by Tyra Banks
No slicing and dicing beauty into a series of rights and wrongs, greater-thans and less-thans. It just is.
Your beauty is beautiful.
WE ALL WANT WHAT WE DON’T HAVE
When I saw a girl standing in front of me wearing contact lenses to get my eye color, all I could think about was how my entire life, I have been surrounded by imagery and people saying her hair texture was the absolute ultimate. Dozens of wigs and weaves later, I still struggle with what was drilled into my head by society as a kid. Hair is very emotional for women and is oftentimes a political thing, too. Those struggles in my community, and many others, continue to this day.
When it comes to our reflections, the grass-colored eyeshadow is always greener in someone else’s makeup caddy:
To name just a few:
Girls with straight hair want curls and beachy waves, but curly girls get Brazilian blow-outs and no-lye relaxer treatments.
Girls with unibrows don’t leave home without their tweezers in tow, while the thin-browed ladies will go down swinging to save their eyebrow pencil.
There are pale girls slathering on that bronzer (way better than the tanning beds of the ’80s and ’90s), while some darker-hued girls are investing in lightening creams.
The thin-lipped are getting injections to plump up their pouts, while some with naturally bodacious smackers are using plastic surgery to reduce theirs. (Google it. The pictures are like . . . whoa!)
Carolyn: I love that, Ty. you're making Mama really proud right now.
Tyra: Now’s the time where you’re probably thinking, “So, Tyra, if you want to make the girls feel better about themselves, and if you’re all crying and boo-hooing over your model’s breakthrough, then why the heck are you giving them makeovers every damn season?”
Well, I’m glad you asked, because, boo, I am not giving them makeovers. I’m giving them Tyovers, and that’s a whole different type a thang.
The harsh truth that I found out as a young model is that not every flaw can be flaunted in fashion.
Discussing Tyovers behind the scenes on Top Model with executive producer Jaimie Glasson.
This is especially true—and probably especially harsh—in the world of modeling, where you are trying to build a career by selling your physicality and image to clients. Modeling takes real-world scrutiny and kicks it up ten notches. Hell, maybe even a hundred. And it’s crazy because you may be pretty much OK with how you look but then get signed to a modeling agency and all of a sudden you’re hearing all kinds of crazy stuff about yourself that you were never insecure about. Like, what the heck do you mean that my calves are not in proportion to my thighs or that my waist is too long to look good in a bikini or my belly button is odd cuz it’s neither an innie nor an outie or that my profile is too flat or that when I smile my top lip disappears and I have to learn to smile not as real to keep the fullness in my upper lip? The industry needs to realize the power it wields with this kind of feedback. (Ummm . . . Mizz TyTy is the recipient of all those ummm . . . comments, BTW.)
Carolyn: When Tyra would hear those kinda things, she always took it like a pro. However, Mama was the one who’d start foaming at the mouth and looking around for something (or someone) to smack. Sometimes I’d have to excuse myself and go to the bathroom just to take a few breaths and calm down, ’cause I knew swiping an agent’s desk and throwing all their stuff on the floor wasn’t gonna help my baby get booked.
Tyra: It feels like those fashion biz powers that be in black are just hating on you hard, and they are—but in a different way. They’re hating to lose money and wanting you to be as marketable as possible. So, they break it all down, and often break you down in the process. But yeah, it’s just business. Soul-crushing business if you’re not strong enough to take it, shake it, then make it. And for the models who quit the biz and say, “Enough!” I say bravo for being self-aware that this sometimes painful business is not for you.
I am very happy to see that the industry is cracking down on harassment. Casting director James Scully has emerged as a powerful advocate for change, and there are wonderful former agents of mine, one being Oscar Reyes, who genuinely champion diversity and models’ well-being, and this is just the beginning. There is no reason we can’t give the whole industry a Tyover.
With a Tyover, I am trying to pull something unusual out of the girl and push her toward something that is marketable as a model. Truthfully, sometimes this is about just making someone a little more conventional because that’s how she will get the most work as a model.
Other times—and in fact, most of the time, and the most exciting—it is not about making someone the prettiest girl in (that long-ass) line at In-N-Out Burger, but about giving her a look that is edgy, weird, interesting, or unforgettable.
There are no hard-and-fast rules for a Tyover (as in, “Tyra thinks a bob looks good on everyone! You get a bob! And YOU get a bob!”), because I am always looking at the individual girl and asking myself, “What does she need to take her look and career to the next level?” Modeling is a fluid and always-changing industry, so each model has to take trends and timing into account when she’s launching her career. You don’t want to go in looking like everybody else, but you also don’t want to go in with a look that’s so off trend you’ll never get booked. (Although every blue moon, a totally out-there girl comes into the industry and rocks it from H2T—head to toe!)
Early in Top Model, we had a Southern stunner of a girl come on who had a very large gap between her front teeth. This was after Lauren Hutton but before Lara Stone, and I felt like it could really hurt her chances of getting booked. In person, the gap was so cute and charming, but it didn’t translate on camera. I ran her photos by some agent friends of mine at different agencies, and they said they didn’t think they could market her. (Yep, I get advice on Tyovers often. Off camera. Yep, TyTy gets helphelp.)
So I suggested she have a dental procedure to reduce the gap, and she was not happy with me about it. I don’t blame her; I love a model who has an opinion, but I was steadfast in my belief (and advice from top agent pros) that this was something she needed to do if she seriously wanted to pursue a successful modeling career. She had a charming down South accent, all kinds of swag, the most precious full lips, cheekbones that could slice pepper jack cheese, and a Smize that could start fires. Plus, the girl could dominate a runway! As much as I admired her hustle, I did not want to see her miss out on some great opportunities because of one small trait (yeah, this is that whole difficult side of modeling I was talking about earlier). Finally, she agreed to have the dental work done.
This dynamite girl ended up winning the cycle and booking top, national modeling jobs. She still models and is an entrepreneur to boot. I scan her IG and beam with pride at how well that Southern country cutie’s doing. So yeah, I was glad she took my advice. She also didn’t choose to reverse the procedure, even though it wasn’t permanent.
But if she wanted to open that gap today and asked me if I thought she should, I’d say yes.
But the whole situation still makes me go “Hmmmm,” and I’m torn about whether I did the right thing. Closing the gap got her ready to book the most modeling jobs . . . my mission—but letting it be would have expanded the definition of beauty . . . again . . . my mission, even if it meant sacrificing lots of work. I struggle with this kind of trade-off every season of Top Model, in some way or another, and the dilemmas stick with me. I wear two hats: model mentor and beauty crusader. Usually they’re BFFs, but sometimes they have to duke it out. So as you read this and can feel the dilemma, what would you have done? Closed the gap so she could rock more billboards and posters? Or left it alone so she could be the gap-toothed poster child? One decision is for her, the other is for, well . . . others. Maybe I should have left it alone on the show and then let her agent advise her after we wrapped. Two birds, one stone. Yeah, that’s what I shoulda
done. Damn. Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda. Why is everything always crystal clear years later?
* * *
• • •
CUT TO A FEW YEARS LATER, during our petite cycle (wassup my 5'7" and under cuties around the world!), I urged one of my models to take the opposite course and widen her existing gap. She went along with this suggestion, agreeing that it would help give her a certain edge. And it worked great in her photos and she rode the wave of the Lara Stone trend, the gap-toothed supermodel of that moment.
I got so much flack for this.
Flack in tweets, comments, e-mails, snail mail.
“Tyra, you minimized one girl’s gap seasons ago and maximized another’s. What???”
On the surface, it looks really confusing. I get it. But it’s the fashion biz, so you’ve got to look deeper. These two beautiful girls were very different models, at very different times in an ever-changing industry. Everyone is an individual and I treat all my girls that way, by individually assessing them. There are no hard- and-fast rules as to what features work in modeling and what features don’t, but there is something called a trend. Yep, the T-word again. And when a trend is coming for you, sometimes the only thing you can do is saddle up and ride it all the way to the bank. And I want as many girls as possible riding money horses of their own—a whole fleet of flawsome cowgirls—so when I see something that may stand in the way of a girl (and her bank account) reaching her full potential, that’s when the extra nuances of a Tyover come in. And yep, the whole tug-of-war starts up all over again. Should I? Shouldn’t I?
It takes a certain look and spirit to get in the door of the modeling world, but even once you’re in, the client and the industry are still going to have a lot to say. A whole helluva lot. Every time a model gets hired, she may wanna walk on set and say, “Take me as I am.” But get this: The very core of the modeling powers that be is not to just take you as you are. They may fall in love with some of your flawsome features (heck yeah!), but often they take you and make you and bake you into whatever different version of you works best for their brand/magazine/product/agency/idea.
It’s also business, and they take care of theirs just as much as you have to take care of yours. You can always say no, and you should if you feel like something you are being asked to do will compromise your health, safety, reputation, or standards. Shoot, a big “Hell to the no!” would be quite appropriate. When the high-fashion world was asking me to lose a lot of weight, my mother and I decided to walk away because we knew I’d be jeopardizing my mental and physical well-being if I did so. (I mean, have you picked up on how much I like food by how much I talk about it in this book?) Refusing to lose weight was a calculated risk that I took, and it paid off.
However, if you are a model who is just getting started, and you cry and run off set the first time someone suggests you dye your hair, you are also taking a risk—one that might not pay off. You’re playing it too safe, boo. C’mon, be open. Hair grows back!
Don’t love your tresses transformation? Cover it up. Lace front wigs are one of the world’s greatest inventions, right up there with talk-to-text and single-serving packets of barbecue sauce. So wear ’em! Shoot, I got tons of wigs in every color and texture in storage. Hit me up if you’re willing to dig through the piles to find one that suits your fancy.
Alert, alert! Yeah, this is just a photo of Mama and me at a banquet, but check out my natural hair!
Carolyn: One of Tyra’s biggest talents with makeovers is that she helps you to think outside the box. Sometimes that takes a nudge, sometimes it takes a shove, but once you’re outside that box, you can’t believe you wasted so much time in there. And I speak from experience here—I’ve gotten a Tyover myself!
A few years ago, I was getting ready for a black-tie event. I’d always interpreted black tie pretty literally—I wore all black. It was conservative, safe, and, I have to admit, a little boring. Especially because I paired it with the pageboy hairdo and makeup that I wore every day to the office. No frills, no shine, no fun.
Tyra threw that right back in the closet.
She got me a floor-length purple and blue gown with a patterned hem and rhinestone details around the neck. It was a mix of an exotic caftan and a beautiful Indian sari. I never would have picked out something that colorful and sparkly for myself, but I looked like a queen! She styled my hair in full-bodied, shoulder-grazing curls with a dramatic smoky eye and lip gloss that shone as bright as a diamond.
When I arrived at the event, I got compliments like you wouldn’t believe! A couple of people didn’t even recognize me. And boo, I even got hit on a couple of times!
So thanks, baby girl, for giving Mama a night to remember!
Tyra: Now, I didn’t give Mama a makeover that time because she looked bad before. No—she looked fine; she looked good! But that was one of those times where fine and good didn’t cut it. I wanted her to know what it felt like to look stunning!
But still, that was more of a traditional makeover, and not like the Tyovers I give on Top Model. A Tyover is about fashion and modeling, whereas a traditional makeover is about making you the prettiest version of yourself. In the modeling world, the prettiest version of you sometimes translates to “boring and commercial,” and that won’t necessarily get you booked in Paris or Milan. Girls sometimes hate the results of their Tyovers because they just want to look like the prettiest girl in the club (sometimes a Tyover even takes more than one try to get it right, because a hairdresser has a different vision than I do), whereas I’m often trying to make them look like a strange, elegant, eccentric piece of art that stands out on the runway. Sometimes that takes a bowl cut, and let’s face it, no girl wants a bowl cut because most boys bouncing to EDM aren’t tryna holler at a girl with Paul McCartney’s do.
I would always do crazy makeup at home and get Mama to take Polaroids. I still do makeup like this on my Top Model hopefuls all the time!
So, let’s be clear—just like being an amazing home cook who hosts the best Thanksgiving and being the head chef at a five-star restaurant require separate skill sets, being a pretty girl and being a model are also two different things. Models are not always pretty, but they have a look that translates an idea and that can be sold. They can be odd, quirky, weird, awkward, debatable beauties. I gotta admit, those ones are my faves. I wish I could take credit for this next quote, but it was actually my friend who’s also a former model, Yaniece, who said, “You can’t be a high-fashion model unless you cried your way through adolescence.” There are beautiful, gorgeous girls everywhere on this globe who smoke models on the beauty front hands down. I see them every day. Whew, child, they are stunners! But not necessarily models.
Carolyn: Lord, is that true. Sometimes, if I close my eyes, I can still hear Tyra’s boo-hoos echoing down our hallway. I wish I coulda wiped that pain away by telling her what was coming, but she never would have believed me anyway!
Tyra: Like I said, high-fashion models often tend to have something a little odd or weird about them. Their eyes might be too close together, too far apart, their forehead is probably too big, their chin is probably too short, their lips are probably too wide or too narrow or too small or too big . . . all the things that people give you so much crap for in elementary, junior high, and high school. If you were that popular cheerleader and everybody on campus (boys and girls) wanted to take you to prom—girl, you didn’t cry enough. High fashion is probably not for you. And that’s OK.
On Top Model, when all my girls are crying about being teased when they were little because they were so awkward, I’m like “Mmm-hmm, high fashion. Let me just open these editorial velvet ropes for you, child. Come right on in.”
When you see the girls on Top Model, it’s not just a coincidence that there are all types of different looks up there. I deliberately choose to aggressively expand the definition of beauty so that throughout the various seasons, everyone watching
can find someone who kinda looks like them. That way, when I’m showering these atypical model hopefuls on TV with all kinds of kudos about how fierce their pics are and how stunning they are, young viewers at home who share some of those attributes can begin to accept what makes them different and unique.
That is, in a nutshell, what I want to do with Top Model: expand the definition of beauty so that women can learn to appreciate themselves, and also give them a whole toolbox full of tricks to fix or flaunt what they’ve got.
Let’s face it: A lot of women want to look like everybody else—because their entire life, they’ve been told that’s what beauty is. They want to be cookie-cutter pretty, but I ain’t about using cookie cutters. I’m trying to hand-shape each cookie into something special. It might be lumpy and bumpy and no one at Starbucks wants to buy it, but it’ll make the whole darn world a lot tastier. And it’ll take fashion’s breath away, too.
And maybe the boys standing in that long-ass In-N-Out Burger line, too, one day.
OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE VS. THE NO-GO ZONE
When you step Out of Your Comfort Zone, it is important to stop stepping before you get into the Uncomfy Zone. Out of Your Comfort Zone feels new and exciting, and you’re discovering aspects of yourself you never knew existed.
The No-Go Zone is where you do things that make you feel worse (not better) about yourself, and where you make choices you might regret.
Avoid the No-Go Zone at all costs.
OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE
New hair color
New haircut
Shaving your head
Skipping armpit shaving