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  • you're free clothes.

  • Yeah, for you guys.

  • Yeah.

  • Um Just money thrown at you.

  • Yeah, just sit there and smile.

  • I wish that sounds sexy.

  • Beautiful sounds row sexy.

  • That's the life right there.

  • It's not ours.

  • I think there's a misconception where people think that modeling is just about looking beautiful, having a certain look that people like.

  • But that's not the reality of things.

  • I would hear comments like, Oh, Yamato's you guys have it so easy.

  • All you have to do is stand there, look pretty.

  • No, it's really not.

  • There's a lot of work and sacrifices that go into this job just like any other job.

  • Honestly, to be in this industry, you have to be very self aware.

  • I have street smarts, book smarts.

  • Know how to run a business because you're a Brent.

  • You have to be your business manager.

  • You have to be your own PR.

  • You have to be your therapist.

  • You have to be your mom and your dad.

  • You have to be your own life coach.

  • It's draining.

  • It's emotionally, physically, mentally, it's it's It's for your well being of training, and that's like the side that people don't get to see.

  • You know they only get to see the end result on the glamorous bit of it.

  • Now, in today's day and age, there's no time off from being a model.

  • You're a model 24 7 people see 24 7 Even if you go to a bodega.

  • Shorty no follows you on Instagram.

  • Well, how come you don't look as good as you do in your pictures?

  • People expect you to be perfect 24 7 working in an environment that's all about like beauty and how you look.

  • Obviously it shapes you a little bit.

  • I always thought like, Oh, if it would be a size two, I would finally be happy because it's what we see all the time.

  • My whole life, I felt pressured to be a size that I've never been.

  • This don't look.

  • I'm comparing to a person that I used to be, which is also painful for a lot of people to this fantasy idea that suddenly if I was thinner, my experiences would be better.

  • My life would be better.

  • My relationships might be better.

  • I don't think that that voice is so loud today, thankfully, but for most of my life was very, very, very loud.

  • And unfortunately, those voices are allowed because the experiences as a girl over a size 10 who also happens to be brown and strange or whatever it's affirmed in life and that like, yeah, like your life is a little bit better if you are those things.

  • I think we're all just brainwashed by Hollywood.

  • And like all the gossip magazines, I mean, it's hard to get out of it.

  • There's so many labels in our culture, like plus size and straight size, and I just don't think it's necessary because you walk outside every day and there's so many people and you're not labeling them in your head.

  • I think it can be hard in the industry in that it's just like straight size plus size.

  • The body positive movement, for instance, was designated for marginalized bodies to feel scene and validated on DDE.

  • That movement has been co opted by non marginalized bodies.

  • Toe also feel scene, but those bodies air scene.

  • It's not for a size six girl to be like show her roles and be like I'm body positive to no offense in New York.

  • It's like if you're skinny like here, here.

  • Ambience, Right.

  • My no chest having in skinny, lanky body.

  • As soon as I'm in Nigeria, they look like I Iook food's food and beauty.

  • I think beauty for me is it's internal is what you admit to the world subconsciously and non verbally.

  • It's not about the physical.

  • To me, Billy is a promise significa without the intervention and went to my eyes to care parents and took it up before a Swiss carry insulin secretary Task with Philip Eyes.

  • Luke didn't to support a sewn.

  • You give us a very dodgy coming abilities have been going to my ship them through the cage for a prick, eh?

  • Get up before the past.

  • Some ice.

  • Okay.

  • Today.

  • And to Piper money second was a saint.

  • Beauty means your sense of self because, I mean, people have called me ugly when I go to the airport, right?

  • My alias is my little brother, so I purposely dressing aboard some people, think the man next to him like, Oh, my God, you're gorgeous.

  • Yeah.

  • Either I look like a little boy from the depths of Harlan or a little push black woman.

  • Either People think I'm ugly I'm cute.

  • So slick.

  • Whatever I think is your offensive where you are.

  • I didn't have access to magazine to TV.

  • Uh, for the first almost eight years of my life before I moved to Australia.

  • And even when I did go to Australia, I didn't see a representation on myself.

  • I don't know.

  • You stop questioning yourself.

  • You know, like why?

  • And then it that questioning thing turns into insecurities and you start to think or my not beautiful enough.

  • It's no why.

  • There's no black girls in the magazine honesty.

  • Little black girls like myself on the TV.

  • It's not a nice feeling growing up.

  • I'm 26 now.

  • So when I was reading magazines, there were only, like, the same kind of girls.

  • Like wide blond, tall, skinny, um, I was like, the opposite.

  • So I'm, like, knows I'm not like no representation at all.

  • Actually, I thought that was the norm.

  • But obviously now that changed.

  • And I didn't know that it can be different.

  • I'm like, Oh, wow, this should have happened, like wait before way before I looked up to the woman, the strongwoman around me, and that made me feel like I had a strong foundation, and I didn't really look into the media for a representation gets so important to be for people to be represented.

  • I'm very looking in the way that you know, I'm a white woman, so I let she have grown up seeing people like me all the time, and it's really important.

  • You know, people like growing up or just people in their day to day live to see someone that looks like them and say, That's normal There's someone out there like May all those you know, this is being celebrated.

  • This is beautiful.

  • This is You know, I think it's so important for people to see and be recognized.

  • That is what makes you feel like you can accomplish just because someone that you saw yourself in accomplished what you were interested in.

  • The first time I felt represented was when Halima Adan walked the easy show.

  • And that is I feel like the most important, um, are in my life where I felt like I can actually pursue modeling and cause.

  • But before that, I was just it was lingering around in my head whether I should just pursue her or not.

  • But when I did see Halima.

  • It made me feel that just because she was doing it, I can do it too.

  • We're here now.

  • Uh, you know, my little sisters, for example, they're able to open up a magazine and see me in the automatic who see themselves.

  • They can turn on the TV and see another black model when they can see themselves.

  • And I'm grateful for that.

  • My little sister's She's five years old and she was watching me on YouTube and she said she wants to walk the runway and thinks like that because she saw me wearing those clothes.

  • She saw herself in Mansell.

  • And, like the fashion industry has been impacted.

  • Your mental health.

  • Um d'oh.

you're free clothes.

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