sound advice

Bethann Hardison Has Some Choice Career Advice

Photo: MARK ABRAHAMS/courtesy of Document Journal

In the new issue of Document Journal, Liya Kebede interviews Bethann Hardison, the former model, agent, and now head of the Diversity Coalition. Her first job was selling buttons in the Garment District. “I was such a stylish girl, my boss thought when he hired me … so he used to send me to design houses to show off the merchandise. He thought I looked too good to be sitting in the factory all day,” Hardison says of her transition into modeling. When she met a fashion honcho named Bertie Ellis, she tells the magazine, “I went up to him, and I leaned over to his ear, and I said, ‘Listen, if you really want to have a great show, you’ll put me in it.’” (Kebede: “No! You did not do that, did you? That’s amazing.”) The gambit worked, of course.

Bethann Hardison Has Some Choice Career Advice