Trans-itional beauty

Breaking into the modelling industry is tough for anyone. But it’s particularly hard when you don’t necessarily fit into “conventional” standards of beauty.

In a breakthrough effort, Rudrani Chettri, a transgender woman who runs the Mitr Trust (an LGBT advocacy organisation), is on a mission to both help and understand hopeful transgender models and is crowdfunding £5,000 to start India’s First Transgender Modelling Agency.

As a revolution on the ramp, she’s joined by stylist Rishi Raj, filmmaker Ila Mehrotra, and a dozen models.

The timing seems quite right as well, as the world is witnessing more and more transgender talents appear in major fashion and beauty campaigns and on high-profile international magazine covers.

There’s Brazilian model Lea T., who scored a campaign for an American haircare company, Andreja Pejic and her contract with a make-up company, teen activist Jazz Jennings fronting an anti-acne company and of course, Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox gracing the respective covers of Vanity Fair and Time magazines. This year will bring more progress, hopes Rudrani.

“We want to provide an alternative source of income for the trans-community aside from begging or sex work.

Trans Models in New York and Apple Model Management in Thailand are proving to be living proofs of what all we as a community are capable of doing,” she says.

“Why should gender come between you and your profession? If I want to be a model, why can’t I just be one and earn a livelihood out of it?” says Chettri.

About coming up with this idea in particular she asserts, “Why should there be a sad story behind a project? I have a happy story instead. I love to travel and I love getting clicked and I happen to know so many beautiful trans people who can make good models.”

She continues, “Close your eyes and think of hijras...what do you imagine: People who have beards and dark faces wearing weird brightly coloured clothes? Well, I want to challenge hetero-normative ideals of female beauty. Next fashion week, I will see my girls on the ramp. I want to break free from the prejudice.”

However, her hopeful nature at times reflects a hint of reality when she talks about being aware (about the real status of her own community), “it is both blurry and complex, as capacious as it is marginalised,” she says.

“Financially speaking my Trust is on its knees. Under this government, funding for HIV awareness and prevention has fallen by almost 25 per cent. My team and I hope that the modelling agency will raise awareness for the community and that’s why we have launched a campaign to receive donations from supporters,” she adds.

Filmmaker Ila Mehrotra who has been a big part of Rudarni’s project, says, “I grew up in Delhi and then lived in Brighton, UK, which is also known as the gay and trans capital of the country. It made me wonder about transgenders in India and how little contact we have with them. I felt it was important that the world should know them better".

"Hence, I teamed up with Emmy award-winning director Andrew Smith to follow their lives, and share that with an international audience. I met Rudrani in 2014 and I was fascinated by the lives she and her community lead. And I was with her when she came up with the idea of a model agency and I became deeply connected to it.”

She adds that they have also just got a photographer on board, Rahul Saharan, who will be doing photos of all auditions for free! While Rishi Raj, celebrity stylist was approached for the campaign.

Unlike trans models in the US, the promotional images for the Trust’s agency are unconventional. They feature trans-women with stubbles, bald spots and lipstick which bleeds over black liner, completely debunking the idea that you are only ‘successfully trans’ if you conform aesthetically, meaning that you ‘pass’ as a cisgender man or woman.

And next up, Rudrani and her team are planning to hold a model audition next month in Delhi.