THALIA: I DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE THE HOUSE
Top model Thalia Heffernan says she wants to tell people they don’t need to emulate what they see in photos, writes Niamh Horan
SHE arrives, shaggy-haired, in biker boots with no makeup. In her down time, Ireland’s most sought-after model, Thalia Heffernan (21), shirks high-octane glamour — opting instead for natural curls, flat shoes and jeans.
It comes from years of altering her image for her line of work.
“I am dressed up every day of my life to suit a client. What they want me to look like,” she said. “I am lucky, because I am young I can be quite a chameleon.”
Having started as a teen model at 15, she was “thrown into the deep end of the adult world” and her youth brought its own issues to negotiate.
“I was doing bridal wear at 15,” she says, “and I can almost do child’s wear still. So I constantly jump between characters.”
In her teens, it led to a period of uncertainty — a confusion in her own sense of self.
“I have had an identity crisis a few times where I was going from school to work and showing up in my school uniform, and then being put in a pair of heels and a dress to perform, or to do what the client wanted me to do. Then I would be getting back into my uniform to go home.
“So if my friends asked me to go for dinner, I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself. For a long time I was very basic with what I wore. I kept it quite comfortable and I think now, since I turned 21, I’ve started to develop my own style.”
Asked how it felt to dress in bridal wear and take on the guise of an older woman while still in her teens, she says: “I didn’t process it at the time. I fell into it quite naturally and quite luckily and quite easily. But yeah, I am finding it more difficult now, looking back on myself. When you scan through old photos, it stuns me. I look at a picture of myself when I was 15 and then I will look in the mirror now — when I have no make-up on and I look older [in those photos] than I do now.” But she says, “I really don’t think it angers me, I think it’s more so that I have always had a problem with the whole industry being false. I think it’s very apparent that doing bridal at 15 — not many women are going to look the way I looked the way I did when I was 15, in their wedding gown.”
It’s one of the reasons her opinions have become stronger in recent times. Only hours after the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show was televised, Thalia posted a piece about the impact the world of fashion has on women who are trying to emulate what they see.
On the morning after the event, she was scrolling through the photographs and thought: “You know what? I feel like I am not good enough looking at these pictures — how do young girls feel who aren’t in the industry?”
The post made headlines around the world and sparked a huge reaction from fans.
She explained: “I look at photos and I get jealous, I am not going to lie. I look at beautiful people like Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner and think, ‘God, I wish I could be like them’, and then I have to remind myself that I will never be like them and I don’t want to have to change myself to be like them, but I am the only person who can be me and that’s what everyone should be saying. Once you’re happy in yourself, happiness will then come. And I am still learning that.”
She says: “The society we live in, sadly, is one that tells us you aren’t good enough unless you do this or look like this — ‘50 ways to improve your sex life’ — all that kind of pressure. There is so much expectation on young girls — and boys and men and women of all ages. I guess I do really feel a responsibility to stress I don’t look like I do in those photos.”
She added: “I am telling you I have lots of problems in myself and I am happy to openly admit that... and I can guarantee that the girls in [the] Victoria’s Secret [show] all have the same in their own way.”
Although now one of Ireland’s most in-demand models, she has recently been through tough times, having been out of work due to an underactive thyroid gland. And although working out and eating healthy, she gained two stone before the condition was diagnosed. “To be honest, I was incredibly upset. I didn’t want to leave my house, I didn’t want to do anything. And because of my job, it was incredibly difficult. I couldn’t work and — when I did work — I didn’t feel good. I had to take a hiatus for a while to figure out what was going on,” she said.
Now back on the front covers of magazines and recently unveiled as the new face of make-up brand Flawless, she is also newly single after splitting from Dublin graffiti artist Maser.
She says the one word she would use to describe what she has learned about love is that it is “bittersweet”.
Maser, who created the hugely popular ‘Repeal The 8th’ image, hit headlines recently when he flew to Iceland with Vogue Williams, his ex-girlfriend of five years, shortly after the break-up with Thalia.
Vogue, who has stayed friends with the artist ever since they broke up — posted a number of photos on social media during their trip.
Asked how she felt about it, Thalia said: ‘‘Well I am a human being — that’s all I am going to say about it.’’
She added: “Like I said, bittersweet. With love comes pain as well, so that’s just that. You have to accept that if you are willing to fall in love, pain is going to come hand in hand. When you have something, you have to cherish it, but with everything comes good and bad.”
In recent months she has started a course in animal psychology and this weekend she adopted a dog named Bowie from the DSPCA after it was abandoned in a field in a cardboard box.
“I cried yesterday in the shelter at the thought of what some people can do... there is such innocence with animals... there is nothing quite like looking into the eyes of an animal and feeling the love [resonate] from them.’’
Now busy rehearsing for RTE’s Dancing with The Stars, the model says she wants to show people her real self. She added: “I am going to rehearsals with no make-up on and show people the real me as opposed to the photoshopped, edited version they are used to.”
Her other motivation for doing the show is to motivate young people to follow their dreams. “I want to show people you don’t have to be any age to follow your dreams. I am doing the show to show young people they can grab life with both hands. Hopefully I will be a good role model.”
RTE’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’ starts on RTE One on January 8
‘I have lots of problems in myself and I am happy to admit that’