I was 17 when I entered a modeling competition and ended up winning. Soon after, I moved to Portugal— I’m half-Portuguese — because I knew the fashion industry in Europe was more developed than in Angola. I signed with my first agency, which put me in all the main markets: Milan, Paris, London, and later New York. The first thing my agent at the time told me was that I was beautiful, but needed to straighten my hair. I had an Afro, and although it was a weave, it was labeled as "too commercial" at the time. To land high-fashion, editorial jobs, I needed straight hair. I didn’t really understand why, but because I already had so much experience with changing my hair often, I was okay with it.