Yahoo – AFP,
February 13, 2015
New York (AFP) - Chantelle Winnie is taking the fashion world by storm.
Canadian model with vitiligo who inspires fashion world |
New York (AFP) - Chantelle Winnie is taking the fashion world by storm.
The young
Canadian model, who loves an English breakfast of sausage, bacon and egg, is
the It girl of diversity in a world pilloried for brutal uniformity.
Diagnosed
with vitiligo aged four, the same skin disorder Michael Jackson had, she
overcame bullying and years of rejection to achieve her dream of becoming an
international model.
Plucked
from obscurity to appear on "America's Next Top Model" and chosen
last year as the face of Barcelona label Desigual, she loves every second of
her whirlwind, "amazing" life punctuated by lots of sleep and her
mother's breakfasts in Toronto.
The
20-year-old has crossed dreams off to-do lists, but the biggie remains: gracing
the cover of fashion bible American "Vogue," whose steely editor in
chief Anna Wintour she has not met. Yet.
Bubbly and
prone to loud guffaws of laughter, Winnie projects a girly exterior that belies
a cast-iron determination.
She has
become a spokeswoman for vitiligo, which causes white patches to appear across
the body and affects up to two million Americans, and has learned to be proud
of who she is.
"I
could more label myself as even a spokeswoman for happiness!" she tells
AFP in a New York hotel overlooking a gritty, wintry skyline of Manhattan.
But it has
not been an easy journey to the catwalk for Desigual on Thursday, the first day
of fall/autumn 2015 New York Fashion Week.
Brought up
by single mom
Brought up
by a single mother hairdresser, she flew regularly to see her father who comes
from Jamaica and has a house in Atlanta.
"We
lived on our own for a very long time and those are my happiest years, me and
my mom," she said.
But she was
badly bullied at school and as a teenager was rejected by every modelling
agency in Toronto.
Like any
self-respecting wannabe, she built a profile on social media where she was
discovered by ex-model Tyra Banks, presenter of long-running TV reality show
"America's Next Top Model."
Winnie was
booted off the show in 2014 but Banks is clearly a huge inspiration and the two
have remained close.
"You
were already a star. I just gave you a platform to make sure people recognized
that you were. Keep making me proud," she says, fishing out her cell phone
to read a message from Banks.
"That
really touched me," she adds.
The fashion
world has long been blamed for a multitude of sins: eating disorders, the cult
of thinness, an image of perfection that ordinary women can never obtain and of
being too white.
Although
Winnie's pigmented face is striking, she has the classic figure of a model --
five feet 10 inches (1.78 meters) with coltish limbs, chiselled cheekbones and
a tiny waist.
A model
with Downs Syndrome features in New York this week. Plus-size models are more
common in magazines and New York Fashion Week has clamped down on harsh working
conditions for child models.
Industry
opening up
"Even
the top models right now have a lot of personality and I feel like that's what
people are looking for, you know, something they can relate to, a real
person," says Winnie.
"So I
feel like the industry is very much opening up, widening their eyes."
She
describes Desigual as family.
"It
was very organic, you know. They just met me, fell in love with me and they
were like yep we're keeping you, you're ours now."
The label's
signature bold patterns and bright colors suit her personality but at heart she
is a sweatpants and sneakers kind of girl.
She doesn't
dwell on bad things in the past and says her message to young girls is:
"Focus on your opinion of yourself and not the opinion others have of
you."
When she
visited her old middle school she was mobbed. "A lot of the kids were like
'Oh my God, you're her, you're that girl!'"
She laughs
again. She gives the impression of a homebody who loves to sleep and loves
being coddled by her mom when she is home.
There she
tucks into her mother's English breakfast of tea, beans, sausage or bacon, and
runny eggs -- all protein -- and just the occasional piece of brown toast to
dip into the eggs.
"The
rest of the day I'll have like tonnes of spinach," she laughs. "But
protein and vegetables, that's kind of my diet."
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