
PROJECT RUNWAY MODEL MIMI HOW TO
The two did eventually meet and after some persuasion, Phetkanha agreed to become Tao’s mentor, teaching her how to model and letting her join her at events until she was ready to begin her own journey. That’s when I decided I wanted to be like her, and I set out looking for her, hoping that she would teach me to model.” She came from a poor family and, like me, had tanned skin, high cheekbones and a squarish face-all of which weren’t features that Thai people would traditionally consider beautiful-yet she was still able to make it and become so famous. “’s story was what touched me and made me want to become a model.
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A TV documentary about Thai supermodel Rojjana “Yui” Phetkanha that she came across while working at the Calypso Cabaret Show sparked her interest in modelling. With renewed confidence in herself, Tao was ready to take on the world. This showed me that if I didn’t accept myself first, I can’t expect others to accept me.” In Buddhism, we’re taught that nothing lasts forever, so we must learn to let go, especially of negative feelings. “My years as a monk has made me who I am today. By this point, she says she had had the time to discover who she was and make peace with herself. She left the monastery six years later, when she decided to work in order to support her family. See also: Meet The Social Entrepreneur Destigmatising Periods

At 11 years old, she chose to join the monastery and was ordained as a monk after six months.

Having grown up living near temples, she developed an early interest in Buddhism and the monastic life. Tao says her positive outlook on life is very much a result of the time she spent at temple school in Thailand. I think that’s better than staying at home and waiting for opportunities to fall on my lap, or for other people to speak up on my behalf.” “I remember thinking to myself that if I go for the auditions and the judges don’t like me, they’ll at least be aware that I exist. “I think I was also driven by the fact that it wasn’t usual for a transgender person to be on a popular TV show like Project Runway,” she says. “It’s my personality to keep trying until I get what I want.”Īt the same time, she was fighting for a cause greater than her. Some may call this stubbornness, but she prefers to call it optimism. But I continued to go every year until I made it,” says the 27-year-old Thai native.

“Each time I failed the audition my friends and modelling agency would dissuade me from trying again. But she also reveals that it took three years of auditioning before she was selected for the show. “It was a really positive experience and I received a lot of support from the people around me-from the designers on the show to the crew working on set,” she recalls. In 2019, Mimi Tao made history when she became the first transgender model to appear on the American reality TV show Project Runway.
