The first time Jillian Mercado thought seriously about becoming a professional model, she decided to seek out a mentor. So she pulled out her laptop and scoured the internet for someone in the modeling world who looked like she did: someone with a physical disability. Someone who used a wheelchair.
That was six years ago, when Mercado was a senior studying fashion marketing at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and disabled models were scarce. Her search came up empty.
“I didn’t think it was a possibility,” she says of the career she’d imagined. “Not because I didn’t think I was worthy of it, but because I didn’t see anyone else like me out there.”
Mercado, who was diagnosed with spastic muscular dystrophy as a teen, has helped change that reality. Two years ago, she responded to an open casting call for a Diesel Jeans ad campaign on a whim — and wound up getting hired. (Why should we choose you? the casting questionnaire asked. Because I want to change the world, she answered.) Last year, Mercado signed with IMG Models, the powerhouse agency that represents top supermodels like Gisele Bündchen, Kate Moss and Heidi Klum alongside an increasingly diverse lineup of rising stars.
Mercado is one of them. She’s among a dozen Latina models featured in a Target marketing campaign that will debut during Telemundo’s Billboard Latin Music Awards — a career milestone that comes just a few weeks after she starred in the merchandise ads for Beyoncé’s highly anticipated “Formation” tour.
For the modest 28-year-old Dominican-American who was once tormented by middle school bullies, appearing on prime-time TV and posing with Queen Bey’s fashion posse still feels just a bit surreal.
“It’s exactly what I hoped for as a young girl,” she says. “I dreamed of having this opportunity.”
Mercado’s rapid ascent has been cheered by major media outlets as a victory for the 53 million disabled American adults who rarely see themselves represented in high-profile ads. But the fact that her appearance still attracts so much attention — that it’s something to be celebrated as an exception to the rule — means there’s still a lot of work to do, she says.
“Ultimately, we’re trying to normalize diversity,” she says of IMG, which represents a wide range of models, including plus-size model Ashley Graham and Hari Nef, a transgender model, actress and writer.
“Campaigns should have real people,” Mercado says. “People should see themselves in an editorial, in a magazine or a commercial.”
Her small body has more than a dozen surgical scars, and she felt both nervous and excited when she decided last year to bare them for a shoot for the lingerie company Thistle & Spire.
She posed in a sheer black chemise, her bleached blonde hair cut in a punky pixie, her mouth set in a sultry pout as she leaned against the railing of a Manhattan rooftop deck.
She liked reminding people that everyone can and should feel sexy in their own skin: “You shouldn’t be ashamed of your own body. I hope in the years that I’m alive that there will be a Victoria’s Secret model who has a disability, because that’s considered mainstream sexy.”
