a true story about a very real world…

5’11.5”, 34, 25, 35; these are my digits. While my girlfriends’ were giving out their phone numbers, I was giving out my measurements. Well, okay, I did give out my phone number on a few occasions.
I am twenty-four years old, and I have been a model for ten years. I am what you might call a “veteran.” This is the time when models begin to lie about their age at castings. If you want me to be, I can be eighteen all over again, or twenty-one, or even twenty-nine. I am whatever you want me to be.
So let’s start where it gets a bit interesting; little, rural Ontario country girl goes to the “big T.O.” and does her first fashion show. Maybe I should’ve said young instead of little, being as though I was 5’10” by the age of fifteen.

My first show experience was fairly G-rated, had a few cocktails, did a few shots, got naked with a group of people, on with the show! It seemed no different than any other party I had ever attended, except for the group nudity aspect, which took a little getting used to until “lights, camera, action” and all of a sudden you are changing your clothes so fast that you have no time to check out the naked guy to your left. From that moment on, I was addicted to those lights, those cameras, those clothes, and the naked people to my left. I shot creatives in Givenchy, Valentino, La Perla, and they all fit my stick-person figure like a glove.
It’s difficult to really see the fashion industry for what it is without expanding your horizons. For the most part, in Toronto, you do the job and go home, and maybe attend the occasional after party. But, truthfully, regardless the city or continent, it requires thick skin and a strong sense of self, which is usually non-existent in a young teenage girl. Luckily, I have always had both which is probably why I’ve never considered getting collagen pumped into my lips, having a nose job, or focusing too much on my “large forehead.” My smaller than average chest size is a perfect fit for those sample sizes, so I’ve never been told to get breast implants! My motto for surviving in this business has always been “you win some and you lose some,” and that is just how it is in the fashion industry. If a model were to change something every time someone made a not-so-fabulous comment about it, they would constantly be changing who they are until the end of time. What goes on behind the scenes and the real truth of the industry is exposed when you are fully immersed in it, away from your family and friends, with no life to live but for fashion. When a model is overseas, they live, eat, and breathe the industry. And that is exactly what I did.

Me at Tokyo Narita airport after a seven hour delay

Europe, being as competitive as it is, wasn’t my first choice as a place to work. I chose to go to a more profitable market. Well, and the fact that my hips were an inch too big to go to Paris. I signed with one of the biggest agencies known worldwide, picked up my plane ticket that they sent for me, grabbed my suitcase, and hopped on a plane to Hong Kong with twenty dollars to my name. I arrived there at four in the morning, after flying for about twenty plus hours, and had to be at the agency by ten. They tossed me a map, gave me a list of foreign addresses for my castings and sent my Canadian stick-figure on my way. That was that. I was on my own. Well, I still had Starbuck’s. They’re there for you no matter where you go.
After only a few short days, the reality of the industry was so apparent that I wanted to jump on the first plane home and never look back. My roommates were an eye-opening, front row, real-life view of what is the fashion industry; one fifteen-year old girl from Russia and one from Uzbekistan, a seventeen-year girl old from Beijing, and a nineteen-year old girl from Brazil who hadn’t seen her family or friends from home in almost three years. Yes, we were all crammed into a two-bedroom box. When I was ten, I had thought I had sworn off bunk-beds for good; was I ever wrong.

Chillin’ at Repulse Bay in Hong Kong on a day off

After a long day of trekking from one end of the city to the other, we all would go out to that evening’s hot spot for dinner and drinks, since we could go absolutely anywhere we desired and dine for free, and then head back to our shoebox apartment to do it all over again the next day. Well, most of us would head home. The fifteen year old from Russia had a habit of disappearing with men old enough to be her grandfather. Many of my late nights and early mornings were spent worrying about whether or not she would make it back in one piece. One morning she didn’t show up for one of her bookings and the agency called the apartment looking for her. I tried her cell phone a few times only to be greeted by voicemail and a full mailbox every time. That evening, she didn’t show up at dinner, and the next morning she didn’t show up for one of the biggest castings in the city. I started to really worry at that point and called the agency. What did the agency do? NOTHING! She was known for her disappearing acts, so the agency went back to business as usual, while one of their models, a fifteen year old girl who could barely speak English, was considered missing to everyone else who knew her in the city. Two days later, she showed up at the apartment in the middle of the night, asked me for a cigarette and went to bed.

Nigel Barker and myself at the Four Seasons in Hong Kong

In our living room, we had a couch, a television, a scale and a measuring tape. I’m pretty sure that the scale and the measuring tape got more use out of them than the television. Once again, my natural stick-figure frame came in useful, as Asia seemed to adore it. One of my younger roommate’s, however, didn’t have it so easy. The fifteen-year old from Uzbekistan, who appeared to have a healthy fifteen year old body, received constant criticism on her weight and her diet from our bookers. Maybe she had put on a few extra pounds, but nothing to the extreme that would be obvious to the naked eye. It was just normal weight gain that every girl is bound to experience at some point, especially a girl who gets sick of Chinese food and eats McDonald’s on a regular basis; but in their defense, they do serve salads and in Asia you can order a cup of corn instead of fries! Getting back on topic though, one time when I was at the agency with her, one of the head booker’s advised her to stop eating fruit, because it contained too much sugar. From that day forward I didn’t see her at dinner anymore. She would only meet up with us later for the drinks. She did lose those couple extra pounds, though, and fast. She even booked a runway show with me, which didn’t happen before because of her “commercial” look, which usually means that the model is too big to fit into the sample sizes.
My roommate from Brazil was naturally thin and incredibly beautiful. We spent a lot of our time together when we weren’t working. She had a boyfriend for every city that she worked in. I could never understand why she always needed a man to rely on, and when I asked her about it she confessed how lonely her life was without her family; how hard it was to be away from home for so long, but how there was nothing good for her in her native city of Sao Paulo.

Kissing my boyfriend’s picture ‘goodnight’

One of the men she was seeing was a plastic surgeon in Hong Kong, who talked her nineteen-year old face into getting botox when she had had a bad month without any work. She was seriously considering a nose job for her already perfect nose when she left Hong Kong for Thailand. I imagine she now has an even more perfect nose instead of her already perfect one.
As for myself, I came back to Canada with more than twenty dollars to my name, with the exact same measurements and exact same nose that I had when I left. I came back to my life where I can go to a job or a casting, and then go back home, or sometimes attend the occasional after party if I feel like it. I came back home to a living room without a scale and a measuring tape. I came back to my family and my friends. It’s good to be back at home.