You’re hardly going to turn down a chance to go to a model audition.
The concept conjures up all kinds of saucy, sexy images; bold and beautiful women striding powerfully down catwalks, pouting hotties draped over rocks as surf pounds in the background…
So yesterday when I was asked to go out and cover the first cattle call for Foxtel’s ratings juggernaut, Australia’s Next Top Model I jumped at it.
But it’s not what I thought. It wasn’t the serene airbrushed world I expected.
In actual fact, I found myself in a massive suburban shopping centre with hundreds of desperate girls corralled behind rope clutching paperwork between sweaty hands whilst anxious mothers pace around holding discarded cardigans.
In little groups they headed up on stage ready to be caressed by the eyes of a couple of impossibly beautiful women, who have the power to either make or dash their innocent dreams of stardom.
And as the wolf whistles of the local boys rain down from the levels above the girls go through some manoeuvres – striding away from the judges and back again, readjusting their hair and swivelling their hips.
But despite all the pressure most are calm and confident. I suppose it’s the kind of self-assurance that comes from being worshipped by the opposite sex since the onset of puberty.
And who knows who will reach the show? Who will get the chance to act out all the expectation and angst before a national audience for the chance to maybe, just maybe, leave the suburban shopping centre world forever.
To permanently live the dream and enter a world of flashes, Hollywood tape, celery, champagne, rock star boyfriends and late-thirties declines.
Video: Yasmin Bright