Last fall, Yodel Anecdotal received quite an unusual email:

“Hello - I wanted to leave a comment here about how Yahoo! has changed my life! I was homeless, living on $35 a week, sleeping on friends’ couches, and eating dollar menu in New York City, pursuing a career as a petite model. Without a computer of my own, I started using the Apple Store as my office in February of 2005. I organized my thoughts and experiences, struggles, and pursuits into a document that I saved to my free Yahoo! account. I am editing and publishing my memoir, Almost 5’ 4’’, which is about being the underdog in modeling and striving no matter the odds. Isobella”

But in this short email, Isobella Jade couldn’t hope to explain all the details of her one-of-a-kind story, which began when she was a struggling 19-year-old model. As a student at the New York Institute of Technology, she went from photo shoot to class to track practice to photo shoot. It was only time before Isobella’s mother found nude pictures of her daughter on the Internet. Ultimately, Isobella changed her birth name and decided to pursue modeling after graduation without looking back.

Isobella used the Net to self-promote, and decided that before her 25th birthday, she would be a published author, writing about the experiences of being an aspiring model, trying to break into the fashion industry, and being only 5’4’’ at that. Living out of a suitcase, she wrote her memoir (standing in heels between shoots) at the Apple Store on Prince St. in SoHo (check out the video they helped her make) and saved her work to her Yahoo! Mail account. And now, months shy of her self-imposed deadline, Isobella Jade’s work Almost 5’ 4’’: Confessions of an Unconventional Model is available at Borders and Amazon.com.

“Unlike some girls scouted to model or raised around fashion and glamorous life, modeling for me started with curiosity when I discovered a free Internet modeling site and it evolved into me becoming my own business,” Isobella said when we spoke on the phone.

She said she didn’t always have Yahoo! in her life. “My first email was on AOL, but when I started going for my dream I couldn’t afford AOL. I discovered Yahoo!, and suddenly saving my work, my rejection letters, my acceptances, everything, was one less thing to worry about.”

How's life for her now? She's finding success as a "body parts" (think knees, shoulders, and elbows) model and getting plenty of notice, but life is still a flurry. “I’m doing more legit work now [from a shoe ad campaign to doubling for a Christina Ricci movie poster], but I’m still rushing arund,” she said.

And as for Mom? “The book captures a time when our relationship was not so great. My mother is a teacher, and it was difficult for her to cope with me pursuing a career that has to do with my body. But now our relationship is great. She’s very, very proud.”

As she should be. Congrats, Isobella!

Doreen Bloch
Yahoo! Intern