Model in swine flu lockdown
Chris Garry | 18th June 2009
AFTER wowing the New York fashion industry, Ipswich's own international model has returned home to be quarantined because of a swine flu scare.
Sixteen-year-old starlet Nikita Russ is not believed to have the virus but must stay in her home for seven days because she travelled from North America where the influenza has killed 45 people.
She will have just 48 hours to catch up with school friends and finish her mid-year exams before she jets off for a modelling shoot in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday.
“It's frustrating, because I have been away for so long and all I've had is Facebook and Skype to contact my friends,” Nikita said.
“The school won't let me in because I may have swine flu.”
Thankfully Nikita will still be able attend her year 12 formal this Friday and, as might be expected, she's had no trouble finding a date.
Nikita's journey to catwalk stardom began when she won the Tamblyn Models Young Model Discovery Competition after entering a heat at Booval Shopping Fair.
She said she was still a normal 16-year-old Ipswich girl even though she's believed to be the only teenager in Australia signed to Ford Models, one of the world's leading model agencies.
Nikita spent the past six weeks overlooking New York's Central Park from a five-star hotel, where she stayed with a group of young models from the Ford stable.
The humble and strikingly beautiful Ipswich Girls' Grammar student said being an international model was never her dream and she still wanted to attend university to study architecture.
“This was not something I really thought would happen, but now that it has I love it and definitely want to be a fashion model,” she said.
Nikita's mother, Erica Russ, said she was extremely proud of her daughter.
“People have always commented on how beautiful Nikita is and she has always had a unique style that's captured people's attention,” Mrs Russ said.
“But I never thought she would become an international model, it's happened very quickly and it's still very foreign to me.”
