Supermodel Steele capitalised on ‘ugly’ experiences in the big world

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Phillipa Steele with five-month-old daughter Tazanya Lomukoroi and partner Ulaiasi Koroi. Picture: SIKELI QOUNADOVU

IT’S not all glitz and glamour in the fashion industry.

At least that is how US-based international model Phillipa Steele puts it.

She was only 17 years old when she got hooked up to the fashion industry on a contract that saw her leave behind everyone she loved in search of a brighter future.

Throughout the four years in the US, Phillipa travelled extensively, featuring in billboards and the catwalks of some of the famous fashion shows.

She also travelled to Sydney, London and Manila but behind closed doors and glimmering lights, she had to fight tooth and nail to secure a spot.

“I remember being 17 when I left, and I hadn’t been anywhere even to Suva without my parents. So I was all alone and I remember going from casting to casting,” Steele told The Fiji Times.

“Ninety per cent of the job is getting rejected, 10 per cent is the only time you get the jobs.

“So I remember I got to a point where I was so depressed.

“Into my final casting, I had waited for about six hours. When it was finally my turn to walk through the door, the designer turned away and just said ‘take her photo and tell her to leave — I don’t like her’,” she recalled in this interview.

“After waiting that long, I tried to stay strong and walked out the room. As soon as I got out, I broke down and cried, I cried all the way from the audition area to my apartment.

 

US-based Fiji model Phillipa Steele. Picture: FT FILE

“Some designers you know because they see girls over and over again, they don’t take into consideration feelings and that you are an actual human being, so they treat us like robots. So sometimes when I walk through the door, I could get a ‘You are ugly, I don’t want her, send her out’ right to my face.”

 

Steele said those experiences pushed her beyond her borders.

“In Fiji, we tend to think there are not a lot of models, but actually when you get to New York, there’s like 4000 of you there for fashion week and we are all fighting and competing against each other for one show. And one show can have only 10 models. You have over 300 models audition. I could be number 190.

“And you have only less than 30 seconds to impress, sometimes if you are lucky two minutes, within that short span of time you have to showcase your personality, show them how confident you are, show them why you are different from everyone else and why you are different from the rest and that’s a hard thing to do.

“The experience in the US has taught me to be thick skinned, to be more independent, be more mature, learn how to live without relying on other people for help and it has matured me more than I thought.”

Now preparing to return to the US, Steele says she is more determined and more prepared than ever.

“I spent four years doing that. Now nothing can move me. If someone says something to me, it’s hard to make me cry. The only thing that makes me cry now is my daughter,” the 22-year-old mother said.

“I do have contracts that are still going on and I am going back to renew them. I still have my agencies who are there waiting to have me back, so the only rule is for me to get back into shape, and I have already done that.

“My daughter is still young, I am not ready to leave her yet, I will leave her when I feel she is old enough and then I will take her over with me.

“When people look at me, people think I am a kaivalagi or I am from overseas because of how white I am.

“They don’t really understand how proud I am to be Fijian or to be mixed kailoma, or how proud I am to be from the Nadroga/Navosa province because my parents were born and bred here in the same village, and their seven kids – my siblings – in the same village. So we have this deeply-rooted connection at Kulukulu Village in Sigatoka.

“That is why, wherever I travel around the world, my family will always support me, and for me I will still always come back home. I am so close here that I will not leave Kulukulu and I am proud of my village and my province.”

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