Ideas Of India 3.0: Padma Lakshmi is a global icon who has years of experience in the travel and food industry. While many know her best as a TV host for cooking show 'Top Chef', the producer-host also spent a signifant part of her life as a model in her early 20s.
During a session titled 'Taste The Nation: Beauty, Diversity, Authenticity' on the second day of the third edition of ABP Network’s Ideas of India Summit, Emmy-nominated producer Padma Laskmi spoke at length about her docuseries 'Taste The Nation', relationship with her father, her modelling career and the insecurities she dealt with as a brown woman at the start of her career in the entertainment industry and more.
Here are excerpts from Padma Lakshmi's conversation with moderator and host Veer Sanhgvi on beginning a career in modelling, the entertainment industry and the insecurity that came with it.
On Modelling
"To me the models on the catwalk or the models in ad campaigns were just sort of a different species. And it was only when I left America and I went to Italy and started modeling there that I began to feel okay, maybe this is a viable career. But it was only because of what was again coming to me as opportunities and I had so many college loans and I had no way of knowing how the hell I was going to survive financially and support myself that I said, Okay, I said, okay to modeling.
I really have mixed feelings about modelling because I come from a very conservative South Indian family, and I'm very much my grandfather's child, you know, and so I was very concerned about how they would feel. And it was not the plan that I had for myself. I was a literature major, I was a theater major. And I never knew that this is what I would do, but it was the best opportunity that came to me so I had no choice but to take it and frankly, I was very thankful for it."
On Not Finding Herself As Beautiful
One thing I want to say, before I tell you about that is that all of the things in my life that I thought were impediments, or that made me different and so not as much of a saleable product or talent, those in the end were the things that really gave me success. And it's a hard lesson to learn as a young woman.
It's not easy to accept that when the world tells you differently, but I was lucky Helmut Newton was a German photographer who found me and insisted that I shoot with him. And I got this job. My agency was so excited because he was such a big artist. And then I found out I had to pose nude, and so I cancelled. I cancelled the job three days before because I was so nervous. I'd never done anything like that. And everybody was angry with me my agency, everybody. I thought they were gonna drop me and I just said, Look, I don't feel comfortable. And I had a boyfriend at the time who was Italian. He said, If you don't feel comfortable saying no, because the pictures won't come out. Well, anyway, so I turned the great Helmut Newton down. And then six weeks later, he called back and he said, Okay, it's not going to be nude. What if it's just topless and we position you i It's really your scar I want to show and you know, and I said, Okay, that's fine.
...And that really took me from being just a low level fit model to all of a sudden working a ton. I mean, it happened literally within three months. And all the same designers that were saying they didn't want me on their catwalk, and I could only be on their catwalk with long sleeves. Now they were saying they did want me and they wanted to make sure that I was in short sleeves, so that the scar would show because Helmut Newton made it cool. But one thing that that taught me is that standards of beauty are very arbitrary.
You know, when I was growing up in India, everyone would always say everybody in my family would try to feed me feed me feed me because I was so skinny. You know, I was this tall when I was 14, you can imagine in Chennai going to St. Michael's Academy, how that would have felt and when I was in America, there were completely different beauty standards. So I've always had to translate for myself. What is the right thing and it's usually somewhere in the middle. And I think this is an experience that every immigrant kid goes through. There's a lot of code switching, but none of us are the same person all the time. You're the You're the same. You know, Are you the same with your boss as you are with your wife or husband? Or are you the same with your children or use the same with your drinking buddies when no one's listening? We're all different versions of ourselves. And I think that lesson is well taught me how to be a little bit of a chameleon, and how to navigate each situation in a way that was most appropriate.
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Ideas Of India Summit
ABP Network's third Ideas Of India Summit is taking place in Mumbai on February 23 and 24. The summit aims to serve as a pivotal platform for comprehensive deliberations on 'The People's Agenda' in the lead-up to the very significant general elections in the world's largest democracy. Renowned luminaries representing diverse sectors will convene to delve into the multifaceted dimensions of India's socio-political landscape, reflecting the ethos of ABP Network's flagship initiative to foster nuanced discourse on Indian society and governance.