Modelling and rejection

I worked as a model for 16 of the 17 years I've been in fashion. That's the longest job I've ever had in my life.

And yet, I never really felt like a model.

From the very beginning, I felt like an impostor, like I wasn't enough.

I was 20 when I started, which already felt too old in an industry obsessed with youth. So I wasn't young enough. I also wasn't tall enough. And many times, I thought I wasn't the right kind of beautiful. So I wasn't beautiful enough.

If you know anything about modelling, you know rejection isn't just common. It's the norm.

You show up to castings, get put forward for jobs, and most of the time, you don't get them.

And when that happened, I told myself it was my fault. That I wasn't professional enough, thin enough (or full enough, it constantly changed), striking enough, commercial enough, high fashion enough. Every no was proof that I was lacking something.

So I did what any lifelong people-pleaser would do: tone myself down. I tried to be the version of myself that would be most likeable. I shaped myself into whatever I thought would get me booked.

And in the process, I lost myself.

There was a huge disconnect between who I was and who I was pretending to be. And I didn't even realise it at the time.

I had always struggled with rejection. And somehow, I ended up in an industry where rejection was unavoidable.

That forced me to face it. To sit with the discomfort. To unlearn the belief that every no meant I wasn't enough.

Modelling taught me that rejection isn't a reflection of your worth. And that shrinking yourself to be more acceptable will never give you what you're looking for.

Cover image by Wild Things Wed.