Iowa-born Maggie is just 17 years old but it feels like she's been in the industry for years. Maybe that's because her surname, Jablonski, is by some strange coincidence one that's shared with two other top models: Jacquelyn Jablonski and Victoria's Secret Angel Constance Jablonski. She's certainly not your average American teen; by the time she was 14, she had appeared in a Prada campaign. You get the sense she's seen it all. 'It's weird going home sometimes where to most people, prom is the biggest thing,' she says. For the record, she has been to one. She wore a Marc Jacobs gown.
That said, she's hasn't abandoned Iowa for New York or Paris. 'I'm still in high school. Junior year is hard. I'm doing physics, Spanish, government, British literature, and lots of other difficult classes, so I have to prioritise being there,' she says. 'I'd like to go to college, I'm just not sure when, where, or maybe even why. All the big questions.'
Her education has come through modelling. 'I was scouted when I was 12 so I had to grow up really quickly. I cringe when I think back to the first time I turned up in New York. I was with my parents and I was wearing Miss Me jeans with the jewels on the butt and horrible wedges,' she laughs. Now she's sometimes allowed to travel alone – 'My parents are getting to the point where they're kind of letting me go' – and she's enjoying more license to make mistakes and experiment than many models before her may have had. 'There are girls with pink hair now. Ten, maybe 15 years ago, people would have been like, "Are you for real?" I just chopped my hair and I feel fun. It's so much more me,' she says of her wild dark brown curls, a far cry from the straight dark blonde locks from her early photographs. It's a cut that has personality, something Maggie has plenty of. Her agent, France Chiacchio, says of her, '[She's] the most mature teenager I know – always the centre of a conversation without ever sounding arrogant.'
Despite the travel and socialising with older industry stalwarts, her icons are either close to home – 'My mum and my two sisters' – or teenagers like her. She cites Paki- stani activist Malala Yousafzai as an inspiration. 'She makes me feel like I shouldn't be sitting on the couch, that I need to get my butt up and do something! It's inspiring look- ing up to people my own age.' She's also finding a wealth of inspiration within the mod- elling world and wants to explore her potential to do good. 'I like to look at people like Christy Turlington, who is giving back with her amazing charity work. I've realised that modelling is an incredible platform.'
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