Model behaviour

The shocking death of supermodel Ruslana Korshunova at the weekend raises questions about how the fashion industry looks after its vulnerable young stars, writes Alice Wyllie

IT'S like a real-life fairy tale, but with one key element absent – the happy ending. On Saturday, just four days before her 21st birthday, Kazakhstani model Ruslana Korshunova jumped from her ninth-floor apartment in Manhattan's financial district.

At 2:30pm on a hot and humid afternoon, local residents and tourists witnessed Korshunova's shocking death as she fell to the pavement. A "loud crack" was reported by one passer-by as the young woman's body hit the ground. A medical examiner yesterday concluded she had taken her own life; even though she had left no suicide note there was no evidence of any struggle inside the model's apartment.

It was reported in the New York Post yesterday that in the early hours of Saturday morning, Korshunova had been dropped off at home by an ex-boyfriend, with whom she had spent the evening watching the film Ghost.

"She was a good person," said Artem Perchenok, 24, who confirmed he had been with her that night, while the apartment block's doorman observed that the model had returned home seeming not at all unhappy.

Korshunova was discovered in 2003, as a schoolgirl, when an in-flight magazine printed a story on a German language club in Almaty, Kazakhstan, her home town. Debbie Jones, a senior booker for Models 1 – the agency which has represented supermodels including Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Agyness Deyn – spotted Korshunova in a photograph accompanying the article and was struck by her astonishing looks. The hunt was on to track down the then 15-year-old girl.

"I saw her by chance and she looked like something out of a fairytale. We had to find her and searched high and low until we did," Jones told British Vogue in 2005. "She's really incredible, with feline features and timeless beauty."

Nicknamed "the Russian Rapunzel" thanks to her waist-length locks, Korshunova was soon being hailed as "fashion's muse of the moment", with British Vogue calling her "a face to be excited about". Coming from a country where women struggle for equality and archaic practices such as "bride stealing" still occur, it was a stellar rise to success.

While still just a teenager, Korshunova appeared on the cover of French Elle and Russian Vogue and featured in high-profile advertising campaigns for Marc Jacobs, Dior, DKNY, Paul Smith and Vera Wang lingerie, among others. However, her postings on a social networking website, alternately written in English and Russian, reveal a different story.

While one reads: "Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably … and never regret anything that made you smile," another, written three months ago reads: "I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?"

A friend of Korshunova from their home city had expressed shock at her sudden death, saying she had never gone down the route of drug-taking or wild living that is common in the fashion world.

While the life of a fashion model may appear to be the epitome of glamour, a London study last year found that they often have lower self-esteem and feel less fulfilled than people in other careers. The study of 56 models and 53 non-models found that the models felt more suspicious of other people, more disconnected and lonely, more impulsive and reckless, more intensely emotional and more self-centred.

"Models are often young girls from relatively normal backgrounds who've left their family at quite a young age, so they can be vulnerable if they're plunged into the modelling world without any support," says Michelle Coulter of Glasgow-based modelling agency The Look.

"In Scotland we encourage girls under 16 to take along a chaperone to a job, and if there are parties we'll suggest they bring a parent as their guest. It's vital that these girls' emotional wellbeing is monitored."

"She seemed on top of the world"; "There were no signs" and "She loved life so much" are typical comments from friends and acquaintances of Korshunova baffled by her death. Yet the world of modelling is an inherently shallow one, where young women are valued for little beyond their photogenic looks. It's quite possible that as an inhabitant of this rather cold environment, Korshunova, sadly, was not waving, but drowning.