Tyra Banks Is Really, Really Worried About the Models
Tyra Banks backstage at Yves Saint Laurent when she was a wee model. Photo: Getty Images
“Models have so much pressure today,” began Tyra Banks’s amazing #TBT soliloquy on Instagram on Thursday. “They have to look good on AND off the set. They have to arrive backstage at fashion shows looking and dressed as if they are already ON a runway,” Banks continued, listing every single thing poor models have to go through today. The list of hardships includes having to be really skinny, having to be likable, “competing” with celebrities for jobs, and maintaining robust social media accounts. Are you exhausted yet? Because these models today, they surely are!
But it wouldn’t be a Tyra post without a little bit of Tyra in it, of course, so we get the model’s first-hand account of how things were back when she was strutting her stuff down the runways. “When I was a young model, yeah, we had to think about our weight, but not like today. I think I was size 6, not a size 0,” she says (and like, yeah, she was a size 6 and not a size 0 but a size 6 back then is not a size 6 now). Then comes the shocker, the photo that accompanies this amazing statement, a young Tyra in a flannel, jeans and sneakers, aka the official uniform of the ‘90s, is revealed to be an image of her backstage at Yves Saint Laurent. “Yep, that’s teenaged me right before a YSL show,” Banks revealed, “Yves Saint Laurent could care (less) how I looked when I arrived to his show.” Saint Laurent did not care what Tyra looked like! But, what he cared about was that she “delivered excellence” when she stepped on the runway, which she delivered “every time.”
Every time.
So young and aspiring supermodels, Tyra is here for you and she understands your plight! She sends you hugs and is cheering for you because “you all have lots to live up to,” aka, you have to live up to her “runway excellence,” delivered “every time,” in case you didn’t remember. “Stay strong girls,” the note ends. And you know what? All those girls are staying so strong, through their selfies, their grueling street style schedule and their runway amazingness. Tyra is nothing if not a giver.
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