Serinda Swan Face of Guess

Everyone will be asking Serinda Swan for the time.
Swan has accumulated five or six Guess watches as one of the four winners of the Guess watches Faces to Watch Model Search. The Vancouver native was chosen out of 75,000 global applicants in more than 70 countries (1,350 in Canada) and will star with three others, two males and another female model (there was a tie in both female and male categories) in the holiday ad campaign to be shot next month in Los Angeles.
She is an actor/model and the only Canadian. There is Darina of Russia, Samuele of Italy and Christiaan of Holland.
Guaranteed, Swan is the only Serinda among the contestants, who didn't necessarily have to be professional models.
She was named Serinda after an ancient Tibetan instrument.
"It is a wind instrument like a flute," Swan explains during an interview at the Guess store at Yonge and Dundas. "But I've never tracked one down."
Where her parents by any chance hippies?
"Yes," she laughs. "My dad is a director and my mom was a hippie. My sister is Ariel, named after a character in Shakespeare."
The requisites for the Guess Face were "a natural sexiness, an original look and an element of adventure." Swan has all of the above and an extra pair of pants.
She is gorgeous, only 22 but incredibly well-spoken and self-possessed. She good-naturedly endures having watches taped to her arms. At least the arms will be fuzz free.
"It's a new waxing technique," she quips.
When she heard that she'd beaten out 74,997 applicants, her reaction was, "Ohmigosh, are you serious?"
There is an improbable fairy godmother aspect to her win. Swan never set out to enter the contest. It was serendipitous.
"I am a Guess shopper," she swears. "I was in the store one day and I bought jeans and a T-shirt and this salesperson gave me an application. I'm a shopaholic. I came back the next week and she gave me another one. I didn't think much of it and both of them sat on my counter in the kitchen till the last day. I called my boyfriend (Michael, a real estate agent) and said, `Stick one in an envelope and send it off.'"
After she'd made it to the finals, she wanted to find her benefactor.
"I put up a note in the store `Do you know who this person is?' I want to get her a watch or buy her flowers."
How does Michael feel about Swan getting hot and heavy posing with Mr. Guess Face?
"He is fine with it," she swears. "Even when I do love scenes (in acting), he says, `You come home to me, babe.'"
And he was more than supportive during the contest.
"I was in Switzerland (as one of the 20 finalists attending the Basel World Watch and Jewellery Show for the final component of the judging) when I found out I'd won and he sent out a mass email to my friends. When I got home, there was a massive celebration and he did the boasting for me."
Sigh, what a guy. No way can she dump him now that she is going to be plastered on billboards and featured in ad campaigns worldwide. Besides, he's in real estate. She'll always have a roof over her head.
"He's going to help me buy a house," she admits.
Swan is an actor/model but acting is her real passion. She has been acting since she was 3.
"My mom (Michele Goodger) is an actor," she explains. "Joel Schumacher was casting for Cousins, the Ted Danson movie. He saw me and said, `I want her in my movie.' I did lots of stuff with mom."
Mom appeared in Sliders, X-Files, 21 Jump Street and played the mother on The Black Stallion, thereby making her daughter the envy of the kids at school.
How times have changed. These days the kids would be all over her about Mom acting with Johnny Depp in Jump Street.
"I stopped acting because I was heavily into gymnastics," Swan says. She started modelling when she was 14.
"I got off modelling at 17 to see how my body was developing and to see whether I would have to endure rigorous diets (to model)."
She says she never diets and is a size 26 to 27 in jeans. "I eat healthy; I did gymnastics for 11 years and was super active. I'm getting a puppy on Wednesday and I'll run after the puppy."
She went back to modelling at 19. "I dabbled at it but acting is my passion. My agent found me while I was working in a restaurant a year and a half ago. I was a waitress at Cactus Club in Vancouver and modelling.
``I do commercials, TV and I support myself as an actor: I'm not an actor/waitress/dog walker. I just finished the film Loch Ness."
She also played The Pretty Young Woman (do we smell typecasting?) in an episode of Blood Ties.
Swan didn't go shopping to celebrate her win. She didn't have to make a conscious effort. She is in a constant state of consumption.
"I love shoes. And purses. I have 80 or 90 pairs of jeans," she confesses sheepishly. "I'm really a typical Guess girl: She has the playful style, but is still sexy and edgy. I can do rock chick with high-top Converse but I go for a fun, flirty, sexy look."
She likes vintage. "I shop Holt Renfrew; I like a nice mix of high end and vintage – a $5 shirt with $400 jeans. You just have to be confident."
Being a Guess girl kick-started the careers of Claudia Schiffer, Carrie Otis, Eva Herzigova and Anna Nicole Smith.
Where does she want this to take her?
"I don't know," she says. "My greatest expectation has come true: to represent Guess. I think the girls represent extreme beauty, extreme health – not the real thin bodies. I love the clothes and how they make me look. We have bums and curves; we go in at the waist and out at the hips like a natural woman."
And for something completely different, Paul Marciano, CEO, creative director and designer of Guess, didn't want Swan to drop an ounce, which endeared him to her even more than choosing her as a watch Face.
"After I won, Paul Marciano asked me what size I was and 26, 27 is quite large. He said `27 is great, don't lose weight.' When in this industry are you told not to lose weight? It was a defining moment. I am not dreading the photo shoot in mid June in L.A. I'll just go and be myself and have fun."
Swan has no insecurity about her weight. It's her height, 5 feet 8 inches, that bothers her.
"I have a short, short complex. I am too short for runway. I did runway for Aritzia and there was a 5 foot 11 inch girl who was 13. At 14, I was a beanpole and 5 foot 8 and I didn't grow!"
Her role model is her mom.
"She is one of the strongest women I've met and she is completely selfless. I am planning to go down the road following in her footsteps."
As for fashion influences, Swan is egalitarian.
"I look at fashion magazines and I extract things from them. My favourite fashion designer is Paul Marciano," she says either like a born diplomat or a born Guess girl.
Guess watches range from $125 to $265. Taping them to your arms is optional.

http://www.thestar.com/article/214688

There she is: one of the two female winners of Marciano's worldwide hunt for the face of Guess watches. I'm not surprised at all as his women are usually sultry blonds like Anna Nicole or blue eyed brunettes such as Bree Conden.