Model Rainbow Warriors

From the mouths of babes, Supermodel quote of the day…

” What is important is to have values in life. What’s important is how you are, not how you look.” – Valerie Mazza

It is probably not a huge surprise that there is a high representation of the gay community in our industry – models, photographers, designers, makeup artists, bookers. We love them. They are fun, understanding, creative, great at what they do, and bring life to a shoot.

How our society has found it so difficult to allow these often sensitive and caring people to declare love under the eyes of the law has always confused me, Love is Love – right?

And like trying to explain the purpose of decorative cushions to a straight man, sometimes the other party is just not listening. We shouldn’t have to explain, we just know that a perfect arrangement of decorative cushions gives you the same amount of joy as a child’s first steps, the first swim of summer, love… it just feels right, so don’t question it!

Numerous talkback shows highlight how difficult gay people find living in small country towns. Which also demonstrates the silly prejudices that exist in our world. But on that note – come to the city, join our industry – we love you. We even created a festival for you.

Quite frankly, our industry would probably not exist without the valuable input provided by so many of our gay colleagues. I love the Gay personas that step out in the studio – DoMe Moore, Theresa Wareness, Ken Wood. These characters are fun, uplifting, and warm the heart.

We exist in a bizarre spectrum of society, where there is a bustling bazaar behind the scenes. There is a lot of colour, performances, and strange smells – hairspray, burning lights, steamers. You need to have a lot of stamina and personality to survive. Quite often, you have to leave your inhibitions at the door. Perhaps that is why this industry calls from the top of the Priscilla Bus to so many gay people.

There is no real surprise that J. Alexander is the top tutor, teaching girls how to catwalk. We models need all the help we can get. We do have rubber ankles, as shown by numerous viral videos of girls almost surviving catwalk falls. But usually, when the tailwind of a truck picks up our dresses, we are left grasping aimlessly and exposing our knickers to the street. That is where we really fall down. Thanks to J, we are figuring it all out.

There is also no surprise that gay makeup artists are often the best in their field. They seem to have an excellent eye for beauty and detail. Despite contrary belief, there are nights when we models do not wash our makeup off. When we wake up to a made-up imprint of ourselves on the pillow. Or, if you are lucky, you can conserve an outstanding individual lash job or eye shadow palette by a makeup artist for another day. This works particularly well if it falls close to the weekend. You can pretend you did it yourself and secretly credit your incredible gay makeup artist.

So I vote yes, I support love, and I think the world would be a better place if we could all agree on that.