‘I always wanted to be a model’, says federal deputy Erika Hilton about her debut on the SPFW catwalk

Shopping Iguatemi, south zone of São Paulo. While some were still finishing their lunch in the food court, a coming and going of models and stylists occupied a reserved area on the 3rd floor.

Suddenly, a small buzz. A circle was formed and, in the center, was federal deputy Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP). Wearing a black lace dress, she was a few minutes late for her schedule for the day.

This Friday (10), however, there will be no speeches from the pulpit of the National Congress or votes in the plenary. For the parliamentarian, who in July signed a contract with Joy Management, an agency that represents supermodels such as Lais Ribeiro and Aline Weber, it was the day to make her debut on the catwalk at São Paulo Fashion Week (or SPFW for those familiar with her).

At the entrance, only three people, out of the many who tried, managed to click with the parliamentarian. Those who couldn’t do it right away asked their friends to let them know when the commotion had calmed down a little. But she also had those who didn’t recognize her. A security guard at the event discreetly arrived next to the report and asked, quietly, who it was about.

Before applying makeup and dressing the chosen model for the catwalk, the deputy spoke with the F5 about politics, fashion and the diction of millions, which is popular on the internet and has become a meme on social media. For her, the cuts and small excerpts that have gone viral in recent weeks are a way of bringing young people closer to politics. “No one will watch [de maneira espontânea] the live assemblies”, he assesses.

When we enter her dressing room, Hilton is, as they say, clean-faced. Everything would be perfect, if it weren’t for a pimple on my forehead. “My skin is good, a pimple came out today because you know, right? The enemy is dirty and comes today when he really couldn’t”, she jokes. “But makeup is just to highlight what’s already good, you can’t go out without beauty, right, beloved.”

Little by little, it becomes clear that the expressive way of speaking is not restricted to the work environment. His proud voice takes over the small space and his speeches are accompanied by the movement of his hands. “When I walk onto the catwalk for the first time, being a representative of the causes I represent and the legislative branch, I feel like I changed not only my story, but the history of politics,” she says.

Last to enter the catwalk for the Apartamento 03 brand — on Sunday (12), she still shows for LED —, the parliamentarian tried to keep her face neutral and make the famous face of the models at the event. Just a slight smile when she looked around revealed that she was making a dream come true.

“I always wanted to be a model,” he says. “When I first received the invitation to participate in São Paulo Fashion Week, for me, it was like a reunion with that 10-year-old Erika. It’s different, but it’s something I think I have the profile for .”

Check out the main excerpts from the interview below.

Have you always been interested in the world of fashion?

I’ve always liked fashion. When I was little, I watched the Victoria’s Secret fashion show on TV, and I was obsessed with the angels. There was also Naomi Campbell, who was a black reference. So I always liked it and was attracted to it. I had a mother who was very vain, very fashion-forward, within her limitations, but a woman who was different from the women in that territory. So, clothing, fashion, collections, trends, colors, textures and prints were things that were part of my childhood.

But parading is something different…

I always wanted to be a model. There was something when I was little that I wanted to be an artist — and then I thought I could be a model, because I was tall and thin. Afterwards, life took very difficult turns, my story took me to places that made me forget a little about that dream, because the violence, the precariousness that imposed itself made me think that it was no longer possible, that it was a utopia . And, when I first received the invitation to participate in São Paulo Fashion Week, for me, it was like a reunion with that 10-year-old Erika. It’s different, but it’s something I think I have the profile for.

How important is your representation in a catwalk as important as this?

I feel fulfilled at being able to rescue the possibility of a youthful dream and to combine the things I like with my work and the political project I have for Brazil. Politics cannot be what it is and it cannot represent what it represents. It needs to be oxygenated, it needs to be renewed and rethought. We do this by intersecting other things with it.

As?

Understanding that fashion is political, the catwalk is political and brands are political. So, when I walk onto the catwalk for the first time, being a representative of the causes I represent and the legislative branch, I feel like I changed not only my story, but the history of politics. I said and continue to say that I will not adapt, I will not adapt to politics. But at some point I already adapted. Very quickly, because I thought it was necessary.

Of what manner?

It’s no wonder that I’m a phenomenon among young people. Young people were not interested in politics. And they don’t come to politics because they think “I want to see the assembly”, but because they want to be with the pop star.

At some point did you feel like you needed to fit in?

At the beginning there was an issue that worried me, I thought: “Will I be discredited somewhere or less respected if I, as a deputy, go on a catwalk?”. For a long time, in my first collective term in the Assembly [em 2018, ela integrou a Bancada Ativista, grupo de nove pessoas que foi eleito para um mandato compartilhado], I castrated myself in the way I dressed, in the things I liked, because I thought I needed certain behaviors and codes for a certain legitimacy. I was only able to make this leap in my political work and social representation when I was authentic.

You recently signed with a modeling agency, alongside your political career. Do you intend to follow this path or do you want to focus more on one career?

I don’t know yet. Politics is very exhausting. At the moment, I want to continue taking both in parallel, adding them to enhance each other. But, in 20 years, maybe I will choose fashion, something calmer, lighter. For now I’m uniting the two worlds.

On the networks, you have become a meme due to excerpts from videos with what the public calls “perfect diction”. Do you like the impact it has on the internet? Was it a campaign strategy?

It was a coincidence, they weren’t videos that I posted, someone who went there and made a cut and it gained proportions. This young man in the meme, he also goes to my network to see the serious content. That’s why I say that this intersection is fundamental. It’s okay if you’re joking here, it’s the “I will not tolerate” or Beyoncé remix, but they are there. My strategy was “I need to make young people interested and want to participate in politics”. How do I do that? Being young, fun, a fan, playing, bringing a new aesthetic, using networks lightly, participating in other activities, I think it’s wonderful because it engages in politics. It shows that the path I have been taking in politics is not a path for nothing.

Did you, at some point, undergo training or was this always your way of speaking?

I’m a Sagittarius with the moon in Gemini, I always say this, because there are two components that make up speech. Sagittarius people are talkative, and Gemini is about communication. I also grew up in an evangelical home, so I saw a lot of pastors and a lot of preaching. And I have always been a child of leading and speaking. At plays and Father’s Day, I always volunteered to speak in front of everyone. I never took an oratory or diction class, I never went to a speech therapist.

Do you have a team to take care of your social media? Do you have a post plan?

Yes, and we have the best times for posts for the week. Nothing on my networks is posted without my review, I think about the body of the text, I send an audio, I say what I want to be written. Sometimes I post too, but when it’s more everyday.

The repercussion on the networks also sparks negative comments. As deal with it?

I stopped watching it, it started to make me feel really bad. Episodes of violence have greatly decreased. Today, if you enter my networks, Twitter is still a cesspool, but even so, now it is very punctual. In the beginning there was a lot of violence, but we legalized everything. We don’t debate and we don’t just block, we print too. We spent energy, time and money because we thought it was important, it was taking a very dangerous scale. A dangerous scale of not being able to go to the gym because I had to change my route every day of my home, of my life. And I said “you can’t live like that”, because you start to get into an atmosphere of panic, you think there’s someone looking at you through binoculars from the front window and, in fact, everything is fine. But fear paralyzes you. And I felt very strongly that it was more of an attempt to paralyze me than an organized plan to actually kill me. Now, if you join my networks, I am much more acclaimed. And I don’t see it anymore and I don’t want to know. If the team finds hateful comments, they go down the bureaucratic path. Recently, they wrote: “You could smell AIDS from here.” He’s going to be sued because he’s an asshole and an idiot, but life goes on. I return beauty to them.