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BY KATHERINE SAMPSON
One final chance to make it Toowoomba’s Nanie Dou listened to the strangers, followed a thought, which became a passion and is now walking on runways across Australia.
N
yanyuob (Nanie) Dau started life in war-torn South Sudan, her family fleeing to Egypt before eventually receiving visas and arriving in Toowoomba to begin a safe and certain life. Today, Nanie is a model, having worked Melbourne Fashion Week, Melbourne Cup and even a segment for Studio 10, but it wasn’t as smooth sailing as you might think. Throughout high school, Nanie found herself drawn to sports. “High school was all about playing sports and getting knocked around. “Basketball, soccer, futsal, I’d play anything,” Nanie said. It was in her late teens when Nanie started receiving compliments most people would take as a joke if told them. The 21-year-old started being told by friends, retail assistants and even strangers that she should start modelling. “Growing up I was really into sport and so I didn’t really care about a lot of the other stuff, girly stuff. “So, when I got compliments like ‘You should model,’ ‘You should consider modelling,’ I would laugh and say, ‘Nah, get out of here!’” Eventually, Nanie decided to attempt to persue a career in the industry. “At the start of last year, I decided to give it a go, I went into a lot of agencies here in Queensland, it really wasn’t a great experience,” Nanie said. Visiting a multitude of agencies from Toowoomba, Brisbane to the Gold Coast, Nanie hit a wall when one agency had the audacity to tell her that she couldn’t model with them because she was black. “I went into one agency and they said there’s too many of them,” Nanie said.
“They literally said it to my face ‘there’s too many of them,’ too many of my skin colour.” NANIE DAU
“To some people it might seem like a blessing. “But, they literally said it to my face ‘there’s too many of them,’ too many of my skin colour.” Nanie returned to Toowoomba and continued at her current job as a beef-slicer at one of the region’s abattoirs as well as continuing a degree at university. “I gave up, I gave up for a few months and I thought, yeah if there’s too many of my skin colour there’s no point. “Until I saw a comp online … this would be my last attempt,” Nanie said. An agency based in Melbourne was advertising for unsigned
PHOTO: JON PISANI 06
TOOWOOMBA STYLE, Friday, March 6, 2020
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