Pritzker student Anisa Dagher grew up watching the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion shows from her home in Dearborn, Michigan.
She said she loved the models, clothes and “dramatic nature” so much so that she told her peers at Dearborn High School in Michigan that she would become a model herself.
Over a decade later, Dagher now professionally models, gracing magazines like Harper’s Bazaar Thailand while studying at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law.
Before law school, Dagher modeled in New York Fashion Week 2021, walking for Tom Ford and Michael Kors. She also modeled for the “Michael Kors Collection Fall/Winter 2021 — The 40th Anniversary Runway Show” alongside supermodel Bella Hadid.
“I’ve always been independent and will do whatever I want,” Dagher said. “I love learning, and I love class. I love trying to make the [creative] vision come to life [with modeling].”
Dagher first started working with Dawn Martin, her mother agent — someone who represents and helps models sign with agencies — when she was scouted at 17.
Martin said Dagher had “a cool look” and was one of the first girls she scouted when starting her mother agency DMM Management.
“People say you can’t have big brains and beauty,” Martin said. “I think she’s proven them wrong.”
Dagher said her first modeling job was for the Midwest supermarket chain Meijer during her freshman year of college. While studying international relations and political economy at Michigan State University, she said she accepted smaller modeling jobs to focus on school but signed with modeling agencies, including Elite Model Management New York City.
After graduating from MSU in 2020, Dagher said she took two gap years to pursue modeling full-time. Although she was admitted to Pritzker to begin in 2021, she said she wanted to save up money for school and give herself more opportunity to model.
“It’s hard to do two things at the same time at full speed,” Dagher said. “You have to learn how to strike a delicate balance between both of them and adjust what you’re focusing more on based on the circumstances that you’re in at that time.”
Dagher said watching her parents as lawyers made her want to pursue law school. She said she developed an analytical mind, learning how to compose arguments.
Anisa Dagher’s mom, immigration lawyer Renee Dagher, said her daughter found a good way to embrace both modeling and law school.
“She was a child that needed to be busy,” Renee Dagher said. “She did [figure] skating, but I think more than that, she loved being dressed up. That’s always been her thing.”
Anisa Dagher said her first professional modeling job in New York was for Vogue Italia in late July 2020 before she moved there a month later. While modeling, she said she applied to law school and started her Law School Admissions Test tutoring business.
Dagher added that her close friend, Savannah Huitema, followed a similar career route, deferring her Harvard Law School admission to model. Huitema also cofounded Empowering Women in Law, an organization providing opportunities for undergraduates aspiring to a career in law.
“I just watched her learn how to cope with very stressful situations in the modeling world, with agents, with travel and with law school,” Huitema said.
While Dagher said that she probably could have modeled full-time for longer, given the modeling industry’s “uncertainty,” she was glad she went to law school when she did.
As she graduates from law school this spring, Dagher said she plans to take the New York Bar Exam.
“I realized that if I didn’t go to law school now, I would probably never go,” Dagher said. “I was like, ‘I’m scared that I’m going to lose that motivation.’ I just really hoped that I could continue to model during law school, and luckily, that’s been going pretty well.”
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