“Representation Is the Bare Minimum”: Modeling’s Biggest Stars Speak Out

[upbeat music]

Crazy stuff goes on in this industry.

If I ever visibly saw somebody obviously being abused

or sexually abused or spoken down to,

I would stand up in, less than a second.

Have I heard about it? Yes.

Have I seen it done to other people? No.

I feel like in this industry is very competitive

and very ambitious.

So if you show that the slightest bit of being weak,

you can get taken down very easily.

I ve been on sets for the past seven years,

where sometimes you feel pushed.

You feel like you can t say no or else something,

is gonna happen with a campaign or something else

is gonna happen with this but,

I ve learned this year that my boundaries are something

that can t be crossed and can t be pushed

and some shoots I wish I could go back

and I wish I could have never done them,

but sometimes,

I guess you have to mess up to be able to move forward.

For me like I ve just always been a little bit

of like an insecure person or anxious.

And when you re constantly,

like people are constantly taking your photos

or touching you like it s very,

and you re kind of in the limelight in that way

it s easy to kind of hyper focus on the things

that you don t like about yourself.

I see and have empathy towards my other models

that I m on set with,

who are talking about their bodies and what they re eating

and the sizes they wanna be.

And I know what it s like to be there

and I know that that pressure is so real.

For most of the shoots I m a part of,

the styling is pretty tricky

and sometimes having a batch of clothes that just won t fit

has made me feel insecure.

Like I need to fit the clothes and not the clothes fit me.

I definitely have struggled in the industry in terms of

like going to a fitting and just my feet being too big

to fit in the shoes or my shoulders being too broad.

And sometimes it does kind of tie in a little bit

to gender dysphoria for me in a lot of ways,

because there are a lot of girls who are sis like onset,

who fit into all the clothes

and like I definitely have felt different,

when I m in certain spaces and like I have

to try on certain and clothes and I m just

like different parts of my body like don t really

fit the mold.

This industry we all need to realize

that every single person has their own struggles

and their own issues of who they are.

And you can t,

you can t make people do things that they don t wanna do.

I think a lot of racism happens very quietly

and very subtly and that doesn t make it better

it just makes it more insidious and more pervasive.

And people really don t get it,

being African-American is something

that should be celebrated.

And that should be recognized and being

African-American woman, that is an untraditional size woman,

is something that pushes me even further.

When I first started, I guess brands didn t know what

to do with my hair and my skin,

I would go on set and the hairstylist would say,

Do you know how to straighten your hair?

And I said, No.

And I asked him, Do you know how to straighten my hair?

And he said, No.

And then he was just like, Okay, now what?

And then that s when I realized I was like,

I have to stand my ground I have to stand for something

I have to cause some change.

I refuse to do any shows or any shoots with straight hair.

And I basically told them it s Afro or cornrows or nothing.

One of those things that I heard a lot was,

Oh, you you know how to speak English?

Like, Oh, you re fluent, you don t have an accent.

And I m like, I don t tell you, you don t have an accent.

I think it s really about peeling the layers back

and looking this ugly, ugly, nasty monster in the face,

and being aware of how you contributed to it

or how those you are connected to have contributed to it,

or how the house you were raised in,

cultivated environment for you to feel comfortable

to be racist.

[upbeat music]

Every single little kid,

should be able to see someone who looks like them,

being considered a supermodel.

I am proud of where we ve gotten with diversity.

I think we have a long way to go.

And I say that very, very strongly.

I made it very clear,

a couple of years ago that I don t wanna go onto a set

that doesn t have representation of everybody I just don t.

And I don t feel comfortable on a set like that.

It gets, quite irritating when people have this one idea

of one Asian woman should be like,

when really there s so much more,

there are so many types of Asian beauties

and just beauties in general.

I was rejected a lot because they were like,

Oh, you seem so cool, but you don t have the look.

I m like, What look are you talking about?

Is it because my are bigger?

Representation I feel like it s the bare minimum.

And I feel like a lot of people act like representation

is like the ultimate goal, right?

Like everyone wants to be seen and heard and represented.

But I feel like representation is a little

bit more complicated than that,

there s room than for potential tokenization

cause I was always openly trans

and I made gender always a huge part of the conversation.

And I still do it s something that I very much care about,

but I don t want it to be like the only thing to define me.

It s like, Okay, we re gonna include you,

but like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

we still have to make sure that everybody knows exactly

what you are, so that they know

that we re doing a good job.

I wanna see tokenism get thrown out the window, honestly.

I think there are brands and designers

that genuinely care about inclusivity and representation.

And I think that there are some that follow it as a trend

and profit off of it, but it s not sincerely authentic.

The biggest thing that needs to change is like,

how can we be ethical in representation.

Think about people as full people and varied individuals

and kind of honor all facets of who they are.

I think that s the biggest change for me.

In the past couple of years is I m being included

in things that I never thought I could be included in.

The work that I m doing now is going to in the future

provide more space for people after me.

I take so much pride in showing up, anywhere I am,

to represent us to the best of my abilities.

Moving forward that s what every single,

person of influence can do.

We need to make sure that there are artists

from everywhere in the world,

being able to have a voice to be heard and,

to be seen, because there s so much to see out there

and we re doing a disservice to,

worldwide communities by not representing them.

[upbeat music]