Inspiration from Tyra Banks and A Mom Worth Knowing

I love, absolutely love, people who think outside of the confining, boring, indulgent little box. I love to see them acknowledge the box for the cage that it is and emancipate themselves.  From what I’ve read, seen, and experienced - there’s always some defining moment when the bars suddenly become too much.  A moment when they look around the cage and think, “This is okay,” only to look outside of the cage and say, “…but that rocks!”

The story of Tyra Banks is just such a story.  She’s a household name, now, in every sense of the word. I mean, who doesn’t know this beautiful lady’s name, face, and figure?!  She’s one of the most successful models in history and she has gone on to have, not just one, but two wildly popular television shows. She was named as one of the world’s 100 most influential people by TIME magazine in 2006.

When she first started modeling, she was getting booked for runway shows all over the country.  She was a flawless, long legged fresh faced all American girl that the designers loved.  However, the fashion industry being what it was (and is, to an extent), perfect Tyra all of a sudden wasn’t perfect enough.  The industry told Tyra’s manager - who happened to be her loving, protective, and clever as a fox mother that Tyra needed to lose 10 pounds.  She was only 123 lbs at the time!  Her mother immediately pictured a lot of the girls she’d seen at the fashion shows, girls who you could literally play the game of count the vertebrae on. 

When she told Tyra the news, she asked her mother what they were going to do.  Her answer?  Order some pizza. (Love that!)  Then, they’d come up with their own great solution - rather than settling for someone else’s bad solution. (Love that even more!)

The solution they came up with proved to be one of the most brilliant, successful solutions since Hershey’s took a crack at chocolate.  They decided that rather than invite Tyra’s curves to leave, they’d find someone to appreciate them.  The rest is history.  Literally.  They contacted Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated (Swimsuit) and each welcomed Tyra with open lenses.  Tyra Banks made history by becomming the first black girl to make the cover of the SI Issue (Twice, no less) and she has sold more bras and panties than all the other VS models.

I don’t know where the girls with the protruding backbones are now, but the girl who had backbone is most definitely accounted for…….