Model Ruslana Korshunova spoke of feeling “lost” and “hurt” in the months before she plunged to her death from her ninth floor flat in New York. Ruslana was just 20-year-old, three days shy of her 21st birthday. She was a very promising model who has appeared in French Vogue and Russian Vogue magazine.
Ruslana poured her heart out in her postings on the internet for months before her death. One of her postings quoted by the New York Daily News, she wrote: “It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out.” One cryptic entry in March reads: “My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high.”
Her death is the latest to rock the fashion world which is often criticised for the pressures and demands it can place on models.
In February, the body of Katoucha Niane, the former supermodel muse of Yves Saint Laurent, was found in the Seine near Paris after an apparent suicide.
Over the past two years, a number of South American models have died of suspected malnutrition, prompting international debate about eating disorders and “size zero” models.
May she rest in peace.
