Celilo Miles recently garnered national attention for her role in the Victoria’s Secret Love Cloud campaign, but when we caught up with her to learn more it was school, not modeling, dominating her time.
We reached Miles by phone in Pullman, where she’s studying communications remotely as a student at Arizona State University. And that’s her focus right now, despite the happy surprise of the Victoria’s Secret job: “School’s my priority,” she said.
She plans to transfer to the University of Idaho next semester and continue working toward a degree, while also fighting wildfires seasonally for the Nez Perce Tribe, another endeavor close to her heart.
Miles, who grew up in Lapwai, lived in New York for nearly four years, until the beginning of the pandemic, when “modeling was shut down because of COVID.”
The campaign that re-sparked her career came “literally out of nowhere.”
“Once I started school, I was 100% invested in school,” she said, noting she’d earned her first 4.0 of her life. “All of the sudden I got a DM (direct message) from a casting agency on Instagram telling me to apply.”
It was in her nature to take that chance.
“If opportunity shows themselves, I’m going to take the opportunity,” she said.
This one turned out to be better suited than she could have imagined.
She doesn’t fit into a mold, Miles said, as someone who is half white, half Nez Perce, a wildland firefighter and a fashion model. Love Cloud is Victoria’s Secret’s attempt to break its infamous mold, telling a more diverse story than its traditional campaigns that featured only stereotypical lingerie-model bodies.
The campaign’s focus on diversity was evident. Miles was asked to bring some of her firefighting gear.
“They were showcasing me as an individual and not just showcasing a model,” she said. “It felt good to be my actual self and not a made-up person.”
Miles, 27, was a young teenager when she started modeling, and early on she was told to lose weight.
“Too young,” she said.
Being “model thin” is a notion she said thankfully is evolving, and she is embracing that as well.
“I really like the person I am today compared to who I was three or four years ago,” she said.
Seeing that shift in attitudes about beauty industrywide is satisfying, Miles said: “It’s great that the modeling industry is changing, and these brands are changing.”
She called the Love Cloud opportunity a “blessing.”
“This wasn’t about my size, my color, my ethnicity — it was about my character, and that felt nice,” she said. “I’ve worked as a model before when I was like a size 2/4.
This was a totally different experience. You could tell they were emotionally moved by what was going on. They cared about the backstory.”
Sharing that backstory is something she’s more than happy to do, including educating people about her tribe and the issues facing Native Americans.
“I think a lot of people forget that there’s tribes in the United States, and we’re fighting for our treaty rights,” she said. “It never stops.”
She also was glad to have her firefighting role acknowledged, as were other female firefighters she’s visited with.
“It’s about time we get representation,” she said they’ve told her.
Miles is on the engine crew for the Nez Perce Tribe, working in a variety of roles, from initial attack to mop-up duty.
“It really varies, depending on what’s going on with the fire,” she said.
The juxtaposition of fashion lingerie and wildland firefighting might seem a stretch, but Miles said she wasn’t kidding when she told people she’d fight fire in a Love Cloud bra.
“It’s the most comfortable thing I’ve ever felt in my life,” she said. “I’ve never felt anything so soft.”
Another perhaps less-surprising endorsement is Spokane-based Nicks Boots, which supplied her with a pair of firefighting boots last year and this year contacted her about participating in their website and Instagram presences.
Which is to say, opportunities keep coming.
“I’m still concerned about school,” she said. “I really want my degree.”
She’ll do that, she said, while staying ever ready to embrace what’s next.
“I’m one of those people, I’m optimistic,” she said. “If you have a dream, just go for it. Don’t look at your bank account. Sometimes things pan out (but) not in the time frame you expect them to.”
Stone (she/her) can be reached at mstone@inland360.com.
