Becoming the Model Kate

Week 2/52 of the “try new things every week challenge to myself.” 

I can now add fashion modelling to the skills section of my C/V. 

I’ll list it right after my CPR with AED certification because there might be strong reactions to the news. I am not looking for work, but I imagine recruiters will call me just to hear the story. 

This week I was a model in a fashion show in support of UNITY ONE/ The Faces of Change produced by arts and entertainment manager Nalini Singh.

My life is full of people like Nalini, which means highly unlikely things become more likely to happen. And they happen without much notice. 

If I’d had time to consider the offer, I would have tumbled into a fit of insecurity. The word “model” triggers me and I don’t think I am alone in feeling that way. I am 54, so it matters less now, but just hearing the word reminds me of all the ways society has told me that my body and skin and shape don’t meet the acceptable beauty standards of the time and place in which I live. 

Luckily, I have just committed to a year-long exercise dedicated to challenging my own limitations, so I just said yes to Nalini’s invitation to model in her show.

Immediately after I agreed, I was hit with all the “what have I gotten myself into” regrets. In these cases, a quote from a Jane Austen novel or a Shakespearean play usually influences my mindset. This time, though, I remembered Rocky and Adrian’s first date conversation and it guided me through the worst of those rising insecurities.

Rocky, you might recall, confessed to focusing on his body because his father told him he wasn’t very smart while Adrian’s mother told her she didn’t have much of a body and should focus on her brain. And, while the brains and brawn dynamic worked for them (at least in the original movie, if not in the sequels), it has never worked out for me. 

At 12:30 on Saturday afternoon my friend Laurie and I arrived in Hamilton ready to start the modelling shift with other mysteriously ordinary looking folks. Models, it turns out, spend a lot of time waiting around. The waiting time was busy. Violeta Ortega Ramos did my make-up and one of the talented students at  Bruno’s School of Hair Design did my hair.  And, I had to get used to my fashion for the evening. The event sponsor I was working with, Out of the Rabbit Hole, embraces the modern primitive aesthetic and combines it with punk and goth movements to create jewellery, decorative arts and crafts, and hand drums in the Celtic tradition. It was a look I could get behind. 

There was also time to make friends with the community of people Nalini assembled to make the event. In talking with the universally kind group, I realized that “real” models probably don’t get on stage thinking “I am here because I am one of the most beautiful women in the world.”

Not that I called Linda Evangelista to ask her, but I assume they probably create a character that goes with the costume, hair and make up they are wearing. I’d like to say that’s what I did, drawing on my experience as a high school method actor thirty years ago, but I really didn’t have time for that kind of character development. Instead, I just channeled Gwendoline Christie’s Brienne of Tarth from Game of Thrones because, twice now, people have compared me to her even though I am not even six feet tall. 

After all the psychological reckoning the word model triggered, after doing one of the most unlikely things I have ever been asked to do, I had a lot of fun giving my fiercest pout to the audience. My eyes might have laughed a little while I did it too. 

In case you missed it, here's week one of my "try new things every week" challenge. Part three is ready too.