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Look Book: The Coastguardsman Turned Model

Photo: Lucas Michael/New York Magazine

Jamila Loubriel, Model

What kind of model are you?
My full-time gig right now is at the Art Students League­—I pose for artists. I just finished modeling for a ten-week sculpture class: I had to do the same pose five times a week for ten weeks, three hours at a time. And I was standing on one foot.

You’re kidding me!
I did lots of stretching beforehand, lots of breathing, and I meditate. I just try to take myself somewhere else in my head, you know? Like, to the beach. I was just in Hawaii, so lately I’ve been bringing those images up in my head. But for that sculpture class, I think I did maybe push myself a little too hard—I actually ended up breaking my ankle soon afterward. I think it was related.

That is so intense.
Going through boot camp when I was in the Coast Guard was the hardest experience of my life. But being sculpted has been one of the best—to get to see myself be immortalized was amazing.

Lightning Round:
Neighborhood: Fort Greene.
Roommates: One. “I met her at the Art Students League. She was painting me.”
Hometown: Dothan, Alabama.
Years in New York: Two.
Exercise: “I bike every day.”
Favorite New York beach: Brighton Beach. “I’m really into Russian food and culture.”
Future plans: “I just got accepted to Parsons’s B.F.A. program.”
Dream job: “Getting to play Halle Berry in a biopic.”

*This article appears in the August 11, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.

Look Book: The Coastguardsman Turned Model