Sporting denim shorts and a loose black T-shirt, Laura warmly opened doors to her apartment in South Jakarta’s Kuningan. Her long black hair was tied up in a simple bun.

Instead of taking a seat on the couch, she chose to sit on the rug next to the window facing the apartment’s tennis court, stretching her long legs, leaning her slender 1.81-meter tall body on the couch’s arm. “I always like sitting on the floor like this,” she said, smiling.

People often believe she is of Indian or Arabic origin due to her dark skin tones, while in fact she is of Chinese descent. “My grandpa is 1.90 meters tall and has dark skin,” says Laura.

She recalled how she got herself into the modeling world as I joined her on the floor.

Laura, who was born Maria Agnes Laurencia Alexandra Muljadi on Jan. 21, 1985, in Jakarta, got her first modeling job when she was only 14 and offered to do a photo shoot for an Indonesian magazine.

“That was the only thing I did at that time because my parents really did not want me to do more at the time. They wanted me to concentrate on my studies. My dad worried that it would distract me,” she says.

She signed on at a modeling school when she was 17, but with the intention of improving her posture.

“I was taller than most girls and had dark skin. I didn’t have much confidence, so my parents decided to send me to a modeling school like other girls who were as tall as me.”

While her mom was a bit more flexible on the modeling, her dad was not happy.

“He always said that there are two types of women, no matter where you come from. The beautiful ones and the smart ones,” Laura explains.

“He was probably worried about my future. Not only modeling, he forbade me to do other things like sports because he was afraid that I would get bigger and darker.”

She decided to forget about modeling as she had earned a scholarship to study at the Hogeschool Inholland Diemen in the Netherlands, majoring in international communications management in 2003. She was 82 kilograms at the time.

It turned out that her move to the Netherlands was the turning point of her life as her modeling career started there.

She was working in a restaurant as a waitress and one of the customers was the owner of the Favourite Model modeling agency, Emilie Bouwman.

“She came to the restaurant a couple of times and said if I could lose weight in six months then she could sign me up as a part-time model,” says Laura, adding that she had to lose more than 30 kg.

Driven to earn more money to support her life in the Netherlands, Laura struggled to get the skinny model figure.

“It was so difficult because I come from a family that loves to eat. I had never dieted before. I did not know how to do it and I did not have friends that were actually in the [modeling] industry,” she goes on.

She went to see a doctor and did a couple of tests to find a diet that might suit her.

She started not chewing anything, even candy, in order to help her metabolism, reduced her daily intake, stopped drinking coffee, jogged a lot and took yoga and pilates classes.

And voila! After six months, she amazingly lost 33 kilograms. After a series of steps, she was officially signed up as a part-time model.

“Never in my life did I dream of being a model and working in this kind of industry,” Laura says.

Laura says that she learned many things from Bouwman. “I owe her so much because she saw something in me and boosted my motivation. Sometimes I still email her to tell her what I am doing.”

After finishing her studies, Laura, who was a finalist in the 2006 Puteri Indonesia beauty pageant, came back to Indonesia at the end of 2007 and planned to take a break for a year before taking her masters in England.

But she has stayed longer than she ever expected. She sealed a job at a TV station before finally going back to modeling.

Laura gained some weight to get modeling jobs at home since she was considered to be too skinny by local standards.

“If I am too skinny it is difficult to find a job because the market here is different. The customers want to see the clothes as if they would wear them. They need proper bodies. Here, I can eat normally,” she says, chuckling.

In the land of lighter-skinned models, Laura’s unique features, exceptional beauty and a photogenic face quickly caught fashion enthusiasts’ attention, turning her into one of the most sought-after models.

She became the best model (designer’s choice) at the 2009 Jakarta Fashion Week, earned a talented new model award at the 2010 Amica Awards and became an icon of the Jakarta Fashion and Food Festival (JFFF) in 2010.

Laura shares her thoughts on the differences between being a fashion model in Europe and in Indonesia, saying that modeling is not easy in Europe.

“The process of becoming a model there is difficult. Because they have tight competition and no matter who you are, unless you are an international top A-class model, you always have to go for a casting. It is so difficult even to get a photo shoot for a magazine,” she says.

“Here, if the designer knows you, you just need to do the re-measurement.”

As for the job itself, in Europe, people respect each other since everyone has an important role and everyone is equal.

“Here, if you have a name, you tend to be snobbish, forget to respect others. Without a makeup artist, you will not look like this,” she says firmly.

She denies that modeling is only about the glamor. “It’s so far from it. A lot of models in Jakarta do things like other people do. They take an ojek (motorbike taxi) because models cannot be late.”

Despite her experience, Laura still gets nervous before strutting her stuff on the runway.

“Actually, I’m a panicky person and everyone knows that,” she says, adding that she is still trying to overcome the nerves.

She tends to eat or drink when she is nervous before a show. “I’m not panicking because of going onto the stage, it is more about satisfying myself,” she says.

“Not only in modeling, I panic in other things too, like making a booking for a holiday.”

Laura tries to do other things besides modeling. She applied as a volunteer at the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) and got accepted, but she had to give it up due to her hectic modeling schedule.

She later landed another opportunity of becoming a volunteer at a non-profit children’s group named Sahabat Anak and since then she has been volunteering for the organization, teaching the kids.

It seems like her social activities have caught her dad’s attention, showing him that what she has been doing in the modeling world can be useful for others too.

Laura reveals that even now, she still struggles to convince her dad that she is doing the right thing.

“When I became the icon of JFFF in Kelapa Gading [North Jakarta], the place where I grew up, it was the turning point for my parents, as they began to think that I was taking the job seriously,” she says.

Her father, she adds, was afraid that if she was in the industry too long, it would change her mentality, the way she behaved and the way she thought.

“There is a stereotype that being a model is not a positive role model. It’s not about the job, it’s more about the person,” she stresses.

“One thing I promise them is that I will never disrespect the family name because it’s part of me.”

The clock showed four in the afternoon when we finished the interview.

She slipped on blue jeans, white tee, black vest and ballerina shoes to meet fashion designer Priyo Octaviano at his workshop in Lamandau, South Jakarta.

She called an ojek driver and without hesitation hopped on, waving a goodbye to me. “It is faster to take an ojek during the rush hour. Sorry, if I talked too much. Bye,” she said, smiling.

— Photos by Triwik Kurniasari —

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