Vogue model Billie-Jean Hamlet on sharing Indigenous stories

A breakout Indigenous model has revealed how she went from living in a tin shed in remote Australia to gracing the cover of Vogue in a 16-page spread.

Rising model Billie-Jean Hamlet is determined to find her public voice.

The 20-year-old is one of the industry’s most promising young faces, signed to Priscilla’s Model Management and appearing in a 16-page fashion editorial in the latest issue of Vogue Australia.

“I think just by sharing my stories and experiences, it can help break down the walls of stigma,” Hamlet, a proud Walmadjari/Yamatji woman, tells the magazine of being vocal about mental health. “I have to speak on that when I have a bigger platform.

Billie Jean Hamlet in her shoot for Vogue Australia’s November 2020 issue. Picture: Saskia Wilson for Vogue Australia.

The November issue of Vogue Australia.

“Right now, I’m just trying to work on building that so that I do have the voice.”

Hamlet grew up in the remote Ngurtuwarta Indigenous community, 12km from the township of Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

She moved to Sydney a year ago and has quickly been pegged for big things.

Billie Jean Hamlet during the shoot. Picture: Saskia Wilson for Vogue Australia.

“It just felt so natural as if it was meant to be,” said Hamlet, who is a black belt in karate, of the Vogue shoot. “I didn’t actually feel nervous.”

Hamlet dreamt of becoming a model even as a young kid living in a “tin shed by a water tank” in the bush.

“I used to get changed three times a day when I was a kid. I wouldn’t let anyone dress me. I used to wear big, crazy, pink sunglasses and pink fluffy jackets,” she said.