LAKSHMI MENON
Lakshmi Menon stands out on a runway, and not just because of her russet-colored skin, cascading locks, full lips, arched eyebrows and long limbs. It’s because, at age 26, India’s next major model oozes character and that elusive quality that movie people call “presence.”
“You have to have personality to make clothes shine,” Menon muses in her Paris apartment overlooking the rooftops of the chic 8th arrondissement. Having walked in 29 shows this past runway season, including Carolina Herrera in New York, Alessandro Dell’Acqua in Milan and Hermès, Givenchy and Stella McCartney in Paris, Menon is certainly a hot property. She also has appeared in ads for Givenchy, where she joined fellow top models Maria Carla Boscono, Natasha Poly, Lara Stone and Kirsten Owen, and for Hermès, which used her for fall’s India themed campaign.
Yet Menon is alert to being typecast. “People don’t understand ethnicity, they exoticize it,” she says. “Someone even asked me if I rode to school on an elephant.”
Hailing from Kerala in the southern part of India, she grew up in Bangalore and earned a degree in economics. Her mother is a teacher and her father was in the army, and she has a younger brother who is studying in Australia. “I had a sort of gypsy existence,” she reminisces, but “home is definitely India. Living there is like a big community. That is what India is about—a relationship with a community.”
When she isn’t shooting editorial for French Vogue (she was photographed by Mario Testino for the October issue), she relaxes at home in Bangalore or at the house she shares with her photographer boyfriend in Goa, where she practices Iyengar yoga. “A holistic and meaningful existence is very important,” she says.
While following in the steps of Ujjwala Raut, the first Indian supermodel, Menon also breaks with convention. For one, she isn’t a Bollywood film star, and she’s older than the crop of 14- to 16-year-olds who usually crowd the runways.
Menon believes her maturity, and a down-to-earth and pragmatic view she says is inherent in India’s work culture, is what makes her an in-demand model. She has been on the cover of L’Officiel in India as well as the launch issue of Indian Vogue, and is represented by the agencies Ford, Storm and also Nathalie in France. Menon cites fellow models Savio Jon and Anamika Khanna as ones to watch.
For visitors to India, she recommends the stores Zoha and Trick in Mumbai, and from her hometown of Bangalore, the Grasshopper restaurant is a must. Menon speaks fondly of her home, and her dark eyes light up when she talks about the different places to visit. “It’s not just Rajasthan,” she says. “You know India is more than that.”
—NATASHA MONTROSE