A pair of serendipitous events developed for model Sarah Lysander during the pandemic. She not only amplified her already successful career by adding fledgling influencer to her repertoire; she also became engaged to longterm boyfriend Bashir Arab-Sanchez.
When Sarah created her Instagram handle @sarahlysander, which now has 190k followers, around eight years ago, she didn’t take it too seriously. “I was literally posting pictures of my friends and me having fun,” she tells us from her north London flat, when we speak on Zoom.
But, Sarah explains, when the UK first went into lockdown the modelling industry literally drew to a halt. “I thought, since I’m here, why not use my skills and creativity. Studios weren’t open, so brands needed people to shoot e-commerce from their homes.
“I began taking selfies and mirror pictures; shots of the cosy outfits I was wearing throughout lockdown and filming videos of myself doing make-up routines, because I had all of the time in the world,” she says, of her compelling Insta reels. The more she posted, the more brands contacted her, “It really started growing from there”.
Approaching her new role professionally, she explains how she puts a lot of consideration into what she posts. “I’d say I work in quite a different way to a
