Australia’s Next Top Model winner Demelza Reveley doesn’t know why her size 8 to 10 was an issue
TEN years on from winning Australia’s Next Top Model and Demelza Reveley says it blows her mind that her size was such a huge issue back then. Now she returns with the industry embracing diversity of shapes, sizes and gender.
Confidential
Don't miss out on the headlines from Confidential. Followed categories will be added to My News.
TEN years on from winning Australia’s Next Top Model and Demelza Reveley says it blows her mind that her weight was such a huge issue back then.
Reveley, now 26, was labelled plus size as a healthy size eight to 10 when she won the series in 2008.
“I have always embraced who I am at whatever size I am,” Reveley told Confidential at Criniti’s restaurant in Woolloomooloo.
“When you are 16 and people force the issue, of course it gets to you though. I guess the only thing I regret was not having more of an open dialogue about it at the time. I was a 16-year-old girl. I was super comfortable with my body and how I looked and still am now.
“It really blows my mind that my weight was a discussion about a 16-year-old, I think that is crazy but it is the way that it was and it is the way that the industry was.” Reveley, who married her partner 18 months ago, won the Foxtel series when it was hosted by Jodhi Meares and had the late Charlotte Dawson on the judging panel.
She went on to travel the world — London, New York, Milan — but a few years ago put modelling on hold. Heartened by the fact the industry has taken a new stance on embracing diversity of shapes, sizes and gender, Reveley has returned to modelling and is now signed to Scoop Management.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for, this is the type of industry I had always hoped it would be,” she said. “It is by no ways all the way there, but it is on the way, and that is really exciting and cool as a woman to see that everyone is being represented.”
Commercial modelling, as opposed to high fashion, is where she wants to be.
“When I started it was so different, everyone really grabbed on to that high fashion thing,” said Reveley, who recently moved back to Sydney after three years of living in Melbourne.
“The more I did, the more I really felt like I didn’t want to do high fashion … I’ve always enjoyed working for your grassroots Australian companies that gave you time to be you and cared about your personality and wanted to bring that into the frame more.”