Australia’s Next Top Models – Cripple Style

19 Jan 2010: Elvira Alic from last year's story, ‘Disabilities Can Be Beautiful Too' and I, will be auditioning for Australia's Next Top Model, at Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne tomorrow – 20th January 2010.

It will be interesting to see what happens as this is a competition predominantly undertaken by able-bodied women. I certainly don't think they've ever seen anyone like Elvira (who is also in a wheelchair), and I auditioning for their competition. One of the first rules is that you must be at least 172cm tall; I'm just over three ft so that will be amusing in itself.

Our main goal is not to be laughed off stage, but to promote the fact that beauty exists in all different shapes, sizes, ages and races and to work towards one day allowing people like us to model using what we do have, not turning us away because of what we don't have.

I will be flying down to Melbourne tomorrow morning at 6:30am, with my boyfriend Todd, who will be our camera-man, hopefully capturing everything that goes down, on and off stage.

Our first obstacle became apparent to me whilst looking over old Australia's Next Top Model footage, when I noticed that the stage at the auditions has stairs to get up onto it. Luckily, if we get to go on stage, we will have about half a dozen strong men with us that we can holler to for assistance.

The mind boggles at what the reactions of the judges and show's producers will be, as I mentioned earlier, we are planning to capture all of the action on camera so that it can be posted on the net for all to see, but if we are told to put our camera away, there will be many, many photos that will be available for viewing on this website ASAP.

There are story's being published about us in Sydney and Melbourne papers, here's a link for the article that appeared in the Penrith Press today - http and there will be more to come that I will ad as they become available to me.

Wish us luck and I will be back on Thursday to fill you all in about what happened at the auditions!

Australia’s Next Top Models – Cripple Style