Canadian beauty Gaby Ouellet is featured on WWD’s Model Call. Mother agent Chantale Nadeau’s efforts to develop Quebecois models seem to be fruitful so far. In-demand catwalker Sophie Touchet is also managed by Nadeau.
Here are our highlights:
“It’s so funny because I’m the only one in my family with these eyes,” said Gabrielle Ouellet on a recent afternoon at WWD’s office. “I don’t know if you can see it — it’s my crazy thing.”
At 5-foot, 8-and-a-half inches, Ouellet lands on the shorter side of runway height parameters, but she still managed to walk two shows in Montreal and Toronto for fall, and has been gaining editorial ground with shoots in Oyster, Creem, Factice, Dress to Kill, Veoir and Novembre magazines. She is currently stationed in New York for two months, living in a model apartment in the East Village.
WWD: So how did you start modeling?
Gabrielle Ouellet: I was scouted by a girl on Facebook. She referred me to my mother agent, Chantale Nadeau in Canada. It’s so funny because I was baby-sitting at this time. I saw a message on Facebook, and it was like, “Hi, how tall are you?” I was like, “What the hell is that?” And then I became a model, not knowing anything about modeling except what I saw on “America’s Next Top Model.” I was 16.
WWD: What did your Facebook profile photo look like?
G.O.: It’s so funny, it happened to be a picture of my face without smiling. When I took this picture, [my friend and I] did a fun photo shoot on my street and my friend said, “Gabby, for the first time, don’t smile.” I was like, “What? No smiling? I can’t be beautiful without smiling!” I was always smiling in pictures. But I took this one [serious] picture and then I became a model from it. I really learned.
