This week I visited the Land of the Giants.

These giants though, weren’t green and gnarly and built like rectangles.

No! They were mostly blonde or brunette and smooth and built like pencils.

Photo by Ian Golding

It was the model casting for the Fashion Festival and over 250 potential catwalk strutters and stunners turned up to try out.

I had to navigate through a canopy of limbs and hair to find the models, male and female, that would make a good story not just a good picture, in my role as media manager.

Now, I am the height of an average Australian women. And the reason I know that is because when producing a story on the Aussie women’s basketball team at the Beijing Olympics I was surprisingly impressed to find I was the same height as the shortest Opal. The tallest of course was Lauren Jackson at 6ft 4 and I investigated further to convey in the story  the height ranges of such an elite team. So it was encouraging to know that girls could carve out a career in a sport that you’d stereotypically think was exclusively for amazons.

Not so the competitive world of runway modeling.

Not one of the 200 female models were anywhere near my height (or lack of it) at the casting. Not one.

In fact some had legs that were as long as my body from the waist down. I’m not exaggerating.

For a fair amount of the time I was too busy barging through the throng, trying to avoid knocking my head on breasts, to feel physically inadequate.

Then of course came the swimwear  try-outs.

Flat stomachs, perky and small or bouncy and buxom chests, rocking bikini’s and killer heels on the end of yes…long legs. What bubbling self-esteem issues?

Still, there were enough bodies out of clothes that weren’t completely perfect,  for me to silently snicker about and critique negatively to maintain a sense of self-confidence. I saw a flash of cellulite, a roll under the bum cheek(I think) a bit of flab here and there, and I’m sure a lot of those togs were last season. Ha, felt so much better when I ticked that off in my head.

But to do my job I actually had to find and recognise the models with the back story by face. So ignoring the neck cramps from looking up and through vines of very, very long and straightened hair I was able to locate them. As you’d imagine not too many uglies among the model forest. Not all were breath-takingly beautiful thank goodness, but most were interesting looking in some way. (I really liked the ones that were bordering on plain…then again they had long legs)

At the end of the day, the job got done, (the publicity was good…much needed self ego boost here) all 250 plus models had been put through their paces and the selection panel, so it was time to return to the land of the real.

Of course I’m sure most of those models can’t spell or write or even read .

(oh except for the ones still at school and uni and oh yes the ones that had a law degree and yep the few that were modeling part time to save money to go overseas and umm yeh the ones who were really well spoken and nice)

What self-esteem issue?