Carol Humtsoe

Although the fashion world isn’t all glitz and glamour behind the scenes, Carol Humtsoe has come a long way in just a span of three years of being around the Industry. In that short period, she has proved her worth as a model and gone where any aspiring model would dream to be.
The girl from Lakhuti village under Wokha district is the first Naga to have signed a contract with Elite Model Management, which is the world’s most prestigious modelling network and has formerly represented big names like Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Ujjwala Raut, Gisele Bunchen, Neha Kapur among others.
So, how did modelling happen to her? To start with, she says, “I wasn’t the most attractive baby out there, never looked pretty in pink, but it’s a twist of destiny that I grew into a model. I think I was in the 8th standard when the glamour bug bit me.”
Along the way, she picked it up and has definitely earned her place as an established model based in New Delhi with a good number of accomplishments to her credit. Among the many events Carol has been part of, she recalls with fondness her experience in Paris, which, she sums up as….“Paris in a breath of second, I was chosen as a model to go there for the biggest hair competition in the world. It was one week of paradise.”
Quite obviously, she has done several shoots for India Fashion Week previews besides been featured in Fashion magazines both nationally and internationally. Modelling, she says, is “a fun job, but not without hard-work. It is a job at the end of the day. The studio is our workplace or sometimes it’s in places like Ladakh or Paris, work happens anywhere.”
She insists on ‘learning’ through all her professional experiences and even though she has worked with a lot of different people in the field, she is particularly delighted to have worked with amazing photographers (as she puts it) including Tarun Vishwa, Anushka Menon, Rahul Dutta, Charudutt Chitrak, Ashish Chawla etc and designers such as Varun Bahl, Atsu Sekhose, Abdul Halder to name a few.
She says she has enjoyed working with everyone, but makes special mention of a recent film she did with Balaji telefilms, Kya superkool hai hum. “It was my first movie in Bollywood and I had a lot of fun”, she says.
When asked what it takes to get where she is today, she simply states, “Patience in a word. But apart from that, not eating what you want to, taking care of your health, a lot of passion to see you through a dull day and yes, sincerity to your job.”
So, is she living her childhood dream? The bubbly, confident model, who describes herself as “pretty basic, on the go and fun loving” expresses, “I was pretty clueless as a child and I think I have come a long way from where it started. I may not be living the classic dream but I want to believe that I am on the way...”
When it comes to fashion in the State, Carol feels Nagaland has a lot of potential. “People outside our State are inspired by our fashion sense, I think it’s time the Government supports the fashion boom. It is serious business all over the world, we should cash on it too.”
She thinks “we are quite trendy” even as she observes that Nagas are on the dot in terms of clothes. “We take risks and it’s not only the young people as such, everyone is fun to watch,” she says.
As for her, she sees herself around the fashion industry even five years from now, maybe modelling still or maybe not. “I don’t mind being a business woman. Maybe I will open a store,” she adds.
In another interview, Carol had said, “It is not easy to be an oriental looking model in the Indian modelling scene...my looks are far from the conventional look, so that was and is still my biggest challenge but only losers give up and I am not one. The fact is that my passion is stronger than my setback.”
Her passion, I believe, is the force that has driven her thus far.