We were lucky to catch up with Elena Chenguayen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Elena thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

First of all I would like to thank you for having me today, It’s an honor to be featured one more time. Regarding the question, yes absolutely, it has happen so many times along my career. When I first started modeling, I was 14 years old and in high school back in my hometown which is Lima – Peru. I used to divide my time between study and work. I remember the first time I had to talk with my teacher to explain the reason I had to leave class early was because I had a photoshoot or a runway show. They looked at me with some concern in their eyes. They didn’t know how the fashion world worked and were worried I would be getting myself into something unsafe. My country is small and modeling can be mischaracterized and linked to the wrong atmosphere, specially for adults who are not familiar with it. But once my teachers got to see my work and that it was 100% professional and safe, they understood it better.
That was just the beginning of a lot of conversations haha. Even until now, sometimes still happens when I meet a new person. People is used to talk about what they do for work or where they work when they introduce themselves. I personally always leave this topic to the last thing to bring to the table when I’m meeting someone for the first time, not because I don’t love my job, I really do, but because some people tent to define you based on it, for good or bad, and sometimes they have the wrong concept of what a model’s job is.
Every profession has some kind of stereotypes, I don’t want people to define me based on my work, I want them to meet me as a person first and see me for who I am, not for what I do for a living.
So yes, when it comes to an unconventional career like modeling you just have to keep in mind not everyone is going to know what it is about or understand it, and that’s ok, you just have to be patient with people and confident about your work. As creatives, we shouldn’t seek for everyone’s approval about our job. That just brings doubts about the quality of our work and keep us stuck from grown and to accomplish greater things in our industry.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi! my name is Elena Chenguayen, I’m 24 years old, born and raised in Lima – Peru. I started modeling when I was 12 years old and I’ve been officially working as a model since I was 14 years old. I got into modeling as an accident to be honest, It was never my dream to be a model on the first place. I liked sports and wanted to dedicate to one professionally. But life throw me an opportunity and I decided to take it just to “try” and see how it was. I went to a small academy in Peru and after that started meeting people from the industry who would call me for small jobs. After some time, I was scouted to participate in the Elite Model Look competition in Peru. I got to be one of the 12 finalist and after that my career took peak. I got to work for some of the best designers and brands from Peru. Participated in many runway shows and stablished myself with consistent work as a local fashion model. After I finished school at 17 years old, I got signed with a big modeling agency in India so I started traveling and expanded my career internationally. I keep doing it to the date. Thanks to my job, I’ve got to live in different countries and cities such as India, Spain, France, Malaysia and now I live between Los Angeles and Miami in the USA. I’m signed in both cities with great modeling agencies.
As a model, my job is to visually represent the essence of a brand or designer. My main purpose is to make the product look at its best which will lead to generate sales to the company and consolidate the image that each brand wants to project to the public. I adapt and change accordingly to the needs and requirements of the brands who hire me. This representation can be through photography, video or a live runway show.
One of the things I really like about my job is the constant challenge of play a different character for each client, specially when its something that’s completely different to my personality. I love getting out of my comfort zone by trying new things, and that’s exactly what I have to do most of the time at my job. Besides, I’ve always loved every form of art expression, and modeling lets me create art through my body.
Most of the time, models work with new people and different teams, which is also a challenge because you meet them the same day of the of the job and have to make a good connection with them in order to get the best results. For me, I enjoy meeting new people, so that’s not really a problem, but I have to admit there are days where I arrive home after work and I don’t want to talk to anyone because I exceed my social battery haha.
All these years of working as a model in many different markets and with numerous professionals in the industry have allowed me to get a solid experience and knowledge on the field. For me, you never stop learning in life, so I’m excited to keep getting better in what I do and to keep accomplishing goals I set for myself like working with specific brands, keep expanding the markets I work on and more.
I’m so grateful for everything I’ve got to do thanks to my job, specially for allowing me to work and live alone in different countries, discover new cultures, meet new people and learn so much from all of it.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Working in a creative industry teaches you how to be patience and perseverant. All good things take time to build, specially when you are working in such a competitive industry where you have to make yourself stand out from the rest. This also makes you realize if it is really what you want to do, only if you are actually passionate about it, determinate enough and committed to pursue it, you wont give up until you get where you want to be..

Another example is that as creatives, we have to get used to rejection, because most of the time that’s what we hear when we are developing our career. Hearing a lot of “no’s” can be very tough and make you doubt about yourself. Do I really belong here? am I not good enough? Should I quit this? those are questions that can show up along your journey, and that’s completely understandable. We just have to remember our why’s and know that there’s something greater out there waiting for you.

Specifically talking about models, our schedules are all over the place. Sometimes we get notified about a job or a work trip with very short notice and we have to take last minute decisions, which makes it really hard to compromise for future events. That’s why I prefer to not make plans with friends too long in advance. I literally don’t know if I’ll be able to go because I have no idea if I’ll be working in town or out of town. Its quiet of a lifestyle, but I got used to it and learned how to manage it well. In fact, I like it. It keeps things exciting and it has made me a problem solver.

Those are probably the most common situations where non creatives would struggle to understand how our life works. it definitely requires some sacrifices but the journey makes it completely worth it.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Supporting creatives from day 1 it’s so important. Not everyone fully believes in people when they are just starting in the creative industry. We shouldn’t wait until someone is successful to show some love to their work and what they have accomplished. The fact that they are being brave enough to pursue their passions and taking the risk in an unconventional industry, should be enough to support them in every way possible. We all have things to keep learning and to perfection along the way, experience will teach us that, but knowing there is people out there genuinely following your work and interested to see and discover more about what you do it’s such a big motivation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.selectmodel.com/miami/women/mainboard/elena-chenguayen
• Instagram: @Elena_chenguayen
• Other: https://www.omodelsagency.com/talent-detail.html?q=b5ac0c1fe6a4dec639a579f8276381e43812 https://www.inega.in/v2/models/female/elena_t/

Image Credits
@willg.macneil @prncejonb @kimmxtran @celinakenyon @snapsstudio @yukimiphoto @shotbynuno