How I Became A Model

By Gabrielle Taber

If you had asked me five years ago what I would be doing now, I would not have lacked an ambitious dream to share with you. I would have told you that I would be making movies, acting in a Broadway musical, performing at the Metropolitan Opera, recording my first album, writing a novel or a book of poems. But I never would have guessed that I would be a model, or that the modeling industry would play such a large role in my life.

Don't get me wrong - I love being a model. I love getting my picture taken. I enjoy wearing interesting fashions. I love feeling beautiful. I like the fact that, at its best, modeling can be a form of art. I am thankful for the opportunity to travel so often and to meet so many fascinating people. Overall, it's been a wonderful experience. I just couldn't foresee it happening to me.

I'm an actor and a singer by training, and have been so since I was two years old. Performance art has always played a central part of my life. My appearance had always been an asset to me, but always as an accent to my performance abilities rather than the primary focal point of my audience. Being attractive may have broken some ties in competitive auditions, but I am confident that my skills and talent were the main reasons I was called back in the first place.

Although I do not feel that my weight was a fatal flaw for me at theater and movie auditions, I have developed suspicions that it may have limited the sort of parts I was considered for.

I remember a high-ranking administrator at a conservatory I had attended commenting once that if only I'd lose twenty pounds, I'd be the perfect ingenue. I was shocked to hear him say that. I felt that I was ingenue material right then, and had always felt comfortable in that category. I had never considered the possibility that I could be discriminated against because of my weight.

I personally feel that people are at their most beautiful when they look healthy. There are no exceptions to this. Not all people are supposed to be rail thin. Not all people look healthy when their ribs are showing. In fact, I think it is safe to say that most people do not. I think bodies look better when they have some curves on them. I think they look more interesting, and feel nicer to the touch. I don't think eating a healthy amount of food is a sin, or that obsessive marathon workouts are ethical obligations. That doesn't make me right, but that's just the way I feel.

This brings me, in a roundabout way, to the story of how I became a model. I have had people tell me I should be a model on several occasions. Half of them were freelance photographers who would have been more than happy to do the first test shoot for my portfolio, so I took those compliments with a grain of salt. The other people made me think, "I bet I could be a model. Why not?" So one summer a couple of years back I threw some snapshots of myself in the suitcase when I went to visit my brother in New York City, and took the subway over to the biggest agency I could think of one day while he was at work.