TALKING ABOUT GENES, BABY.

 So, you want to be a model? What does your mum do?

Main photo: Camille MacDonald, by Kirra Jayde. LONGFORM POST: allow 8 minutes read time.

We’re in a cafe on St. Kilda Road in Melbourne, one of those blah glass and marble affairs full of potted palms, corporate suits and grilled eggplant foccacias. Greg Tyshing is distracted, his gaze flickering from suit to suit as he talks and sips. The exotic Melbourne model scout and manager, renowned for his signature glossy hair, smooth tan and dazzling smile, is always – always – working. A bland office cafe may not seem the ideal hunting ground for modelling’s Next Big Thing but, you never know. And today – yes! – Mr. Tyshing’s gaze rests for a tellingly long moment on a smashing looking young waiter darting between tables. “He’s quite…isn’t he…he’s quite gorgeous,” he says thoughtfully and makes a mental note before returning to our conversation, gaze still flitting.

We’re talking about genes, baby. Mr. Tyshing has a remarkable number of models on his books who are the children of former models. We’re thrashing out what that means, if anything. We’re also talking about beauty. It’s key to modelling, obviously, but there’s more, so much more to the art, and we’re ticking them off. Natural stripling proportions and an easy tendency to slenderness (a fast metabolism) make the job easier. Chutzpah is handy too, and what’s colloquially known as “thick skin”. (Modelling’s a body trade, and that can be harsh on the easily hurt.)  Vibrancy of personality, natural adaptability, and a certain intelligence are also non-negotiable on Mr. Tyshing’s list; “I always ask, how are you going at school?” he says. The answer can be a deal maker, or breaker.

He hunts all day, every day, for the beautiful seedlings he needs for Greg Tyshing Represents. It’s his mother agency renowned for teasing out its protege’s gifts, training them high over industry standards. He trains the boys himself, and commissions author of The Model’s Handbook, Marlene Donovan, for the girls. (Yes, it costs the rookies: $1200 to $1400 for the masterclasses and professionally styled and shot photo folio.) He then presents them as a fastidiously controlled package to modelling agencies. Once signed, Mr. Tyshing takes a “mother agency” fee for his trouble, a percentage of his charges’ gross earnings. To say there’s a lot riding on his picking the cream of fashion’s potential modelling crop, is quite the understatement.

Luckily, he’s rather good at it. Mr. Tyshing is a 40-odd-year veteren of the industry; first a child model, then a young beauty on menswear runways from Paris to Tokyo, star of campaigns such as Just Jeans and editorial spreads including UK Vogue. He quit to become a booker (virtually a model whisperer and manager) at Chadwick Models during the 1980s before founding his own agency, Giant Management in 1989. He sold that roughly seven years ago and set up Greg Tyshing Represents in 2006.

That was tracking nicely when, a couple of years ago, Mr. Tyshing bumped into two old friends on a Gold Coast street. They were models from his days at Chadwick, Stuart D’Arcy and Michelle Blauw, now married, and with a grown family.

“Superstars of the 1980s, they were,” he says. “And now they had their kids with them. Well.” In their young son, Mr. Tyshing instantly recognised a rare beauty – perhaps an exceptional model – in the bud. “Kye (D’Arcy) was 18 or 19 then and, I couldn’t think, it was just; ‘oh my God, oh my God this boy is so beautiful, he’s just so….beautiful’” There was, however, a tiny problem of etiquette and Mr. Tyshing kept his thrill to himself, aware a chance meeting of old friends probably wasn’t the proper time to discuss a business proposal and career path for their first born. “But a week later, Stuart D’Arcy contacted and said; ‘We want you to manage Kye’.”

Kismet. “Kye then introduced me to (his friend) Dane Tutton.

 

Dane is the remarkably beautiful offspring of Derhan Tutton and Kareen Michelle (also superstar Chadwick models of the 1980s).

 

Mr. Tyshing remembers it well; “I hadn’t seen Dane since he was a baby…but, oh my God.” Another beauty. Soon more beautiful children popped up and a modelling industry phenonenon blossomed.

“I started posting this stuff on social media – about this second generation of models,” Mr. Tyshing says, “And others (former models) started asking; “Can you look at my daughter..? Can you look at my son…?” His harvest of above-average young beauties quickly swelled. He now has 15 model children of model mums and dads on his Greg Tyshing Represents books and more due as these rare offspring reach their critical mid-teens. “I’ve seen some gorgeous kids,” he jokes about the younger seedlings. “And I’ve said; ‘well you can put (her) on layby for me!”

 

Among the model mums who made contact, Judy James was a 1980s stunner on television’s wildly popular Sale of the Century game show.

When she called Mr. Tyshing a year ago, her daughter Camille MacDonald had been signed to another agency by a friend, but her potential wasn’t being exploited and her career had stalled. Today, Mr. Tyshing flicks through reels and reels of headshots on his ipad, and stops:  “Here she is. This is the beautiful Camille.” Judy James’ daughter, now 19, is lovely indeed, with Jolie-esque pillow lips, elegant bones and wide, expressive eyes.

Later, I leave Mr. Tyshing to phone Ms. James and Miss MacDonald; “She’s a very lucky girl,” Ms. James says matter-of-factly of her daughter. “She’s almost six foot tall and naturally very small, very thin – and you know, they want that now, especially in the waist. She’s also grown up very normal, healthy and realistic.” She says she’s noticed shifts in modelling since her 1980s career which included stints as a Big M girl and face of Canon: “We were really a different size and shape then, a lot of us quite tiny; tall girls like Camille were few and far between.” Some aspects of the profession however, she says are poignantly unchanged: “When (Camille) was booked for six (Melbourne Fashion Festival) shows, she was really nervous,” says Ms. James, remembering the feeling well. She was able to calm her rookie model and walk her through the jittery process of a debut show. “One of the things I said; ‘when you get back after that first one, you’ll be loving yourself on toast and won’t be able to wait to get back out there again!”

Miss MacDonald also remembers that nervous night, and her mum being right. “It was such an adrenalin rush!” she says, “I really enjoy the runway! Mum gives me good insight into how the industry works; it’s so good I can talk to her. I used to get really embarrassed when people said I should do modelling. I didn’t want the attention. But mum’s told me to be proud, embrace everything about it, put yourself out there.”

For Mr. Tyshing, the anecdote is less poignant than practical. As the gentic modelling phenomenon swells, some rookies have only to turn to mum and/or dad for insights into this notoriously tricky industry. That can’t be a bad thing.

 

Janice Breen Burns, jbb@voxfrock.com.au