Anina doesn’t keep still. We are in a busy bar in the trendy gay area of Munich and the red-haired model is standing in front of me, swaying from one leg to the other armed with two mobile phones. I try to concentrate on her enthusiastic blabber about all sorts of mobile technology and with her eager fingers darting across the keypads she bursts ‘Look, it’s an AninaMINIme!’ in a delightful ‘we-love-to-hate’ American accent. She tears her green eyes away from the display for just a second, looking for my reaction as she shows the screen-saver animations of herself. ‘When I was really small I decided I wanted a corporation, so when everyone else was playing house I was playing corporation’, she says in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, but with an expression full of a child’s playfulness.

Anina, who refuses to reveal her age, is a fashion model based in Paris and known by her first name only. She likes to call herself a “new kind of supermodel” but she doesn’t mind the nicknames she has been given either; supergeek and ‘mobile artist’. But how exactly does a girl from a family of five in Michigan, USA, go from playing with codes and JavaScripts on her computer rather than with dolls, to being a fashion model working with the best names in fashion, AND to delivering speeches at Nokia mobile conferences? And not only that, now she is in the midst of project 360fashion where she is in the process of choosing different people from different aspects of the fashion industry; models, agencies, photographers, magazines, designers stylists, journalists and even TV channels; encouraging them to set up individual blogs on their websites. With this Anina is hoping to introduce a new way of communicating fashion.

After spending some time with Anina I have to say that she seemed incredibly teen-agy when constantly playing with her phones, but she could appear impossibly mature when sitting in front of the computer talking codes and a language only the super geek understand. I was intrigued and wanted to know more about this girl.

It all began one winter’s day a couple of years ago at the famous Colette fashion store in Paris. A determined girl waltzed into the shop where Nokia were launching their latest mobile phone, and made her way through the crowd. Out of frustration, that any mobile phone up to that point hadn’t been capable of what she wanted, she had manipulated her own phone in such a way that when she produced the mobile in front of the people at Nokia they were amazed. Who was this girl?

Charlie Schick, Anina’s contact person at Nokia in Helsinki, remembers ‘She convinced [them], that as a model who was mobile-smart, [they] should lend her a phone’. Charlie was introduced to Anina and was instantly taken by her innovative way of using mobile technology. ‘I lent her five phones’ and Anina was free ‘to do what she wanted with them’, Charlie adds. A couple of years and mobiles later the business exchange continues. ‘It’s all her drive and her agenda. I’m just sort of collaborating and nurturing. The real thing is to let her bloom in her activities’, Charlie comments.

Anina worked in Paris and all over the world as a professional model for five years and loved her job but it wasn’t enough. Anina really wanted her corporation. She saw that she had to overcome the social prejudice of being a woman/model with brains for mobile technology and wanted to incorporate her passion for mobile phones with her profession. So, she set up her own website called anina.net. Here you can look at her modelling pictures and read her journal (blog) about what’s going on in the world of a model/geek and follow her as she goes on castings and jobs.

That, however, wasn’t enough either. ‘I was the only model with a palm pilot, a phone and a computer but I always wanted to have one [device] with everything because my purse was so heavy all the time,’ she laughs remembering a few years back. So, what does a girl do when her handbag is too small for all the things she has to carry around? Buy a bigger bag? Not Anina.

‘I started by making small programmes and games for the phone, but I reached a point when I couldn’t do certain things with it and I couldn’t find any information that I could assimilate,’ she says. So when Anina saw her chance to talk to the experts face to face she grabbed it. ‘When the Lifeblog guy [from Nokia] gave me a call and said I would be the perfect person to test their new software, I got the whole system set up and tried it out,’ Anina remembers.

On how Nokia’s collaboration with Anina started Charlie says ‘The goal of the programme [was] to explore the range of uses of Lifeblog and at the same time put it in places where it [could] be seen. Basically, I want[ed] the positive effect of ‘who-did-what-with Lifeblog?’ I identified key folks I admired in different areas – bloggers, cooks, adventurers, artists and asked them if they wanted to try out Lifeblog.’ There are now a range of people from different professions that are using the software as a tool of communicating within their respective industries.

Anina saw her chance to take full advantage of the software. She made a business proposition. ‘I said I want to make this project [360fashion] because I think it’s perfect for the fashion industry. Our industry is so mobile and blogging is the perfect tool for good communication’ she says enthusiastically as she sips on her non-alcoholic cherry juice. I ask Anina how she went about realising the project and she continues ‘I wanted to choose specific people from the [fashion] industry to show the entire view of fashion, from an insider’s point of view, and it’s always been my dream to mobilise a modelling agency. That’s why I was so happy when Stephan (Anina’s booker at her agency, ps models, in Munich) understood what a powerful tool it could be for his agency and that he wanted ps models to participate in the Lifeblog project.’

But what is it exactly and how does it work? ‘It’s a ‘behind-the-scenes’ of our agency and what our models get up to during castings and jobs’, says Stephan von Schilcher, one of four bookers at ps models. Stephan takes pictures with his mobile and posts them to the website along with a blog, either from the phone itself or his computer. ‘It’s pretty quick technology and ps models is the first modelling agency in the world to have it,’ he adds.
So, what happens when I log onto the ps models’ website? At the main page I can look at the board of models but there is also the link ‘LIFEBLOG’. When I click on it another window appears. In the centre of the page there is a blog and pictures of people, clients and models who have visited the agency recently. Left of the blog is a short biography of the agency and to the right the archives of previous blogs. When I click on ‘comments’ I see what notes other people have added to a particular picture and furthest down on the page I can do my own blogging.

But why set up such a programme on your website? From a client’s point of view you can see which models are in town at the moment and also be the first to see the new faces. It is great advertising for both the models and the agency. I find it interesting to look at the pictures and read the news and my guess is that anyone following TV programmes like ‘Make me a supermodel’ and ‘Model behaviour’ will certainly like to have a peek at this blog too. I get the feeling it might be the web’s answer to the fly-on-the wall phenomenon.
Anina refers to the model life when she says ‘We can get footage no one else can. We can get into places where other people can’t get. We get in to all the clubs and there’s a certain treatment when you’re a model. It’s like in that Zoolander movie, we’d make the best spies because we get in everywhere! Lifeblog is the perfect tool for it,’ she laughs.
Stephan notes that the link is only a couple of months old (launched in mid March) but already the ps Lifeblog has between 500-800 visitors a day. ‘Everyday more and more people find out about it’ he adds.

I ask Anina what kind of reaction she got being a fashion model breaking into the world of mobile technology? ‘That was really brilliant about Nokia, because they did say that you have to see it to believe it, when I gave my presentation’, she laughs. Charlie at Nokia adds ‘What I really found interesting is how technically able [Anina] is. She knows how to build things herself, is not afraid to try new things and concepts and take them to the limit, and is quick to see ways to adapt them in her work. She is a wonderful model, but she sees the world like no other in her industry. She also knows what the mobile industry is like from the perspective of the consumer.’

I was interested to know how much Anina is getting paid for promoting Nokia’s Lifeblog software and expanding the usage? Anina didn’t comment on it herself, but when I ask Charlie if Anina will be laughing her way to the bank he declines and says, ‘No. The phones she has are mine and are on loan for as long as the project is going well, in accordance to visibility, buzz and fun. We’ve also given her some give-aways, such as wrist straps and software but nothing significant’. Charlie reveals that they did, however, sponsor her with ‘a very small sum’ for her art exhibition (Anina used Lifeblog and other Nokia products in an exhibition called ‘A New Kind of Supermodel’) ‘mostly to cover the increases in her data bill during the event,’ he adds. ‘The key thing is I need to let her do what she does and not pollute it with marketing money; then we [would be] polluting the authenticity of her enthusiasm. I lend the phones as a tool for her creativity’, Charlie is keen to add. This leaves me feeling a bit sad. Shouldn’t she be rewarded for her hard work? It sounds a bit like one person’s creative outlet is another’s free advertising.

What does the future hold for Anina, ps models and the Lifeblog project? Charlie says ‘Wherever she takes it. It’s her project not mine. I’m just helping out. The stuff she’s doing now really doesn’t have an end date. As long as she’s doing stuff I like, I’ll let her keep the phones’.

Stephan at ps models thinks the future looks promising and adds ‘In September during Paris Fashion Week, Nokia will sponsor “a fashion blogging conference” when we’ll find out exactly where it’s going and how big the Lifeblog community is getting.’ A community that apparently is being brought more closely together thanks to super geeky model Anina. She had a vision of her own corporation, clearly not a money driven one, but one that brings people together, working together as a team, connecting people. No pun intended. In Anina’s words ‘I’d love to come to a position economically where I can make my friends work and say “lets do this and that and here’s a budget for it”. I’d like to be a super model, encouraging young women to loose their techno-phobia and perhaps then they would start to chose computer sciences as a study and move more into the mobile industry [where] there will be many job opportunities.’

Anina reveals that she was actually told she was too old to ever become a supermodel, due to ‘starting late’. To that Anina confidently exclaims ‘Step aside!’. After hearing her story and sensing how big this “new kind of supermodel” (I’d rather call her super-woman) and her corporation might get wit h an attitude like that, I have to admit that a certain saying springs to my mind. If you can’t beat them, join them.

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A great big thanks to Josefin Skullbacka for contributing this article.
Josefin can be reached at: jskullbacka [at] gmail [dot] com .