Is the world ready for the first Aboriginal supermodel? Samantha Harris certainly hopes so. It has been a childhood dream for this 19 year-old Aboriginal Australian, one that started at the tender age of five when her mother entered her in the first of many beauty pageants. Harris says she spent the rest of her childhood “wondering why you had to have blonde hair and blue eyes to do well in modelling competitions”. Although beaten to the 2004 Girlfriend Model Search crown by (blonde-haired, blue-eyed) Abbey Lee Kershaw, making the final round of that high profile Oz modelling competition – which has springboarded Catherine McNeil and Alyssa Sutherland, among others – was enough to put Harris in orbit. It’s been a slow burn since then, involving lots of Australian Fashion Week and David Jones runway shows, with her biggest get a 2006 shoot with Patrick Demarchelier for US Glamour. But things could be about to change. Harris has just wrapped up a go-see fortnight in New York, where these new test shots were taken.
Harris has five years modelling experience in the low-stress local market under her belt. Her mother agency Chic Management is now grooming her for the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 runway season which kicks off in four months’ time. So let’s wait and see.
and how great to see someone who will hopefully be able to represent young aboriginal girls across australia and remind them that they are incredibly beautiful..
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