need for painting or the need for understanding computers. That is, if you enjoy what you do it will come naturally. Creative endeavors fall into place with joy and passion and won’t reveal themselves by force.

”I don't particularly see a difference between my first photo shoot and today, although, of course, each shoot demands a different character from me. Maybe because no shoot can be replicated; you can not compare them."

However, the one big difference may be in her business acumen, which has been chiseled to precision, like her cheekbones. She was forced to develop and hone her savvy since she was a gorgeous young guppy in a tank full of hungry sharks.

"I looked at it as a business," she says. "I laid out my goals to my first agents in terms of 'I want this, this and this.' My attitude didn't earn me best friends, but certainly respect. I was so afraid to be tossed around and to be taken advantage of, since neither of my parents were able to help me, let alone advise me, that I probably came off a bit tough. Which turned out just fine. I was a grown up in a kid’s body."

With both feet planted firmly on the ground, she was still able to take a beautiful flight.

She says, "I was sent to Paris right away and I hit it off there much better than Germany. I was ultimately too awkward for the German market. I had a very angular look. Yet I went to Paris and everybody wanted to book me. In Milan, Paris, Tokyo and New York, I walked many of the top shows without even knowing how big of a deal they were.

”In Germany however, I couldn't get arrested. And Germany was and still is a money market. My agency's idea was to send me to Paris for all the editorials, so that I could come back to work with the big catalogs. That didn't happen then.

"In the editorials, mostly I was plastered with wild makeup in wild settings, often dark and grungy, which didn't fit the clean-cut German industry."

However, America and its commercial market came calling, where Alexandra would ironically fit into the mold of "All-American girl." She found her way to New York, where she was able to successfully toggle between the two very different worlds of fashion and commercial. It was in Manhattan she remained as home base ever since, while traveling to many different markets, each with its own specific demands.

"Modeling allows me to be exposed to so many different cultures, and live life as a grownup very early on," she says. "There are many things I could not have learned in an office environment, nor would I have been happy in another profession. We are all different beings, designed for different careers with our perfect place in life.

”I am very grateful to everyone I encountered through this business; it has my respect and yet can only be taken with a big dose of self-deprecating humor. America has its larger-than-life egos; however the market is a 'safe' one for young girls, compared to Paris or Milan.

"I feel very, very blessed, to always be guided by a force -- some indescribable power which never let me be harmed. No matter what the situation. Of course, there will be a few traveling the world alone -- I was always perfectly safe. And I am very, very grateful for it.

”I learned that no matter what other people’s intentions are, it is none of my business, therefore it will not have an effect on me. It is an inherent understanding that is not really teachable, because it has nothing to do with trained logic. It's knowing who you are and not compromising your values to any amount of money or promises.

"If you are comfortable with taking your top off for a photographer for a lot of money, that may be your thing. It's not mine. Unfortunately, a lot of models don't know what the boundary is.

"It can be a very sex-oriented and foolish business, especially when it gets artistic. Where is the line between artistry and being taken advantage of?"

Today, Alexandra realizes that the rules of the industry are not as rigid as when she was a young teen.

"Everybody's time comes," she says. "This industry is changing so fast. What was considered not okay a few years ago is in demand now. Really edgy looking girls would never be in a Target commercial. Now, they are. Everything is possible nowadays: both very commercial people as well as models who are odd looking, which is simply another word for ‘outside the norm.’ Society is changing. It's aging. It's more multi-cultural than ever.

”It is no longer just black, white or Asian. How many people are mixed today? African American mixed with Asian creates outstandingly beautiful facial features. I think agents are also opening up to a much broader spectrum of possibilities since the demands are expanding as much as our universe."

In this brave new world, Alexandra shares the ultimate importance when taking your place in it:

"What living the model life taught me is that I'll always be okay standing up for myself," she says. "And if there is anything that I want to pass on to younger models, it’s this: know who you are; don't compromise your values.

”In most of us, there is a good little girl or boy who is afraid to do wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I saw models being intimidated by someone threatening them with 'I will tell your agent if you complain.’

”You have to learn to walk a diplomatic line of selling the product but never losing your self worth to the ego of a client. It is also imperative to find a booker who has your best interest in mind, humanly.

”Come from a place of joy and power to this biz. As my favorite author, D. Hawkins, says in the book The Eye of the I, 'power simply is' and honors everyone involved. This is in contrast to force, which needs noise, drama and is a sign of hopelessness.

”Sometimes you may have to say no even to a seemingly great offer. Saying 'no' to others means saying 'yes' to yourself. It ultimately produces the best results for everyone involved when you are congruent. Always."

To see more of Alexandra, please go to http://http://2nyc.net/alexandradonhoeffner/index.html