The first thing that strikes you about "singer/songwriter iconic model/muse & creative designer" Viktoria Modesta is the air of inevitability.
At the age of 23, the Latvian model has graced the covers of Bizarre and SkinTwo, featured in numerous advertising campaigns, and overcome personal challenges that would test even the strongest wills. She has been crowned winner of the Channel4 Evo Music Rooms, and has now completed her first album. Many recognise her as a cult figure, proof that one can challenge conventional notions of beauty and actually succeed.
It is perhaps difficult to separate the girl from the exquisitely styled persona that appears on stage and in fashion magazines. One cannot help but sense that something larger is at work behind the scenes, an informal network of musicians, image makers, opinion formers and connectors. Viktoria may well be the lightning rod that channels all their talents.
To blow up across a million screens requires the creation of something larger than any individual human being. At this scale, the idea takes front stage. Ideas, after all, are not bound by skin and bone. Is that really Stephanie Germanotta on YouTube, or is it Lady Gaga and her quixotic brand of fashion? Whether it be the music production, the costume design, the filming or the marketing, the combined result is the work of dozens if not hundreds of people. It takes rare talent to line them all up and march them in the same direction.
Which brings us back to Viktoria Modesta. All the elements are there: The image, the brand, the people, the music... It's as though we are caught in a slow-motion film, waiting for gravity to act and let the dominoes fall.
That much, at least, seems inevitable.
