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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s every model\u2019s dream to open a runway show for a major luxury house \u2013 to be the first face, the first silhouette, the woman who sets the tone for an entire season. For 20-year-old Serena Abou Sefian, that moment arrived at the very start of her career when she opened the Fendi Autumn\/Winter 2026 show, signing an exclusive with the Roman house in the process.<\/p>\n
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But Serena\u2019s story begins far from Milan \u2013 in Bourj Hammoud.<\/p>\n
Born to fully Armenian parents raised in Lebanon, Serena grew up in a home where Armenian and Lebanese identities weren\u2019t distinct categories but a seamless blend. \u201cI thought everyone experienced their home the same way,\u201d she says. \u201cBut as I matured, I realised that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lebanese-Armenian community, though small, is tightly knit \u2013 almost its own ecosystem. From the schools children attend to the circles they socialise in, life often unfolds within that shared cultural space. Serena spent her earliest years in Bourj Hammoud living with her grandparents alongside her sister while her parents worked. Her grandmother walked them to school and back; her grandfather slipped her pocket money she would promptly negotiate into a stop at the dollar shop. \u201cI was very convincing even as a child,\u201d she laughs \u2013 a quality that would later serve her well.<\/p>\n
As she grew older, her family moved to Antelias. She attended two Armenian schools before enrolling for a freshman semester at Haigazian University. Fashion was always present in her life, though not in an obvious way. \u201cI was always interested in fashion, but not necessarily the modeling side of it,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was a part of me that wanted it, but I never said it out loud because I didn\u2019t want to sound vain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s every model\u2019s dream to open a runway show for a major luxury house \u2013 to be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12823],"tags":[12850,4955,19461],"class_list":["post-32311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fendi","tag-fendi","tag-lvmh","tag-models"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}