By Naomi Harron
I did not begin modelling under the presumption that it would be empowering, nor that it would make me feel beautiful. I simply entered it as a practical transaction—a way for me to extract money and notoriety from a body already observed in a world that interchanges terms like the “male gaze” and the “female body” as if they are one and the same.
What I did not expect was how modelling would completely estrange me from my own body. I say estrangement because, to model well, the subject must require a kind of absence in their work—a level of dissociation that makes the body easier to work with, easier to mould, and even easier to offer. Strangely, in this absence I found a new pleasure; a new way for my body to be in service of others—to not be touched, only marketable for a stranger’s vision.
Modelling curated a distance where I was able to see my body as a yard of fabric as opposed to a piece of meat. It feels as though you are performing with great functionality that gives you the illusion that you are worthy of the wealthy’s time.
Modelling was a new form of objectification for me—one which thrived off exclusivity, fear, and awe. I came to this conclusion after my first show at age 22. Although it was a small runway, showcasing looks from independent alumni designers who had graduated from the university in which the event was showing, the intricate politics of modelling became abundantly clear: to be beautiful is to be revered, and to be revered is to be untouchable.
This idea—this perfectly linear progression of what it means to essentially be a mannequin—made me both love and hate myself to new extremes. I say love myself because, for once, I yearned for the objectification that came from the career, as it was an environment in which commodifying appearance was both acceptable and even celebrated. I say hate myself because, once again, I found myself in a position where my body was carefully architectured into something that was not my own.
Modelling simply would not exist had this world not been predicated on appearance as currency.
And yet, modelling also requires a level of artistry: a practice of restraint, interpretation, and control. You are the designer’s brush with which they wish to paint the world. You are the photographer’s centre-frame, which blurs out beauty’s harshness. There is an astounding level of relationship within modelling that remains the backbone of great, collaborative art. Perhaps the illusion is that the viewers are also part of this art.
I can vividly remember a man after this first show coming up to congratulate me. I was happy for someone to approach me and speak of my performance in words of wonder as opposed to unsolicited vulgarity when it came to matters of my body. However, this interaction also confused me, because what was I to be congratulated for? For being born with my genetics, or being so easily conforming to a group of people who simply look down upon the lesser elite?
When you are on the runway, you are to become a spectre of the wealthy—a reminder that although they can buy the clothing on your back, they can never buy your beauty, your thinness, or your willingness to give your body up in such a fascinating way.
I came to this conclusion on my second runway, where the far wealthier portion of the population attended. I showcased two looks that I later realised amounted to more money than my entire bank account. A funny thing, isn’t it, to be rich in appearance yet poor in material?
The world of beauty is one that has been privatised, industrialised, and so very sought after —yet to what extent, and to what politics, does it abide by?
This particular runway had few models, all of whom were rather experienced. And yet, I was visibly darker than everyone else. Despite only being mixed, I remained the darkest person present throughout the entire event—a fact that left me with a persistent sense of inferiority.
I now know that what I experienced on this runway was not merely personal discomfort, but rather the residue of a long history—one where skin is measured, ranked, and selectively aestheticised.
Tan skin—once a precursor to slavery—is now commodified into a billion-dollar business that successfully sells the fantasy that to be brown is desirable. So long as its myth is curated, commodified, and wiped of any historical resonance, brownness becomes a costume which white bodies can now own.
In Australia, white people have not only devastated culture through the genocide of First Nations people but now call bronze liquid a lifestyle—as opposed to a skin colour they have historically oppressed.
They slather its sweet, synthetic smell onto their glorious pale bodies, hoping to become something they are not. Perhaps they hope to be desirable. Perhaps they want to be diverse—to stand out, to be seen, to be cared for. They make sure that all the brown people out there know that the colour of their skin is owned—even if it is now commodified into extreme exoticism, it is still owned by white people.
I feel this dissonance each day in the Brisbane market, for this city possesses an allure for the “girl next door”. This allure is not accidental; it is carefully constructed, sustained by an economy that rewards proximity to a particular kind of femininity. Brownness achieved solely by the sun is often sidelined for this reason alone. The brown body has historically been perceived as lacking softness, positioned as other and excluded from the domestic and sexual ideals that shape Western beauty standards. Brownness does not belong to the pin-up girls of the 1950s.
Brownness is not beauty; it is a commodity, held in constant servitude to those who first claimed the ‘power’ to define it. Beauty standards do not simply shift—they replicate according to prevailing ideals that promise time, wealth, and the illusion of happiness.
Where my mother was once hurled racist comments at school in the 1980s, her daughter is now able to benefit from these exchanges. And yet, her daughter also does not.
She feels as though she was born between two of the sixteen principal plates of this earth—never quite belonging to a singular land.
She looks to the lines of her palms as if they were the journeys her ancestors made to this place.
She wishes she were white, with blonde hair and blue eyes, because to be white is to be human—and she has spent her entire life learning what it means to be almost.
