Kira-Lea Dargin has watched the doors slowly open to the modelling world for Aboriginal people ever since she became a model in her early teens.
Today, she has her own not-for-profit organisation aimed at helping other Indigenous people break into the fashion and beauty industry.
But for all the headway she has made, Ms Dargin says Australia has a long way to go.
"Until you can walk down the street and be like, 'Okay, yeah, there's a white-girl billboard ... yeah, there's a black-girl billboard' and be able to embrace it and it not be something different, then there's change [to come] until then," she says.
Ms Dargin says it is important for Indigenous youths to be surrounded by representations of beauty they can relate to.
"I've struggled a little bit with being accepted by my own culture as well as the industry."
She says at the moment they are looking at largely Caucasian-dominated billboards and Caucasian-dominated television shows and cites the Uinted States as a role model for change.
"They're so much more multicultural and so much more embracing," she says. "You go out, and you've got your black American billboards, you've got your Hispanic billboards, you've got your white billboards; it's all very mixed and very interracial.
She says the United Kingdom is also far more multicultural in its popular culture and media.
"You have interracial couples on TV out there," she says. "That's not something that we see here."
"I feel like we're still stuck behind."
Sydney's Jake Gordon is being hailed by many as the first Indigenous high-fashion male model.
He said Australia is still in a "trophy period" with its Indigenous people.
"This generation is kind of the first of the Aboriginal [people] that we're kind of reaching out and moving forward from… the poverty and the bad stuff that happened and trying to now ground ourselves and adapt to white Australia and, also, be included," he says.
"Because that's what we want to be. We want to be included and we want to be a part of it."
For those on the front line of the new frontiers, though, it can be a lonely existence.
Mr Gordon says he has faced rejection from some people in Aboriginal communities for being mixed race.
"I've struggled a little bit with being accepted by my own culture as well as the industry," he says, "In terms of - I'm not ‘black enough’ to be entitled to be called Australia's first Indigenous male model."
"I kind of get stuck in this weird ground of not really being sure where I fit, and it's quite a lonely path.
Kira-Lea Dargin says people need to realise Aboriginality is a culture, not a colour.
She bristles when some within Aboriginal communities criticise Aboriginal models or entertainers for dressing in ways they consider immodest for their culture.
"I think it's about finding the balance of cultural appropriateness, along with modern versions," she says.
"You do have people who look down and go, 'Oh, no, she shouldn't do that ... oh, no, she shouldn't wear that,' but, if she's comfortable doing that and wearing that and can go to sleep at night without a guilty conscience, then let that person be."
Kira-Lea Dargin and Jake Gordon will be part of a special Awaken program, "Black is Beautiful," on Wednesday September 24 at 8:30pm on NITV.
Share
