Barefoot in jeans and a white T-shirt, her blond hair pulled back loosely in a ponytail, model Erin Timm opens her latest portfolio of high-fashion glamour shots.
As she pages through the book, the stories tumble out.There's the glitzy shot of her taken in Paris that made it into French Vogue, a job she landed her first day in France.
The photo of Timm in a red-orange outfit was shot in Sierra Leone, Africa, where she spent nine days in the jungle and slept in a hut made of bamboo, leaves and bush, with lizards crawling about. "That was a major experience in cultural differences," she says.
Reclining in a leopard-skin-patterned swimsuit for a picture that appeared in Inside Sports magazine meant a trip to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The shot of her looking ultra-sophisticated in an off-the-shoulder black and white polka-dot dress for designer Givenchy appeared in fashion mags all over the world.
Her career has taken her around the world, to Japan and Germany ("It's where models go to make money") and to Paris and Italy ("That's where you go to build up your book, but you don't make much money").
It began simply. A fresh-faced, slightly bored 17-year-old high school student wandered into a career day session on modeling to meet the male model. She caught the eye of agent Arlene Wilson.
Since then, Timm has built a successful career as a pretty face with "a look."
But behind the beautiful pictures, there's another side of the modeling business. It, too, has become part of the portfolio of experience that Timm carries with her.
It's the story of bulimia and eating disorders that trapped Timm as part of demands that she first lose, then gain, weight. She tells the story of a demanding, "I'm-going-to-make-you-a-star" photographer who told her how to talk, walk and dress and convinced her that she was too fat and then too thin.
"I didn't realize it, but he was screwing with my mind and was very controlling," she says.
She managed to beat bulimia by researching the disease and attending personal development seminars to get to know herself better.
Modeling brings with it considerable travel and loneliness. There's also a constant preoccupation with looks and striving for physical perfection. Timm says the pressure is tremendous.
"I saw girls my age do drugs, drinking and dating men much older and getting into big trouble," she says.
She's grateful she didn't get caught in all of that, something she attributes to her strong sense of family and Midwestern roots.
Now 23 and the mother of a 9-month-old son, Timm continues to model in Chicago, the Midwest and beyond. She's taking acting lessons and hopes to do more commercials.
When she's not traveling, she spends time with her parents, who live in Delavan, Wis. She also shares her story through appearances at area high schools.
"I don't bash the business. I just talk about my experience," she says. "I've seen the glamorous side, but I've also been in the hole throwing up. I know both ends and I can deal with it now."
What she tells high school girls is that it's important for them to find out who they are, rather than to be fixed on what they look like.
"You have to be yourself," she says, something that she's still working on. And if girls do run into problems with eating disorders, or anything else, it's OK to admit the problem and get help.
In spite of her warning, though, girls still seek Timm after her talks asking how they, too, can become models.
Modeling is not something you can study and there's no sure way into the business, she says. "Mostly, it's a fluke. And everyone has a funny story about how they got into the business."
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service