Selfies in the street.
Sara Sampaio is not your average 24-year-old from Porto, Portugal. At 16, she won a nationwide contest to become the campaign star for a hair brand. The win led her to sign with an agency, which she is still with today. Now based in New York where she lives with Luigi, her longhaired Chihuahua, Sampaio travels the world as a model and a Victoria’s Secret Angel. (This time, we’ve found her in Melbourne for Kookai, which signed her as the face of autumn/winter ’16.)
Sampaio admits that she doesn’t return to her hometown as much as she would like. “I try to go there every time I get a job in Europe, because everything there is so close. And if I don’t have any jobs in the week, I try and fly home to see my parents. But I always go there for summer and Christmas and go in between as much as I can. It’s hard,” says the model, who speaks English, Portuguese and Sportugal, “a mix of Portuguese and Spanish”. She can understand French and Italian too. “I’ve always loved English and loved English music and TV shows. I would always translate the lyrics so I leant a lot like that. And the shows I watched, I was too lazy to wait for the subtitles!”
For Sampaio, going home isn’t as simple as scheduling luck and a boarding pass. While there are no paparazzi in Portugal, she can’t go anywhere without being recognised in the street. “It is a big shock. In New York, I am barely recognised or people don’t really care. When I go to Portugal, I go outside to a public place and am recognised constantly. It is very weird to get all that attention all of a sudden. I’m still trying to figure it out it,” she says, without at all sounding ungrateful for her success. Strangers ask for selfies all the time and Sampaio obliges “as long people are nice to me.”
Sampaio thinks Portugal is an undiscovered country, at least in comparison to the rest of Europe. “Everyone has gone to Paris, London, and I feel like people are now trying to find new spots in Europe. Portugal is becoming the new cool spot and I’m very happy about that.” Playing tour guide, Sampaio recommends Lisbon, the capital, and Porto, her hometown. “Lisbon is incredibly beautiful. Then you can pop very quickly to Porto for two days and you don’t need more. But we have great beaches as well and the islands are incredible. It really depends on what type of tourism you want to do there. Lisbon and Porto are very similar to Paris in the architecture and all of that. I love my country. We’re a very cute small country, the food is incredible and we are very welcoming.”
“In Porto you have to eat francesinha,” she says. “Translated it means little French girl. It’s this sandwich of bread, ham and a lot of beef sausage or other meats. Then you put melted cheese on the top. The special thing about it is the sauce. Each house makes a special secret sauce and it’s usually a bit spicy.” Portugal’s west is entirely bordered by the North Atlantic Ocean, making for a incredible seafood. “We have a lot of cod dishes because our sea territory is humungous. Our meat is super fresh. It’s very basic; meat, potatoes, rice, fish.”
Her diet isn’t the only thing that differs when in Portugal. From the moment she touches down on home soil, Sampaio gives in to sweatshirts and sweatpants. “In Paris, I like to be more elegant and feminine. In Milan, I tend to be sexier. New York is a mix of everything but I tend to be very urban, a lot of sneakers and boyfriend jeans. L.A. is very chilled, like shorts, crop tops. The way you dress really depends on where you are but I would say Portugal is where I just really let myself go.” And that’s why there’s no place like home.
