GEORGIA FOWLER
New Zealand model Georgia Fowler talks with Greg Bruce about making it work
‘ Wow. Okay, here I am.’
New Zealand model Georgia Fowler talks with Greg Bruce about making it work
On the other side of the low dividing wall, while a representative of some lifestyle magazine or fashion website was lobbing softball questions at Georgia Fowler, I sat one seat away from Jack Tame, waiting for my own opportunity to lob softball questions at her. It was what’s known, I believe, as a “press call”, a day of interviews and photos and whatever else the media craves to fill its empty pages and endless minutes of air time. It requires a famous and sought-after subject to stay in one place while members of the press rotate over a merciless period of hours to ask endless variations on the same basic set of questions. If I had arrived early enough, I could have just sat against this wall with my tape recorder going and left, long before my scheduled interview time, with more material than I could ever hope to use. Jack Tame and I had never met but I recognised him from television and we rapped genially about our respective prospective questions. Frankly though, at such close proximity, it was hard to pay attention to anything except the flawlessness of Tame’s skin. I had contemplated sitting immediately next to him but had decided he might think that inappropriate. Still, from two chairs away, it was impossible not to be struck by his porelessness.
His face was so smooth that it was all I could do not to reach over and stroke it. There were no bags under his eyes despite the fact he works on a show that starts so early in the morning, including the morning in question, that he’s getting out of bed at about the same time most cool people are getting into it.
It wasn’t just the frightening smoothness of the face or its well-known ageless quality that most struck me though — it was its sense of surety, its calm but confident sense of its place in the room. My own face tends to apologise for its presence but Tame’s face bestrode the studio on that morning, as it does the TVNZ studio and every New Zealand television screen on which it appears every weekday morning between 6am and 9am.
His interview was first. The whole event was running a bit behind schedule. He rounded the dividing wall and I sat there listening intermittently. I wasn’t nearly so intrigued by his questions as I was by his face. Mostly, I was trying to memorise my own lame questions: “What does it feel like to be a model?” “What would you do if you weren’t modelling?” “What’s the greatest misconception about modelling?”
I heard him ask a question that indicated he had hung out with Fowler in New York City during the time he had famously served as One News’ US correspondent. It was about going to brunch, or maybe it was about going to a nightclub. It may even have been about two separate occasions. I think he was asking if she was aware how much attention she was attracting. I think she said no. ANYWAY, THIS article’s not about Jack Tame. Here’s a random but representative sample of headlines about Fowler from the last couple of years: Victoria’s Secret Model Georgia Fowler Shares Her Ultimate Five-Minute Beauty Routine. My Everyday Face: Georgia Fowler. Victoria’s Secret Model Georgia Fowler Shares Her Best Beauty Hacks. Georgia Fowler’s Go-To Skincare, Makeup And Hair Tips. A look inside Georgia Fowler’s beauty bag. Train like an Angel with Victoria’s Secret model Georgia Fowler.
Project Runway host Georgia Fowler’s Kiwi workout. Get fit with Georgia Fowler. Kiwi Victoria’s Secret model Georgia Fowler reveals fridge contents. Victoria’s Secret Model Georgia Fowler on Food, Fitness, and Insecurities. Georgia Fowler reveals her strict diet and exercise regime on the eve of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
What the media chooses to say about a person can tell you a lot about the media.
She says that when she was at high school — Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland — she’d wanted to do engineering because it was so black and white: “There was no bullshit behind it. Maybe I could have done something like that.”
But she had been spotted, age 12, by a modelling agency, and her life appears more or less preordained from that point.
Her modelling success — which has been extensive, international, next-level — has, she