Perfect Is Boring

by Tyra Banks

  Tyra: Whatever I decide to do? Aaauughhhh!

  This was hard as hell to decide. And there was the issue of money. I had made some modeling money, but even with that supplement, college tuition was still going to be a big stretch for my parents. If I could pad my pockets by going to Paris, that could make paying for college a little easier. . . .

  Finally, I said ooh-la-la and what the hell, I’ll go to Paris.

  The decision got a lot easier when Loyola told me I could defer my admission for a year. If Paris was a bust, I’d just end up right back where I started: in film school. So, the worst thing that could happen to me could end up being the best anyway. Yeah, Ma had let me know the decision was mine to make, but also that it wasn’t one I should take lightly. That it was called the modeling business, not modeling playtime. College or no, I was still gonna have to study up for Paris.

  But first, I was gonna have to tell my Superexcited-his-daughter-got-into-every-college-she-applied-to-Loyola-sweatshirt-wearing Daddy.

  Yeah, that’s his legal name.

  My proud daddy and me at my high school graduation. Three short months later, I had to break the news that instead of going to college, I was going to Paris. Eek!

  Carolyn: Now, Tyra’s daddy adores his baby girl, but did that mean he was gonna support her no matter what she decided to do?

  Tyra: Boy oh boy, was I nervous. My dad was in papa heaven when he had flown me across the country to visit colleges, so having to inform him that I was now Tyra I’m-just-putting-college-off-for-a-year-to-go-to-Paris-to-try-to-model-internationally Banks wasn’t easy. (Yes, that was my legal name.)

  Ma and I took him to dinner at M&M Soul Food in Inglewood. We knew that filling his belly with rich smothered chicken, gooey macaroni and cheese, and collard greens bursting with ham hocks would help him swallow the news with a lot more ease. I mean, hey, the way to a man’s change-of-college-plans heart . . .

  Carolyn: It worked. He took the news in stride and even ordered peach cobbler for dessert. I was shocked. But, hey . . . never doubt the power of gravy, cheddar, and grease.

  Tyra: I was so happy. Amazed, but happy. My dad totally understood that I had a rare opportunity in front of me—a chance to experience the other side of the world, and not as a tourist. Yes, it would be new, scary, and out of my element, but he trusted me. He knew his daughter was no fool.

  Carolyn: As I was leaving the parking lot with all three of us in the car, I saw his eyes shift.

  Tyra: We needed to make a left-hand turn to take Dad back to his house. As Ma stopped at the intersection, and in the middle of a four-lane street with cars zooming around us everywhere, my dad threw open the passenger door and bolted out of my mom’s Honda Accord! I have no idea where he went. He just disappeared into the night.

  And he didn’t really talk to me for six months.

  Crap. Maybe all that gravy didn’t sit well?

  Carolyn: Seeing her daddy bolt into the dark didn’t make Tyra change her mind. I think it just made her more determined not to fail because she didn’t want to let him down. I told her that she was not leaving Los Angeles until she had learned everything she possibly could about the French fashion industry. “If all you can tell me is that they eat lots of croissants and have sexy accents and that the top fashion house is Chanel, you are staying your butt in L.A. because you will fail in Paris,” I said. “And you are not gonna fail.” And so she began her I-will-not-fail-Paris crash course.

  Tyra: I had two weeks, and lemme tell you, this was before you could just whip out your cell phone while standing in line for the bathroom at JCPenney and Google “everything I need to know about French fashion.” I had to work. I had to use books. I had to look things up on paper. Gasp!

  Cue the preparation montage!

  Ty minus 14 days: I hit the fashion library in downtown L.A., and I hit it hard. Because Mama was a photographer, she’d always read fashion magazines sideways so that she could read the photographers’ names, which, in those days, were listed in tiny type in the gutter. At the fashion library, the librarian told me that was where I should also look for the names of everyone else who had worked on the shoot: the editors, stylists, makeup artists, hairdressers. My aha moment was when I realized that in the top magazines, they were usually the same damn names! I ran home and told Ma right away. She smiled. “Then it looks like those are the people you should strive to work for,” she said.

  Ty minus 10 days: Time to find the remote and turn on the TV. We popped some popcorn and started taking notes on CNN’s Style with Elsa Klensch and MTV’s House of Style with Cindy Crawford. I checked out VHS archives of all the biggest Paris Fashion Week shows and practically broke the tapes hitting rewind. Mama and I watched everything from the biggest name—Chanel—to the most obscure—Lolita Lempicka—and I was glued to the screen watching the models strut down the runway. I saw that all the best girls had a little signature thing they’d do—whether it was the way they moved their eyes, a pirouette at the end, or a bold stompin’ step—that made them stand out from everyone else. I got to where I could identify a model just by her sashay in the dark in silhouette. Yasmeen Ghauri had the tiniest waist, and every step looked like she was dislocating a hip. Sounds crazy but she was fierce! Marpessa’s hips swayed, but she was lithe and light with a slight smile on her face. Sonia Cole took off a coat and gloves on the catwalk like David friggin’ Blaine. Pure friggin’ fierce magic!

  Ty minus 7 days: Oh my God, I need a signature walk!

  Ty minus 6 days: Mom tossed me her highest heels and draped the longest silk nightgown she owned over my shoulders. It was salmon colored and divine! Sometimes we’d throw a bathrobe over it to simulate an overcoat or tie a king-size sheet to my waist to pretend it was a train on a couture gown. Mama was a genius with those linen closet creations. Squint and you almost believed they were one-of-a-kind Dior couture that could cause tripping problems if you didn’t know what the heck you were doing. I’d walk back and forth, down the hallway and across the living room, as she sat on the couch with her ginger ale.

  Ty minus 5 days: Mama gave me feedback on—a.k.a. criticized the hell outta—my walk. “Ty, you’re pooching out your lips while you walk. Your lips are already full and beautiful, so stop that,” she’d say.

  “But Mama, I feel fierce when I push my lips out.” Fierce. I loved that word and was using it more and more often, because it always felt like the word I was searching for: sexy, but powerful with a lil wink on the side.

  I’d try again.

  “Still poochin’,” Mama would say. I’d head back to the hallway and prepare to do it again.

  Ty minus 4 days: “Tyra, you’re bouncing a lot—too much. Reel it in.”

  “But Mama, I feel fierce when I bounce a lot. I think it could be my signature.”

  “All right, then hone that bounce so you’re in control of it and your boobies don’t jiggle all over the place.”

  “Like this, Mama?”

  “Yep. So much better.” And then she’d sing, “Less bounce, to the ounce,” to the tune of Zapp & Roger’s tune.

  Ty minus 3 days: I knew I got it when I sashayed across that living room floor and Mama jumped up off the couch and yelled, “Yes, girl! FIERCE!”

  Ty minus 2 days: Hair and makeup prep.

  When I watched the fashion shows, I didn’t just watch the walks. I also paid attention to each model’s hair and makeup to see what kind of glam and girl each designer looked for. Yves Saint Laurent wanted girls who looked like bitchy ballerinas, with slicked-back buns and bold, red lips. Chanel wanted twirly-pearls girls, with big hair and joie de vivre smiles even in their quilted power suits. I had to learn to quickly create these looks myself so that I could walk into castings looking like the spitting image of each designer’s ideal girl. Red lipstick, check. Bobby pins, check. Hair grease, check. Powder, check. Scarf, check. . . .

  Ty minus 1 day: If . . .
I . . . can . . . just . . . get . . . this . . . gosh . . . darned . . . suitcase . . . closed. “Mama, come sit on this for me!”

  Liftoff:

  Daddy had been giving me the silent treatment, but he broke it long enough to come with Mama to take me to LAX so I could catch my flight to Paris. I was bawling as I walked through the terminal to get on that plane. Snot, boogers, tears . . . the ugliest KKW cry you can imagine. I kept facing forward as I walked away from them and tried to put as much pep in my step as I could. I did not want my dad to see my contorted face and panic. And I did not want my mom to know I was scared out of my mind. Gosh, I wanted to turn around and give one last look. One last good-bye. But I didn’t want to crush my parents. So instead I put my hand high in the air and waved to them . . .

  . . . without looking back.

  Carolyn: She had a signature walk, and she knew who the power players were. She had an arsenal of quick-change looks, enough for James Bond or some international spy, so she could transform instantly for each go-see. You weren’t just a model on that catwalk; you were a silent-movie actress. And the runway wasn’t just a walk; it was an audition. You had a goal: stand out on the runway and end up in the magazines. And if you’re lucky, your face stares back at millions from the cover. Tyra was a black girl, so we knew covers were not a real possibility, but it didn’t matter. She was ready for Paris. And we put all of this together in our living room.

  At the airport that day, her daddy and I didn’t take our eyes off of her as she walked away from us toward her plane until she disappeared in the crowd.

  The one thing I don’t understand to this day is why she didn’t turn back to give us one last good-bye.

  Tyra: If I had any fantasies about modeling being nonstop glamour and sophistication, those died as soon as I got on the plane. My seat number was something like 72E, and I was in a middle seat right by the bathrooms. I had to fold my giraffe legs up underneath me like a flamingo or else my knees were jammed up against the seat in front of me, and every time the bathroom door opened, I started gaggin’ and reachin’ for my barf bag. There was a line of people right by my seat, all sweating and anxious about getting into that bathroom so that they could take an after-dinner poop. The only thing that covered up the eau de poo-poo was the cigarette smoke from the dozens of people who lit butt after butt the entire eleven hours it took to get to Paris. By the time the flight landed at Charles de Gaulle, I was gasping for a breath that I never had a second to catch.

  I had never been anyplace where people didn’t speak English—oh wait, I’m an L.A. girl and made a few family trips to Tijuana, Mexico, but Europe and passports and airplanes, oh my! Nor had I ever traveled without chaperones, but I had to swallow my fear about being in a strange land full of only strangers, because as soon as I was off that plane, it was on.

  I hailed a taxi, which I had never done before, and went straight to the modeling agency. Mama had bought me a currency calculator, but shoot, it wasn’t a translator, so when my ride ended and it was time to pay, I nervously held out a handful of francs and let the cabdriver take what he needed. “You better not be ripping me off,” I said, in English he didn’t understand.

  “French French French French,” he said back, in French that I did not understand. Oh well, I thought, at least I took one taxi right without getting abducted.

  So far, Paris was a success.

  My new agent, Veronique, wanted me to come straight to their office, so there I was in front of the wrought iron gates of the City Models agency building at 22 Rue Jean Mermoz when the taxi pulled away. “Hello?” I called out, loudly through the gates. “Bonjour?” I tried, softer. Finally, someone buzzed me in, but I still had to drag all my suitcases up two flights of stairs by myself; the elevator was not working. When I found the office, I was sweating and my foot was throbbing from where I’d dropped my suitcase—with no wheels; ones with wheels didn’t exist yet if you weren’t a flight attendant—on my toe.

  If I was expecting a café au lait and a “How was your trip?” I did not get it. The office was full of people in black, smoking and yelling into a million different phones and speaking English with accents as thick as a slice of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. Someone thrust some papers into my hands. “You have fifteen go-sees,” she said.

  “Great!” I said. “I’ll just go drop my suitcases off at the models’ apartment and after a shower and a good night’s sleep—”

  “Non non non non non,” she said. “Now. Get orange card and phone card, and you go now.” Then she practically kicked my butt back down those stairs that I’d just dragged myself up.

  You needed a phone card to use the pay phones (yep, no portable cell phones existed back then) and an orange card to ride the subway (Uber what?). I got the phone card no problem, but the orange card was proving a little difficult. “Hi, ma’am. Um . . . I need to buy an orange card,” I said to the woman behind the counter. I got back a withering stare and a flurry of French.

  I tried again. “Orange card? For the um . . . the subway.”

  Same. But this time with a roll of her blue-eyeshadowed eyes.

  “Orange card. Like, uh . . . I really need an orange card.” A line was forming behind me, and I looked around desperately for a dropped card on the ground that I could maybe just point at.

  “Oh-runnngh card?” she said back to me, and shrugged like she had no idea what I was talking about. I was just about to panic when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  Tyra’s Carte Orange from Paris.

  “Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,” he said. “But you must try to speak the French. French people are so nice when you try to speak the French.”

  Oh. I nodded eagerly. I could do that. “Thank you,” I said to him. “How do I say ‘orange card’?”

  “Carte Orange.” My jaw musta dropped. Seriously, what the . . . That was it? That lady knew what the heck I was saying! Whatever. I turned back to her at the counter.

  “Carte Orange?” I said sheepishly, followed by “See voo play.”

  She sprang to life.

  “Ah! Carte Orange!” She smiled as she took my money and slid the orange card out to me. Then she said, “Welcome to beautiful Paris, young American girl!” with hardly any accent.

  She showed my ass that I needed to respect where the heck my ass was.

  Damn. Her lesson stuck. To this day I always try to speak as much of the native tongue of the land I am in. But anyway . . .

  I was on my way. And ready to slay the day. (That rhymes.)

  With my Carte-freaking-Orange, I got around that city’s arrondissements (little towns all over the city; there’s twenty of them) like I was born in Paris. Before I’d walk into castings, I’d duck into doorways and do my hair and makeup according to what I knew that designer liked. Lots of the other models would breeze into castings in high-heeled Michel Perry boots and sleek new outfits they’d bought in Milan (and they looked damn good), but I didn’t think twice about showing up in my baggy jeans, Timberlands, and my high school backpack with my portfolio inside. I felt that if my hair and makeup looked on theme, it wasn’t about how I looked in my clothes.

  It was about how I looked in their clothes.

  Every time I walked into a casting, I would walk that designer’s style with the glam look he or she adored (I was obsessed with playing the part of their signature girl) and was usually asked to then try on an outfit. Contrary to what you see on TV on my dear America’s Next Top Model and those go-sees I send the girls on, design houses don’t always ask you to try on their clothes. I felt so on point looking the part and walking the part. And the VHS tapes that my mom and I had studied burned brightly in my head from casting to casting.

  My first week in Paris, I met a fine-ass male model named Paul at one of my castings. He was black, had this weird yet glorious kind of beauty that was just my style, and he was British. Lord, that accent was li
ke butter melting on some hot sourdough bread. When he asked for my number, I was intrigued but terrified. I was used to boys, but this was a M-A-N. So what’d I do? I flat-out refused, even though I shared a phone with other girls in the models’ apartment and probably would have never gotten the message that he’d called anyway.

  In all my time in Paris, I never dated any models. I didn’t date any nonmodels either. Flat out, I didn’t date. Lots of girls were getting busy on the reg with all the French and otherworldly fineness that surrounded us, but I was all about that biz, baby.

  Which was great for my career (no distractions!) but also meant I was alone. A lot.

  Fashion fittings would go until midnight at times, so getting home on the subway was kinda scary, and I wasn’t making taxi money yet. Plus, early on, I hardly knew the streets (they call them rues) and could barely speak the language. And remember, there were no cell phones!

  So I created something special. My “lunatic walk.”

  I’d come up the stairs from the subway, then start talking to myself. “Well, all them green aliens they just come down and take my Cover Girl mascara juice and Jesus said thou shalt have fried schrimps and radioactive ice cream . . . Chanel Saint Laurent, shut cho ass up! I will burn you!” I’d shout, spin around in circles, and box the air like I was punching something only I could see.

  Any potential predators would take one look at me and think, “Huh, well, I ain’t *#¥$ing with that crazy chick.” (They’d think that in French, of course.)

  I did it every single night and even taught it to a few of the other models as well. “If you have to walk these midnight Paris streets by yourself,” I’d say, “just act friggin’ bonkers. No one’s going to mess with yo buck-wild ass.”

  THE ESSENTIAL TRAITS OF A KICK-ASS LUNATIC WALK

  The gaze: It should be off in the distance. If someone tries to talk to you, never make eye contact. Pretend they got a parrot on their shoulder, and look at the parrot.