Cameron Russell has spent most of the last decade posing as a successful fashion model. Occasionally she writes about grassroots public art and political power, and experiments with making art for the internet and the street. She is the director of The Big Bad Lab which creates participatory art and media platforms dedicated to including people in radical demonstrations of positive social change. That’s some resume for a fashion model.

This bio makes Cameron Russell a Smart Sensuality woman: smart, sexy and with heart.

The model recently gave this franky and refreshing TedX MidAtlantic talk about being a model.

“I felt very uncomfortable to come out here and say, Look, I’ve received all these benefits from a deck stacked in my favor,” she says after engaging the crowd with a fashion attire change from sexy fashionista to beautiful social activist. “And it also felt really uncomfortable to follow that up with, And it doesn’t always make me happy. But mostly it was difficult to unpack a legacy of gender and racial oppression when I am one of the biggest beneficiaries.”

Three key points hit home with me, listening to Russell speak with nervous earnestness, almost as if she knew her sincerity was under scrutiny in the TED supporters limelight.

Images of a Real Young Woman Cameron Russell

In one segment of her presentation, the model revealed that she hadn’t started menstruation when she did her her first swimwear shoot for Allure. These words and visuals danced around the topic of the sexualization of young women — an obsession of the fashion world. On the left is the glossy model image of Cameron. On the right is another picture taken of her in the same year.

In this very dramatic contrast of real versus fake imagery, the pictures below were taken the same day, with Cameron’s best friend coming with her to the fashion shoot. With all my work in fashion — although at VS we always insisted that the models be 18 years old — I am astounded.