How not to be a supermodel

The lows and lows of my modelling career

I was listening to a piece on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour earlier this week about New York Fashion Week and the decline of the body positivity movement. For a while, it looked like the fashion industry was changing—using more diverse models on the catwalks after decades of straight-sized models dominating. Unfortunately, as with most things in fashion, body positivity seems to have come and gone.

Listening to the piece reminded me of my teenage years and how when my friends and I visited The Clothes Show Live at Birmingham’s NEC, we were desperate to be snapped up by a model scout and catapulted from obscurity onto the catwalks of New York, Paris, London and Milan.

It didn’t happen. And we tried, we really did, constantly strutting past the Models One, Storm and Select agency stands, smiling and flicking our hair. But no, nothing. I couldn’t understand it. I was tall and my nan (bless her) said I had nice teeth, so why didn’t they want me?

It could have been because I’m not startingly beautiful or that I couldn’t quite pull off the nineties waif look, or that I just don’t photograph well. Whenever anyone snaps a shot, I always have a startled look about me. Perhaps the model experts knew this as I walked past for the one-hundred-and-thirty-ninth time.

Anyway, all that aside, my attempts at model stardom didn’t begin when I was thirteen, strutting round Birmingham’s NEC at The Clothes Show. No. My modelling career started and stalled on a family holiday in Malta when I was seven.

I was on the beach when a photographer asked me to be in his shoot for (drum roll, please) the Thomson holiday brochure. The way my mum tells the story, it was a packed beach—you couldn’t move for beautiful children. The way I remember it. There was just me, my mum, and my inflatable dinghy.

It was late afternoon when the photographer approached, a camera draped around his neck. He was suntanned with black hair and a wide smile. We’d seen him taking photos around the hotel and Mum was a bit star-struck, even though he wasn’t famous.

‘Is this your daughter?’ he asked.

‘Why?’ Mum said. ‘What’s she done?’

He explained he was directing a photoshoot and needed an extra child for the ‘having fun on a banana boat’ shot. He’d already got two professional models and two sporty looking boys, but as there was a space on the back of the boat, what he really wanted was a girl to balance it out. Make it look like a happy family having fun on holiday.

‘And it’s for the Thomson holiday brochure?’ Mum said, all gushy and impressed. ‘That’s wonderful.’

‘How old is she?’ the photographer asked, nodding in my direction.

‘Seven,’ I said.

He looked at mum. ‘I thought she was older.’

It was an easy mistake to make. I was taller and wider than most girls and possibly boys my age. As I listened to them chat about me and the way I looked, I felt a rising sense of shame that I wasn’t normal.

Ideally, he said, he wanted someone who was at least eight but given I looked so much older, I would do.

‘I didn’t think I’d find anyone,’ he added, glancing round at the deserted beach. ‘But here you were.’

He beckoned us to follow him towards the boat, then turned. ‘Can she swim?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Mum nodded enthusiastically. ‘Like a mermaid in the water.’

I’d got my five, ten and twenty-five metre swimming badges, but not managed much beyond that because I didn’t like putting my head underwater. The thought of being pulled out to sea at high speed made me feel sick. What if I fell off?

‘You’ll be fine,’ Mum said, giving me a nudge.

The photographer put a red life vest over my head, tied it loosely around my waist, and I scrambled onto the back of the banana alongside the proper models.

‘That’s the best seat,’ one of the boys said. ‘Everyone at the back always falls off.’

I didn’t want to be flung off, so I squeezed that inflatable banana with every bit of leg strength I had.

Off we went, round the bay. The photographer snapping away from the safety of dry land. After one lap, he waved us in.

‘Great job, everyone,’ he said before turning to me. ‘But you need to smile. Look like you’re having fun.’

I nodded and forced a smile.

‘As you come past again, I want you all to wave at the camera,’ he said. ‘Really wave. Go for it!’

Off we went again, speeding across the water, bouncing on the waves. As we approached the bay, everyone on the banana started jumping and waving frantically. I lifted my hand, felt myself falling backwards, so grabbed the handle.

‘And again,’ he shouted. ‘And you need to wave.’ He looked at me, waving his hand in a slightly out-of-control way.

‘If I wave, I’ll fall off. I don’t want to fall off,’ I thought.

On the third lap, the speedboat did a sharp turn, catapulting me out of my seat and into the middle of the Mediterranean. I was underwater for a long time, kicking my way to the surface. Someone fished me out, plonked me back on the boat, and then we went again.

‘Wave,’ everyone shouted.

I didn’t even lift a finger, gripping the handles so tight my knuckles turned white.

‘Smile,’ the photographer shouted. ‘Smile! Smile! Smile!’

I did not smile.

When we returned home, the shoot was all Mum could talk about, telling friends, family and anyone who’d listen. ‘Elizabeth was spotted on the beach and will be in the new Thomson brochure.’

She’d smile and her face would light up. ‘That’s right, yes. A model. In the Thomson holiday brochure.’

On publication day, she was straight down to the travel agent to bag her copy and get extras for my nan, granddad and other family. She came home and sat at the kitchen table, flicking through the brochure.

‘Don’t tell me they didn’t use it?’ she said. ‘After all that!’

I peered over her shoulder, looking at the page on Mellieha Bay. I spotted it straight away—a postage-stamp sized picture. The man, woman and two boys looked like they were having the time of their lives. I was at the back, fear etched across my face, and holding on with both hands like my life depended on it.

‘You didn’t wave,’ Mum said, closing the brochure.

I shook my head. ‘No.’

I’d ruined the picture. Done it so wrong, they’d had to use a tiny version of it when it should have been the biggest. The sense of shame was very real.

Had things turned out differently, had I been a natural in front of the camera, the Malta shoot might have been the launch of my modelling career. I could have gone on to big things, dominating the holiday brochure model world, possibly moving into TV. That woman frolicking with the handsome chap on the Tui TV advert (or is it Jet2) could have been me. It just wasn’t to be.

I thought that my modelling days were very much over. I tried to get them going again at the Clothes Show, but it wasn’t until I was thirty-two when I got another opportunity.

This time, a photographer who was building her business asked me to model for her. She wanted shots for her portfolio and thought I had a ‘natural—don’t try too hard’ chaotic look about me and she liked that.

‘This is it,’ I thought. ‘I could be the face of Barnsley.’

Unlike Malta, I was calm, confident, and on dry land. What could possibly go wrong?

To get into the photographer’s basement studio, I had to descend a flight of steep stone steps.

‘Be careful not to fall,’ she said at the exact moment my foot slipped. I fell onto my back and slid down from top to bottom, landing in a heap at her feet.

She picked me up and made me a cup of tea, asked me if I wanted to cancel. ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ I said. But honestly, I’d lost my je ne sais quoi.

Trying to get some arty shots of my hair blowing wildly, the photographer switched on some industrial-sized fans. They hit me so hard, I lost the feeling in my face.

When I climbed the steps on my way out, I realised my modelling days were well and truly over. Modelling was not for imperfect people like me—with my wonky smile, lumps, bumps, marks and moles. It was for the perfect people who looked a certain way and could act a certain way and stay upright.

But then, the body positivity movement came along, celebrating bodies in all shapes, sizes and ages. I thought the change was here to stay. Sadly, it seems not.

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