I've been a "model" as long as I can remember, which is all consuming because literally every part of my life is affected by it. I'm generally expected to have my hair, nails, and skin looking flawless all the time. Even if I think I'm going to have a day off, I will often get a last minute casting or job. Flying off with a day's notice... gangly toe nails and inch long underarm hair not invited! Trying to regularly get 8-9 hours beauty sleep, think of how healthy I'm being, how much I drink (alcohol and water), whether i'm doing too little or too much exercise (although 6-packs on females are far more accepted now than when I first started modelling) and how I'm perceived on social media. I sometimes dream of the day I can go home at 5-6pm and not have to consider my career when socialising, or showering! But who am I kidding? I love working with different people, travelling the world (although mainly up and down the Virgin West Cost train line), having the possibility of finishing all my product/shots early and being able to get home pre rush hour traffic! My best days can be where I'm with a team I work with regularly and the simplicity of knowing what everyone expects is relaxing, or a brand new team who has so much energy and creative spirit it's infectious. And the thought that I might have tomorrow off is always an incentive to get through those days at work you don't like (and if you've never had one of them at school or in your career then wow you are lucky!)
Growing up on a boat and by the beach, being barely clothed seemed pretty normal to me. Once I moved to London, my (almost) 100 bikinis became something to savour, wearing once a year on holiday (gasp), but somewhere along the line this turned into me being constantly In My Knickers at work, and it being quite common knowledge with my regular clients that the less clothes I had on the more comfortable I felt. For me, it's always been completely normal, but for a lot of girls, they'd prefer to hide their bodies under layers of clothes. I know I'm very lucky and it has a lot to do with genetics (I have my flaws as we all do) but I've always kept active and loved to eat to fuel my body (ie fresh fruit and vegetables). But I really have just learnt to embrace my flaws if I can't fix them with exercise or eating healthy. Getting older is the best thing in that respect, I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin now than I ever have. I still have days where I "feel" fat, but I remind myself that fat is not an emotion, so I try to do some exercise and my "fat emotion" disappears! What amazes me about my model friends though, is even though they aren't perfect, (because come on, beauty is in the eye of the beholder), how positive they are even when someone tries to bring them down. Queue INSPIRATION FOR ASPIRATION a collection of people who will inspire you in more ways than you could imagine. People I admire for being stronger than me in ways I work my ass off to!
So I may have gotten a little off topic here, but what it boils down to is this! After trying on, shooting and taking off close to 100,000 different bras, panties, suspenders, knickers in the last 10 years or so, I consider myself an expert (or possibly just picky to the extreme). If you want to add swimwear and the like, the number would surely triple and then some. I love a well fitted bra, an underpant that doesn't ride up when I stand, a non existent VPL and prettiness to the extreme. Being an antipodean, I often find the differing of garment names in the English language still a bit confusing. Stockings in my mind go to the waist and have feet, tights have no feet and come to the waist and pretty much leggings could be the same thing, hold ups have no waist, cover the feet and are held up by a suspender belt. But to a Brit, these all have rather differing meanings. Pants for me are trousers, thongs are worn only on your feet and a vest is something you wear over your clothes, not under! Which has led to my blanket term Knickers. Males underpants, female panties, boxer shorts, g-strings, thongs, v-strings... all get called Knickers! And a state of being rather under dressed I refer to as being In My Knickers!
Growing up on a boat and by the beach, being barely clothed seemed pretty normal to me. Once I moved to London, my (almost) 100 bikinis became something to savour, wearing once a year on holiday (gasp), but somewhere along the line this turned into me being constantly In My Knickers at work, and it being quite common knowledge with my regular clients that the less clothes I had on the more comfortable I felt. For me, it's always been completely normal, but for a lot of girls, they'd prefer to hide their bodies under layers of clothes. I know I'm very lucky and it has a lot to do with genetics (I have my flaws as we all do) but I've always kept active and loved to eat to fuel my body (ie fresh fruit and vegetables). But I really have just learnt to embrace my flaws if I can't fix them with exercise or eating healthy. Getting older is the best thing in that respect, I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin now than I ever have. I still have days where I "feel" fat, but I remind myself that fat is not an emotion, so I try to do some exercise and my "fat emotion" disappears! What amazes me about my model friends though, is even though they aren't perfect, (because come on, beauty is in the eye of the beholder), how positive they are even when someone tries to bring them down. Queue INSPIRATION FOR ASPIRATION a collection of people who will inspire you in more ways than you could imagine. People I admire for being stronger than me in ways I work my ass off to!
So I may have gotten a little off topic here, but what it boils down to is this! After trying on, shooting and taking off close to 100,000 different bras, panties, suspenders, knickers in the last 10 years or so, I consider myself an expert (or possibly just picky to the extreme). If you want to add swimwear and the like, the number would surely triple and then some. I love a well fitted bra, an underpant that doesn't ride up when I stand, a non existent VPL and prettiness to the extreme. Being an antipodean, I often find the differing of garment names in the English language still a bit confusing. Stockings in my mind go to the waist and have feet, tights have no feet and come to the waist and pretty much leggings could be the same thing, hold ups have no waist, cover the feet and are held up by a suspender belt. But to a Brit, these all have rather differing meanings. Pants for me are trousers, thongs are worn only on your feet and a vest is something you wear over your clothes, not under! Which has led to my blanket term Knickers. Males underpants, female panties, boxer shorts, g-strings, thongs, v-strings... all get called Knickers! And a state of being rather under dressed I refer to as being In My Knickers!