This story is from Sunday magazine
Caroline Barron (Te Uri O Hau / Pākehā) is an award-winning author, columnist and manuscript assessor, based in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland. Previously she owned and ran Nova, one of Aotearoa's leading model and talent agencies.
Her debut novel Golden Days, details an intense late-teen friendship as it plays out in the streets and nightclubs of Auckland circa 1995. She is set to appear at the Auckland Writers Festival in May.
"I was more than six feet (1.83m) tall when I was still at school in the 90s, and super skinny. For a long time that made me self-conscious, and I hated that I was taller than all the boys. People would come up to me and comment at how skinny I was or ask if I had anorexia. Imagine!
I remember asking Mum to buy me protein powder so I could bulk up. It’s funny now, but it was painful at the time. I started modelling for Maysie Bestall-Cohen's when I was 16, where height and thinness was aspirational, so that gave me loads more confidence: watch out world, here I come…
The 90s beauty ideal was pancake makeup, thin eyebrows, number one Body Shop lip liner (brown), and white musk Body Shop fragrance. Grunge was in, but so was house music and pop, so in one night you might be at The Box (house), Cause Célèbre (jazz) and Papa Jacks (grunge) – all places my characters Becky and Zoe visit in Golden Days. Dresses over trousers, bronze arm bands, and a Karen Walker stretch lace tunic over Zambesi trousers, with Andrea Biani boots. That was me.
When I returned from London in 1999, I worked as a booker for Bestall-Cohen's agency (then called Nova) and eventually bought the company at the age of 24, with her help. It was a wild time!
In retrospect, my life had a narrow frame of what constitutes beauty: tall, thin, angular. I remember back then being surprised reading one day that an average Kiwi woman was 5ft 5in (1.65m) and a size 14. In the modelling world, everyone is over 5ft 9in (1.75m) and a size 8-10. Bonkers, right?
I love for my daughters (aged 11 and 13) that, today, beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, genders and sexualities. Although I do wonder if the rise of influencers and how many people hit “like” is, in reality, any better than a model being judged purely on her looks.
These days I am super comfortable in my skin. I’m still tall and thin (thank you fast metabolism) but my body has changed a lot. I’ve had surgery on my back and hip, so I’m more grateful than ever for this body of mine that allows me to get out walking in nature, do pilates, jet ski with my husband and the kids – because I know how awful not being able to do those things is and how much it affects mental health.
I have a pretty clean beauty routine based around loads of moisturiser and oil. My favourite product is Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Overnight Rehydrating mask with 10% squalene. I wish that came in litre containers! My eldest daughter is really into beauty and one of my favourite ways to end the day is to “do skincare” with her and chat. I wish for my girls that they feel beautiful and valued for more than the way they look.
There’s a lot of discussion around who gets to tell what stories and who gets to write what characters. For example, should a middle-class white man get to write a story in a Māori wahine’s voice? I firmly believe indigenous people must get first rights to tell their own stories. Full stop. In the same breath, I hate the thought of limiting growing imaginations according to prescribed rules around what body and ethnicity you were born into. This conundrum is a work in progress for me." - As told to Tyson Beckett
Golden Days by Caroline Barron, published by Affirm Press ($38).
