See her video at SavvyTV!

Innocence, unlike paradise, is often lost piece by piece; instance by instance, moment by moment. School-yard taunts; wide eyes, and quiet whispers; a stray hand, an embrace held too long; a line crossed. From each of these, there is no return to sender; polite ‘no thank you’s’ go unheard, and the world keeps moving slowly on with each first. The first kiss, the first hurt, the first pleasure. With each moment, the seduced edges closer and transforms, however slowly, into the seducer.

Gemma Sykes’ sentences are littered with ‘crazy’, ‘for sure’, and ‘totally’. Her blonde hair is loosely tied back in a pony tail. When asked a question, she pauses as if looking for permission to speak. Her favourite ice-cream is Hokey Pokey. Her eyes shine as she tells us that in New Zealand you can buy it in tubs in the supermarket. Yes, tubs.

“When I go back for Christmas, I bet I’m going to put on ten kilos, because all I’m going to eat is Hokey Pokey ice-cream!”

She laughs as she runs us through the other flavours that are worth a shot, “I’m extremely excited to get fat over the holidays.” She laughs. “Lucky we’re shooting before Christmas,” she winks.

Originally a kiwi (she’s shaken the accent, “thankfully,” she laughs), she went to school in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Of late, she’s spent a fair bit of time in Brazil, on what she describes as an extended holiday. “I absolutely love it there. Let me tell you, Brazilians can cook!”

Gemma explains how the Brazilian families she shared a roof with showed their affection through food – with a girl like Gemma, there was always plenty of it on the table. Refusing food was never an option. “It was a good way to put on weight,” she laughs, patting her flat stomach.

Innocent is most certainly an adjective with which she can be attributed. To come from a model, even from one who is as fresh to the scene as Gemma (at the time of publication she was not even signed to an agency) this attitude towards food is refreshing.

When prompted, Gemma pulls a face and laughs: “Oh, darl-ling, protein only, the zone diet, ok? Ok Swe-etie?” She laughs again, spilling some of her green tea. “No. Not at all. Why deprive yourself? Food’s so good! I love my food!”

It seems that there are good things ahead for this happy-go-lucky blonde, her foray into modelling partially due to her own innocence and willingness to trust complete strangers. When approached by a girl in a nightclub, Gemma held no reservations:

“She asked for my number, and all of the guys I was with were cracking up because here was this girl, asking for my number.” Gemma’s own innocence and trust paid off: that girl had an agency, and a photographer, and that’s what got her started modelling. Since then, she has done a lot of beauty work, and has been asked by the likes of Ralph to shoot for them, “but I held back on that. I just wanted to be sure that I was going with the right publication first. Savvy is amazing. It’s not so much about the hot girls posing… it’s clever, it’s different, it’s something I really wanted to do. ”

The endless castings, the constant criticism and the other delights of the modelling industry are still ahead of Gemma, yet she shrugs them off.

“I’ve heard some pretty awful stories. I did have a bit of a sleazy encounter when I was sixteen. Someone approached me to do some stuff, a photographer, and it really put me off. It was not cool.” She leaves it at that, not wanting to go into further detail.

Despite this, Gemma is leaving her rent-paying, bread-buying job to do modelling full time.

“Yep,” she smiles. “I’m just going to really go for it. So far I’ve been getting pretty good offers, without actually putting the effort in, which sounds terrible. I’m extremely appreciative with what I’ve been offered.”

She says this opportunity has been dropped in her lap so readily, she owes it to herself to try and make a go of it. Without the nine to five, she’ll be able to attend castings, shoots, and go sees.

When quizzed on her own Loss of Innocence she laughs, with a drawn out ‘ohhhhh’, a playground taunt.

“My definite loss of innocence then is my credit card,” she laughs, rising to the challenge. “Credit cards, I mean. They are completely maxed out. Fashion is a big thing… working in such an elite industry, you’re not getting paid a lot. It’s so easy to see how people get sucked into beautiful things!” She laughs and jokes about the irony.

When asked what she’d do with Savvy’s million dollars should she win, she laughs. “Pay of my credit cards!” She’s tried the whole interest-free thing, stoozing from one card to another, but she’s still managed to max them up something shocking. She laughs, and leans in close to the Dictaphone, saying slowly, firmly, loudly ‘vote for me, please!’

Despite being a novice, Gemma is well aware that her chosen career will at times be a hard road.

When asked what she wants to do besides modelling, she replies without hesitation, “Natural medicine.” She smiles, “I want my own clinic, and I want to practice. Looks fade, but intelligence is there forever. I would love that – with modelling, there is a lifespan. No one wants to see 50 year olds in their bikinis on the cover of whatever magazine.”

She stops and sips her tea. “You know that’s sad, because I would love to see my grandma do that too, but it’s a known fact. But then again, there are people who look absolutely fabulous who have been modelling for years. Some people have longer then others,” she winks. “Unless you’re out there making the money like Gemma Ward, or you win it from Savvy, you’ve got to have something to fall back on.”

_______

Credits: Photographer, Christian Blanchard @ missbossyboots.com.au; Photographer’s Assistant, Dan Himbrechts; Art Director, Candace Rae; Stylist, Michael Adler; Hair & Make-up, Nigel Stanislaus @ lookproduction.com; Model, Gemma Sykes; Video, Daniel Parkinson; Digital Retouching - Veronica Evans at Anthelion Imaging.

_______

Love it? Love is a mere phone call away…
DJ & Lane, +61 417 113 263; Dizingoff, +613 9663 3722; John Cavill, +613 9827 4632; La Donna of South Yarra, +613 9827 4172; Madame Marie, +613 9650 6221; Tozer,  +61 438 613 568; Zu, +61 433 509 318; Zayt, +613 9650 6262.