Why Tyra Banks is living the dream while researching the tastes of Australia
Supermodel Tyra Banks, who has been living incognito in Sydney for 18 months, tells of her love for Aussie food and shopping centres – and her plans to give back to this ‘wonderful’ country.
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Tyra Banks has given the iconic Aussie lamington a thumbs up, fairy bread too. Vegemite … she’s not quite there yet.
The supermodel, entrepreneur, fashionista, television host, actor and author has been researching all things Australian ahead of the Down Under launch of her chain of ice cream stores, Smize & Dream, insistent she learnt early on in life to never be an “ugly American”.
“In my travels as a model and how my mother (Carolyn London) raised me, she said, ‘don’t you ever be an ugly American where you go and be thinking, well, this is how we do it in America’. She goes, ‘you study the culture, you understand the places that you are going to and pay homage and get respect’,” the creator and former host of America’s Next Top Model says.
“For instance, when I first started modelling many, many decades ago, she said, ‘okay, you have an opportunity to go to university and you have this opportunity to go to Paris to model,. If you’re going to go to Paris, you need to understand France and I’m not talking about French fries’.
“She said, ‘it is not Paris fun time, it is the Parisian fashion businesses’, and so that always stuck inside of me.
“Coming here, I just can’t be like, ‘I love Australia, it’s so beautiful and it’s so wonderful and it’s (like magical) Hogwarts’. I have been here studying the culture, studying the tastes,. I know a lamington honey, I know about my fairy bread.”
Vegemite is still something Banks is getting used to, admitting she didn’t follow the advice of a friend by spreading it on toast with butter.
Tyra Banks in the Bahamas 2007. The Supermodel learnt early on in life to never be an “ugly American”. Picture: AP Photo/Craig Lenihan
“I had my first Vegemite, it was interesting,” she says.
“I took it straight to the mouth with a spoon. I wouldn’t say it was my most favourite thing but, because I am a super taster, I could taste the notes and I said this would be good with some damn ice cream. Salt and ice cream is fantastic so there just might be a Vegemite flavour coming.
“I’m not coming here and saying, ‘it’s just going to be cookies and cream, it’s just going to be cookie dough’. We’ve got some serious, amazing things that will touch into not just my nostalgia and my past, but an Aussie’s past and their nostalgia as well.”
Smize & Dream are words that hold deep meaning for Banks. She coined the term “smize” – a combination of “smile” and “eyes” – in 2009 to convey to contestants on America’s Next Top Model to express warmth in their eyes during modelling shoots while keeping the rest of the face neutral. Despite gaining traction around the world, “smize” is yet to enter the dictionary.
“And the ‘dream’ is my Mama, so the brand is a love letter to her,” Banks says.
Banks has in fact been splitting her time between Sydney and Los Angeles for almost 18 months, determined to do all the groundwork herself ahead of launching the business here.
The first official permanent Smize & Dream store globally is slated to open in Darling Harbour by midyear.
Despite being based here with her family for part of the year, Banks had not been photographed publicly until last month when she was spotted by The Sunday Telegraph walking through Darling Harbour.
Sitting down at an office in East Sydney this week, Banks is relaxed, dressed casually in a denim jumpsuit as she passionately speaks about her new life in Australia.
Just as Banks has been taste testing our iconic delicacies, she has become a bit of a local at her local shopping joints.
“I find that Australians do the mall how America should do it,” she said.
“Malls in America are dying and I think you guys have really have figured it out, that it shouldn’t just be what you want, it should be what you need. You need a haircut, you need some groceries, and America is just like, shopping is optional.”
So Banks and her family often spend an entire day browsing the shops.
“We start with breakfast because you all love to wake up early and I love to wake up early so it’s very compatible,” she says.
“So we’ll get some breakfast in the mall, then we’ll go to a Hoyts cinema,. We’ll get some ice cream at the cinema, see a movie, then we might get a foot massage, then we’ll have some lunch, maybe at like a Zeus Street Greek or something in the food court. Then we go to Target or Kmart.”
It is at this point Banks is distracted, excited to talk more about her love of Kmart. For a supermodel who has walked some of the biggest fashion houses, including Saint Laurent, Chanel and Dior, this is unexpected.
“Kmart here, what the hell? Kmart here is, like, fancy. I did some press in Washington DC with the local news channel and wore a jumpsuit and I got so many compliments and it was from Kmart Australia,” she says.
Then back to her day at the mall.
“And then we do groceries, that’s the last thing we do,. We’ll do Coles, Woolies, Harris Farm, whatever, and so that is a whole day at the mall and we don’t do that in America.”
Banks first visited Australia more than three decades ago as a 20-year-old on a promotional tour for the film Higher Learning.
“I hadn’t been to Australia so, to me, when that was on the itinerary, it was almost like saying I was going to Hogwarts or something magical,” she recalls.
“To Americans, Australia is not real. I would love to spend more time here, it is a happy place for me. When I’m getting on the plane to go back to LA, I get a little sad. It would be nice to make this a serious situation, it would be very nice.”
And serious she is.
Banks is involved in every detail of Smize & Dream, working around the clock ahead of its launch here.
“I’m tired but it’s a beautiful kind of tired because when you have a start-up, you’re HR, you’re operations, you’re business development, you’re strategy, you’re janitorial, custodial, you’re every single thing and it’s tiring, but I’m hoping that there’s a rainbow at the end of this yellow brick road because it’s a bumpy road, it really is,” she says.
“I always say that when your name is on the door, I get the accolades that I don’t deserve. I’ve got chefs in the kitchen – yes, I am telling them what I think the recipe should be, but it’s their interpretation of my vision. I get a lot of that credit.
“But also, when your name is on the door, you get a lot of stuff that you had nothing to do with but because your name is on the door, you get saddled with that and so those are the things that keep me awake at night – making sure that the things that we get the credit for are fantastic. Even if I’m getting credit and my team is doing it and making sure that we try to avoid as many pitfalls as possible.”
Banks is passionate about giving back too.
She wants to create jobs which, in a global cost-of-living crisis, will come as welcome relief to many.
Banks comes from humble beginnings. Her parents separated when she was six and she recalls living in a one-bedroom apartment with her mother working three jobs to support her and older brother Devin.
“My goal is to (create) hundreds, thousands of jobs in this country, which means expansion,” Banks says with confidence.
“Is it owner-operated Smize & Dream? Is it franchises? I don’t know. What makes me a little nervous about franchise is quality, so I want to make sure that the quality can remain.
“I want people working. When I’m working with people, I’m like, ‘what’s your dream? How are we gonna get there? Are you going to get it inside my company? Are you going to get it through? Or are you going to get a lot of information, knowledge, power, connections, and you’re going to exit?’ But we just got to keep moving up. And so I’m excited to do that here.”
Banks is also keen to learn more about Indigenous Australian culture and has plans to set up an ice cream school as it “would be nice to really uplift and empower people that tend to be underserved”.
Banks retired from modelling in 2005.
Last year she made her triumphant return to the catwalk with a much anticipated appearance on the runway for Victoria’s Secret.
She also starred in a campaign for Kim Kardashian’s label Skims and concedes she has “been thinking” about more modelling.
“Kim was a one-off. Victoria’s Secret, that was a one-off. But now I’m like, it might even feel like a vacation day because, as an entrepreneur, it just doesn’t stop and I don’t sleep,” she says.
“Going back to the roots, I think it can almost feel like it’s just an exhale. And I think sometimes we’re so hungry for reinvention that we push away, or I push away, what I used to be very known for. But I think there is something empowering about me being thicker and curvier and being now over 50 years old and going back to modelling, so that it’s an exhale for me, but for women everywhere. It is bigger than me now.”
Letting slip another exclusive, Banks says she is considering signing back with agencies.
“I think I want to even get modelling agencies, not just like New York and LA, Paris, but maybe even here too, because I’m here so much, so to get a Sydney agency.”
It is remarkable that Banks has managed to keep such a low profile in the time she has been living between the US and Australia, especially when she has been so active and has one of the most recognisable faces on the planet.
“Yeah, but there’s another face that you don’t see right now,” she says.
“I know how to blend. I wear wigs. You probably wouldn’t even know to be honest. You don’t have to be (noticed here). It’s like America is very intrusive, with like family stuff, but here I feel a lot safer.
“But we are coming out, I want to go to stuff now. It has been entrepreneur time, just like my head is down, no social stuff. Now, I am ready,
“I need some outfits though, I need some Aussie brands that can fit my bootie, you know, some curves. I’m ready to get out.”
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