J
essica Gomes isn’t what you
expect from a top model. Rather
than sauntering in late to our meeting
wearing dark glasses, with an entourage
in tow, she bounds solo into the popular
Bill’s cafe in Sydney’s Surry Hills—two minutes early—and envelops
me in an enthusiastic bear hug, laughing, “What day is it?” As we take
our seats in a tucked-away corner and settle in to chat, she’s clearly
oblivious to the furtive glances from other diners. It’s impossible to
know whether they’re looking her way simply because the 32-year-old
is unmistakably gorgeous—even in a low-key look combining ripped
Ralph Lauren jeans and a simple white tee, with tousled hair and
make-up free (“but I’m wearing tinted moisturiser!”)—or because her
star is now firmly on the rise in Australia. Which seems odd, really, as
her birthplace has been a little slow to catch on to the Jess Gomes
phenomenon that’s been gaining momentum in other parts of the
world for quite some time.
“I left Perth at 17 and went straight to New York for work,” Gomes
explains. She made the move after being told by a modelling agency
that she’d never book jobs at home because of her exotic Chinese
Portuguese looks. “I feel like I’m put in this box, [ but] we all need to
look at each other and say, ‘Hey, you’re a person, you’re a human being,’
she states matter-of-factly. “I would like us to look past categorising
each other for our ethnic background.” Undeterred, the young model
spent a whirlwind six years based in New York City, conquering both
the USA and Asia—from fronting Estée Lauder campaigns to a stint on
South Korea’s Dancing With The Stars. But it was a job in 2008 that
catapulted then-21-year-old Gomes into the public eye in America,
almost overnight: the famed Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. “It was
so wild. I got to meet so many incredible people and travel to so many
different locations...[ but] I look at those pictures now and think,
‘Oh my gosh, I was such a different person back then’. I was so young...
I didn’t even know who I was,” she muses. “In your twenties, you’re
discovering who you are and what type of person you want to be—
you’re just trying to figure it out...I was quite shy and really insecure
about my body, about the way that I looked, and about my ethnicity.”
Fast-forward a decade and it’s a very different story. Gomes radiates
an easy confidence that’s disarming. She reflects on how much she’s
changed in the last 10 years: “[I’ve] stopped caring about what
everybody else thinks...I really love being in my thirties because I feel
like I know who I am. I can navigate problems quicker. I can understand
what’s good for me, and what’s not, and I feel like I’ve matured.
Since that has clicked in, I’ve been able to attract the right things.”
