Letter from Paris, Between Dreams: Building Others While Holding My Own
Paris, September 2025
I don’t usually mix my professional life with these letters, but the last three days were something I need to write down. I have just returned from Paris — three days of work that demanded everything from me. I didn’t feel tired while I was there, not for a second. There’s no space for tiredness when the weight of responsibility sits on your shoulders. But now that I’m back in Lisbon, I feel it pressing on me.
As an agent at Central Models, I’ve worked for years to build the careers of Portuguese talents. This week, Kika Cerqueira Gomes walked for L’Oréal Paris in their Le Défilé show at Paris Fashion Week. For most people it looked simple: a young talent walking in a show. But I know how much invisible work it took — positioning her name, showing brands why she matters, building the story around her, being there in good times and bad. The agent’s job is to be invisible, to calm the storm while everyone else feels the nerves. In the end, seeing her step into that stage, I felt proud — proud of her, proud of the work, proud of the years that led to that moment.
And yet, between rehearsals and the backstage chaos, I ran to museums, as I always do on these trips. I woke up before Kika, slipping out in the early hours to stand where other artists once stood. At the Petit Palais I discovered paintings that felt like memories — Carolus-Duran’s Portrait de Mademoiselle de Lancey, which I remembered only as a print in my father’s home, now alive in front of me. Georges Clairin’s Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt moved me, not just for her pose, but for the dog at her feet — a presence of loyalty and calm stronger than any human gesture.
Then Léon Lhermitte’s Les Halles. Immense. A scene that breathes like life itself. It made me dream of painting not only faces, but entire moments in time. And for the first time, I stood before a Rembrandt: Portrait de l’Artiste en Costume Oriental. His shadows, his control of darkness, his mastery of detail — even down to the thin hairs of a dog’s fur. I paint with brightness, with saturated colors, but in front of him I saw what I still lack. It was humbling.
The morning of the show, I rushed to the Musée de l’Orangerie. Monet’s water lilies… I’ve written of them before, but this time felt different. To be alone, even briefly, before that massive masterpiece was like being a child again. I couldn’t leave — I stepped out, only to turn back and walk into the two rooms once more. Every imperfection, every brushstroke, every layer of texture carried the years of his life. I wanted silence, but the crowd was heavy. Phones lifted, people walking in front of the canvas. I wanted a moment of solitude with Monet, but Paris never allows it.
And then back to work. Backstage, the energy is a storm: makeup artists rushing, models silent in their nerves, assistants moving at impossible speed. My job is to stand still in the middle of it and radiate calm, even as my mind races with responsibility. It is pressure — but it is what I do.
The names around me still feel surreal: Kendall Jenner, Jane Fonda, Viola Davis, Cara Delevingne, Eva Longoria, Aishwarya Rai. And Kika, standing among them, Portuguese, radiant. I felt proud, but also invisible. And that is my role — to disappear, to give my talents the stage. There is no jealousy in it, no thought of “I deserve someone to do this for me.” Only the quiet desire that one day, perhaps, these people who do not know my name will know my paintings.
Sometimes I wonder if I am building the dreams of others at the cost of my own. But then I think: without these trips, without being here, maybe I wouldn’t dream so big at all. Standing close to the most powerful people in the world, I see their fears, their nerves, their humanity. And it reminds me: nothing is untouchable, nothing is impossible.
And yet, the question follows me home:
Will my dream survive while I am building theirs?
