Elaine George is even-handed when she reflects on the enormity of the moment that was being the firstever Indigenous Australian to front Vogue. After all, she didn’t stay in the industry for long, finding it was, in the early 1990s, still very much a place that foregrounded a narrow, predominantly white, version of beauty.
Three decades on though, she’s sanguine about it all, knowing she set in motion something to celebrate”), passing on knowledge in the tradition of her Elders. In her case it’s on how to navigate the industry and why visibility matters.
