COULD THIS BE THE NEXT SUPERMODEL?

Ashely Suliman - 5'11, at age 14. No that's not a typo.

She's stands 5'11, sports a size two dress, and is probably the envy of every young teenage girl out there. Who is she and what does she do? Well, this Jr. Amazon woman goes by the name Ashley Suliman, and at the tender age of 14, she may very well be on her way to becoming the supermodel of the new millennium.

For Ashley, the dream of becoming a model began at a very young age. "I didn't think it was possible," she says smiling to our cameras. "I didn't know how to get there."

So the million-dollar question is how did Ashley get there?

According to Steve Young, president of Canoe Girl Productions, "The answer is in the stars. The planets were lined up because everything that could have gone right, went right."

For this Maui girl, destiny began with a regular family trip to the beach. It was at that beach that a local modeling agent from Hawaii Sports Models scouted her.

"Unfortunately I couldn't get any work at that time from Hawaii Sports Models," Ashley recalls. "I wasn't right for that market at the time."

A year later, Steve Young, bored through the midnight, turned on his computer and surfed into the Hawaii Sports Models website in search for models who could participate in an upcoming event. He contacted the agency the next day and soon after, received pictures of potential models. Immediately taking notice of Ashley, Young forwarded the photos to his contacts at New York Model Management, sister agency to the renowned west coast modeling agency, L.A. Models. The agency's reaction was instantaneous and they rushed to sign Ashley. The agency's president, Heinz Holba, even went to the lengths of flying to Maui to meet with her parents to introduce the idea of modeling into their family.

"I was surprised on how down to earth he (Heinz Holba) was. You hear horror stories about stuck up fashion people can be," Mike Suliman, Ashley's father said.

The entire family then sat down together and made the family decision to follow Ashley's dreams of becoming a professional model.

Ashley and family from left, Ashley, Troi, and CJ Suliman.

"We wanted to make sure that she understood that this was a business and not a hobby," Mike said. "That she understood that people, businesses, would be making an investment into her, and she had to be responsible about it."

One month later, Ashley was in L.A. participating in the L.A. Model search sponsored by L.A. LOOKS. She was the runner up and won a $30,000.00 modeling contract from L.A. Models.

And now, the billion-dollar question; is Ashley a wealthy 14 year-old that all of us should envy or maybe even loathe? We'll, let me say this first off…if you feel the need to loathe any 14 year-old supermodel or not, you have problems. Secondly, she's not wealthy, not even close. See, what a lot of people fail to understand about the modeling industry is that the start up costs to becoming a professional model is extremely expensive. Compare it to starting a business; there are dues that need to be paid. To start, there's air travel, model portfolios, model housing expenses, cutting into a paycheck that is already depleted by agency fees and taxes. Work for a beginning model also does not pay very well as work can be done for as little as twenty-five dollars just to generate publicity or reputation in the modeling industry. It's the gauntlet that all models must pace through before running in the glitz and glamour of the modeling industry.

Here's the only photo of Ashley's dad that we have.

"It's been tough," Mike says. "The money isn't there yet and Ashley began home schooling to dedicate a little more time to modeling so her social life has suffered a little. But her mom has been doing a great job managing her career."

What's Ashley's take on the modeling industry?

"It's fun. I feel very fortunate that I'm doing things that I dreamt about all my life," Ashley smiles.

"I'm hoping she makes it. She's level headed and with her being very close to her family, hopefully she'll stay that way. The modeling industry needs a positive role model like her," Young says.

Be on the look out for this young girl in the May issue of Seventeen and YM Magazine. Aside from modeling, Ashley resides on the board of directors for an upcoming anti-tobacco event, Generation Life.

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