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Jillian Mercado, Model With Muscular Dystrophy, Signs With IMG

Jillian Mercado, Model With Muscular Dystrophy, Signs With IMG
Jamie Feldman
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If you don't know who Jillian Mercado is by now, you're going to want to get to know her, fast.

The fashion blogger and model who starred in a 2014 Diesel campaign has officially signed with iconic modeling agency IMG.

Mercado is beautiful, has great style and a deep rooted relationship with fashion, having graduated from FIT (the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York). She also has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair.

Mercado told The Wall Street Journal that modeling never seemed like "a possibility" growing up. But while a student at FIT, she was asked to serve as a fit model for friends because she fit into sample sizes.

After starring in the Diesel ad, she consequently landed additional, major jobs including a gig for Nordstrom. Then she received a letter from someone who admired the Diesel campaign, and it finally clicked. "A light bulb went off, and I suddenly thought, ‘Go big, or go home,'" she told WSJ.

IMG represents a slew of diverse models and also produces New York Fashion Week, where Mercado has become a front row regular. Fingers crossed for a Mercado appearance on the runway in the very near future.

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