Alexandria, VA – Jane Hess Collins once wore the uniform of a U.S. Air Force colonel during her 20-year career in the military. More than a decade later, as a self-proclaimed “work-in-progress,” the 67-year-old fashion model said she was excited to wear a mid-length body wrap in an ad for Jiminez Beauty Center in McLean—her first professional gig as a model. Selected for the photo and video advertisements using her beauty shot, the recent graduate of the Coca Rocha Model Camp in New York, said she still feels butterflies as many people do when facing a new challenge. She isn’t alone. Coco Rocha is so “age inclusive,” she added.
Reflecting on the First Gig
Collins isn’t unfamiliar with disappointments. She admitted she wasn’t sure what to expect after submitting her first application to a posting on Instagram by professional fashion photographer Adriana Escalante, who was staging a sauna scene for the beauty center. When Escalante contacted her, Collins braced for rejection.
“I know everyone wants 20-year-olds, and I got an email and thought ‘Here’s my rejection’—but I got the job!” laughed Collins, who stands a slender six foot one. She moves lithely around the cozy kitchen of her Alexandria townhome, offering a visitor her “famous chocolate chip cookies.” Collins continues the story of how her latest career move.
“It’s not like I was in the military and I’m going to have to reinvent myself. I had an interest in [fashion] and followed things,” she said.
So when she reported to the salon on Dec. 8, Collins said she felt comfortable meeting the other models— one in her twenties and two in their thirties and forties. They all donned identical white waffle robes and white slippers. Then they each held champagne glasses of orange juice, moving around the salon to pose. Collins’ short and stylish whitish-silver hair contrasted dramatically with her dark eyebrows.
“I was ‘Model B’ and I knew I would be in a sauna scene, a makeup scene, and a paying scene — the call sheet was very organized,” said Collins. In a previous career turn, she did a little acting in the past through Pat Moran Casting Company in Baltimore.
“Modeling is like acting without words—it was fun!” she told Zebra. “There’s always improv to these things, and I’ve taken improv and acting classes at the Little Theatre of Alexandria.”
Collins calls herself “a work in progress.” After she retired from the Air Force in 2009, she worked in the nonprofit sector as a freelance writer and communications director for Community Lodgings in Alexandria. She also founded and served as the first executive director of Heard, an Alexandria-based nonprofit that contracts with artists to bring creativity and life skills to people in need.
Using Experience to Help Others
A native of Bellefontaine, Ohio, Collins shared that she uses her nonprofit and military leadership skills to coach communities throughout her home state to help address challenges by hiring artists. Her program consists of six online sessions, where community participants identify their needs and artistic resources. Next, they create a foundational structure and budget, secure funding, and launch. As a result, one community expanded its public art initiative and won a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Another received all of its funding request from the local United Way so it could offer weekly arts programming for students facing mental health challenges.
After hiring a new executive director in 2023, Collins was able to learn the craft of makeup artistry. On Instagram, as @seenbyjane, she gathers teams
of makeup artists, hair stylists, and photographers to create makeover events for women in need – often by partnering with the same nonprofits she partnered with at Heard.
With her knowledge from the modeling camp, she plans “to integrate her modeling and Instagram work under one umbrella.
Throughout her life. Collins has earned three master’s degrees that aid in this new career: Public Administration from Troy State University, Strategic Studies from Air War College, and Public Relations and Corporate Communications from Georgetown University.
In her spare time, Jane and her husband love to travel and spend time with their families.
“I think what makes this story interesting is the diversity of careers I’ve had,”
Collins said.
How Common Are Career Changes?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), career changes cannot be tracked accurately. This is because many careers or jobs require acquired skill sets similar to many other careers. It is difficult to categorize in a distinct way what skills, once attained, would be used in a later career.
The BLS website indicates that as of April of last year, the agency has “never has attempted to estimate the number of times people change careers in the course of their work.”
It says that until an agreement is reached by various labor professionals, including economists and sociologists, about how to define career changes among economists, sociologists, career-guidance professionals, and other labor market observers about the appropriate criteria that should be used for defining careers and career changes, it is not possible to find true results.
Asked about her ideal career direction in modeling, Collins seems prepared: “My ideal campaign is that I would love to be part of a campaign that creates some good in this world. Eventually, I’d like to take a third of my modeling compensation and donate it to the nonprofits that My Makeover-Glam Team works with.”
As for right now, she said. “I’m really enjoying the ride. It’s crazy, isn’t it? It’s the craziest thing!”
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