The first British Indian model to star in a Burberry campaign, the face of Blink Brow Bar and L'Oreal's latest uber diverse ad and spokesperson for bullying, depression and self worth, Neelam's way more than just a pretty face.
Born in 1995 Neelam is a British fashion model. She is known for her work with clothing houses Burberry, Abercrombie & Fitch and appearing in Vogue.
Gill has spoken about bullying, depression and body confidence issues via her YouTube channel and also said that she "feels sorry" for online trolls.
At the age of fourteen she signed with Models 1 but it wasn’t until she was 18 and had gained four A* at A-level that her mum allowed her to try modelling as a career.
Speaking recently to The Guardian Neelam who has been consistently written about as the first British Indian to become a muse to a major fashion house with Burberry, the first to become the face of high-street teen emporium Abercrombie & Fitch and was even the first British Indian to ever appear in British Vogue. She has also appeared in Vogue India.
Neelam comes from Coventry but currently lives in London. Her grandparents were born in India and are from Punjab. Her parents, both from traditional Indian families, were born in the UK and had an arranged marriage. They struggled as a couple, working in her paternal grandparents’ corner shop and living in the flat above until they could afford to move to their own house.
After they divorced and her career in modeling started Neelam started waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, paralysed and rigid which would then lead on with the nausea and puking and even suffered with depression.
Despite all this Neelam has managed to break into an industry that has always been known for being snobby and racist.
According to The Guardian Neelam has endured breathtaking racist abuse online since she entered the public eye in 2013, first as a model with opinions, later because it was rumoured in 2015 that she was seeing Zayn Malik.That year, her personal experiences caused her to post a series of videos to her YouTube channel, of her chatting on the effects of bullying, depression, body image and racism. Many time she acknowledged that she was setting herself “up for hate”, but that it didn’t matter “if I reached one person who needed to hear those things. Depression is still something I suffer with,” she says, “but it’s something you learn how to cope with and you get help.”
