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Living a beautiful life

After more than two decades, Susan Schwabinger still turns heads in the modeling industry.

By LESLIE PAREDES
Published April 22, 2005

BEACH PARK - Susan Schwabinger doesn't like to talk about her age.

As a model for more than two decades, she prefers not to think she's past her prime.

"Can't we just say I'm in my 40s?" she asks, smiling. "Really, I'm 29 and holding."

Actually, she's 49. But strangers would never believe it, given her youthful glow and slender figure.

Since the age of 18, Schwabinger has immersed herself in the modeling industry, from strutting the runways of Rome to owning Alexa Model and Talent Management Inc. on Kennedy Boulevard.

"I don't see it at as just owning my own agency," she said. "To me, the high is getting this raw talent, seeing it and knowing they'll be a star."

Working in an industry where faces are everything and beauty only delves skin deep, Schwabinger has managed to leave the attitude for the camera lens. She focuses her business on the people, not the perks, says agent Matt Angelo, 26, who has worked with her for a year.

Instead of a corner office and a secretary, she shares a desk with an employee and answers her own phone.

Instead of a crackers and caviar, she snacks on Lays potato chips.

Schwabinger attributes much of her grounding and success to her mother, the first woman in her family to get a college education.

"My mother was raised in a home where the typical woman still only baked cookies, took care of her man and kept house," she said.

Her mother, a schoolteacher, instilled in her the importance of education and always had hopes her daughter would go to college. When Schwabinger decided to go into modeling, she was appalled.

"Her daughter who graduated dean's list, top honors, national merit? She did not like my choice for a career at all," she said. "She wanted me to be a lawyer."

Schwabinger never even considered it.

"I wouldn't be able to live with myself," she said. "I would have had a serious moral issue."

After graduating from Lakewood High School in St. Petersburg, she attended the Art Institute of Atlanta, receiving an associate's degree in fashion merchandising and leaving behind her "wild child" ways.

"I was hanging out until 4 a.m., sneaking out and going to Clearwater Beach," she said. "I'm like I'll try everything once then I'll see whether I like it enough to do it again."

She worked for a while as a buyer for Britton's, an upscale department store in South Carolina, but decided to go it alone as a model on New York's Seventh Avenue, the crux of the fashion industry.

"Everyone is there and I was hanging out with all the right people, the biggest art directors in New York," she said.

She met Yama Yamamoto, a major player in a company that produced products for big names, such as Max Factor and Nikon. He liked her look, "So I was in."

That connection made her "in" everywhere, including Wilhelmina Models, a top modeling firm in the late 1970s.

"At one point, I had my picture all over Fifth Avenue in New York," she said. "In Milan, I worked literally every day. I was (in) Vogue, Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar. I did the collections in Rome, and they only ever used the supermodels for that. I had a fabulous career."

One day, after working a 72-hour marathon in Milan, she collapsed from exhaustion. Shortly after, the owner and creator of Wilhelmina died, dealing a debilitating blow to the agency.

"When Wilhelmina died, everything just exploded," she said. "No one knew how to run anything. It was just crazy and that's when I decided to do something really stupid and get married."

An abusive relationship with her first husband brought Schwabinger back to Florida with no real plan except to take care of herself and her young daughter. She breezed through the ranks at Kelly Services, going from temporary work to a managerial position within the company.

Schwabinger's brief leave from modeling ended when she started teaching at John Casablanca's Model and Career Center. She bought the school in 1987 and left two years later to start Alexa.

Today, she models for area real estate developments while jump-starting the careers of other models. Among her stars: 14-year-old Lane Lindell, who has done work for Gucci, Neiman Marcus and Abercrombie & Fitch.

"She's just amazing, a true joy to work with," Angelo said of his boss. "She works hand in hand with you, not like most employers who are stuck in a closet somewhere. You can always talk to her. She's just a real person."

Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Leslie Paredes can be reached at 226-3339 or lparedes@sptimes.com

AGE: 49.

JOB: President of Alexa Model and Talent Mangement Inc. in South Tampa and a model for real estate advertisements.

FAMILY: Husband, Keith Schwabinger, and daughter, Alexis Scher, 26, the agency's namesake.

HOME: Clearwater.

ANIMAL LOVER: She has five cats and one dog, all of them strays.

WHAT SHE WEARS: "I love shirts from Gap. I'll buy all their shirts, one in every color."

PEOPLE WATCHER: She's fascinated by faces and enjoys sitting at airports and watching people walk by. "I'm a big people starer-downer. I look at their eyes, their angles, their noses, how big their foreheads are."

[Last modified April 21, 2005, 08:33:10]