Miami Living Magazine features the best Miami has to offer. Click on any magazine below and enjoy. You can download our free app on iTunes. Ideal for iPad and iPhone users.
Issue link: https://digital.miamilivingmagazine.com/i/1039286
Growing up, modeling was never on Christie's radar. Born in Michigan and raised in Los Angeles, when Christie was younger, she'd cut up fashion magazines and glue them together the way she thought they should be. If anything, Christie, who was always interested in the arts, thought she would be an art director. Seeking independence, she moved to Paris, France for school and worked as an artist at Air France drawing palm trees, elephants, and such on their maps. "I was studying art at this really cool atelier art studio school where some of the best artists would come in, look over your shoulder, give you pointers while you worked with the live model. It was great. I was like, 'Well, I'll do a couple of jobs, pay for my sick dog.' One thing led to the next and I just kept being curious… Then, they wanted, right off the bat, me to do a ski trip with Glamour magazine and I just said, 'Wow, OK!'" While she was living in France, she met with Sports Illustrated's Jule Campbell at a go-see in Los Angeles, and received a call back. "I had a perm in my hair that was so bad that I had all my hair hidden under a beret. And she said she just couldn't forget the girl in the beret and she wanted me to do it," she recollects about her start with the magazine. During her second year working with SI, Christie, who had only ever done women's magazines, landed the cover —exposing her to the other half of the population: men. Modeling took her to exotic locations all over the world —from Seychelles and Madagascar to Kenya with the elephants, and Captiva Island. "Just to be able to have those experiences and to be with the team up at sunrise, and there until the stars come up, until the last ray of light, I loved spending my day like that. I loved being with the whole team," she reminisces. "But when I got to do that with my daughters, even though it wasn't the place where nobody's been, it was still that kind of magic team work, being so aware of the light and just the scenery around you. It's a really special thing."