Meet this week’s Campus Celebrity, model Jebbeh Givens. For the past two years, Jebbeh has been modeling with Towson’s own JSM Models (also known as Je Suis La Mode). Between attending fashion shows with famous celebrity hosts such as Taraji P. Henson and Jaslene Gonzales (America’s Next Top Model Season 8 Winner) and walking the runway for audiences of as many as 500 members, Jebbeh knows what is going on in the fashion industry. While her favorite designers are Louis Vuitton and Michael Kohrs, she describes her own personal fashion style as a blend of fierce urban chic with an eighties vibe thrown in. Recently, her favorite fashion trend has been edgy leather jackets and sleek all black clothing. On the other hand, she says she’d rather be caught dead then caught wearing either legwarmers, “They are like footless socks with no purpose and they definitely don’t look good” or fanny packs, “That doesn’t even need to be explained.”
While many girls look up to models for being pretty and fashionable, models also have negative stereotypes of being stuck up divas. However, Jebbeh says if that was true she wouldn’t be in the industry and that her favorite part is the friends she made on the Towson Modeling Team. The one thing she wishes to change about the modeling industry is how it can make people view their bodies negatively if they don’t fit the thin modeling standard and says, “That’s why I like the Towson modeling team, they take people with all different body shapes and sizes.”
Besides modeling, Jebbeh is a full-time sophomore majoring in Speech Pathology and minoring in Deaf studies. She also is very active and involved in both on and off-campus activities. In addition to being a licensed cosmetologist, Jebbeh also participates in community service. Jebbeh is an active member of the American Sign Language Club, and volunteers for the Center of Adults with Autism. In the future, she has aspirations to become an accomplished speech pathologist, open her own salon, work at Gallaudet University, and wants to stay in Maryland. Jebbeh’s final advice for those trying to be successful in the modeling industry is to, “Just be confident, and whatever you do, never doubt yourself.”