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10 inspirational models you should know

This week, Madeline Stuart’s story went viral. The 18-year-old Australian aspiring model has Down syndrome — and is challenging the way we define beauty.

“If the average person could see the beauty Maddy has inside, how loving and caring she is and if that is what people measured beauty on, then most of the models in the world would have Down syndrome,” said Madeline’s mother, Roseanne.

Here are 10 inspirational models, including Stuart, to know:

Madeline Stuart

Madeline Stuart (Facebook)
Madeline Stuart (Facebook)

The aspiring model from Brisbane already has more than 250,000 likes on Facebook and has already landed a campaign for the clothing label Living Dead.

“When people like Maddy get out and show who they are, and that their ability is more important than any disability they may have, it brings awareness to fact that people should not be limited by what others think of them,” Kristie Hagen of the National Down Syndrome Society told Yahoo Parenting.

Winnie Harlow

Chantelle Winnie/Instagram
Chantelle Winnie/Instagram

Born Chantelle Brown-Young, this Canadian model (and "America's Next Top Model" alum) was one of the most talked-about models at Fashion Week this spring, in part for her pigment disorder vitiligo.

“I feel like the industry is very much opening up, widening their eyes,” Harlow told the BBC of her unique look. “"Even the top models right now have a lot of personality. That’s what people are looking for…something they can relate to, a real person.”

She insisted she doesn’t want to be labeled because of her skin condition.

“I could more label myself as a spokeswoman for happiness,” she explained. “Focus on your opinion of yourself and not the opinion others have of you.”

Tess Holliday

Tess Holliday/Instagram
Tess Holliday/Instagram

Holliday, 29, made headlines earlier this year for becoming the first size-22 model to sign with a major agency.

“My phone still hasn’t stopped ringing,” Holliday, who first got into plus-size modelling more than 14 years ago, told People earlier this week. “It’s good, but it’s a lot!”

Despite the years of industry adversity and bullying over her size, Holliday says she’s never given up her modelling dreams.

“I just knew that I could do it,” she said. “I wasn’t the best, and I still am not the best. They key to it is just doing it.”

Since signing with MiLK Model Management, the “body positive activist” from Laurel, Miss., has landed major campaigns with Benefit Cosmetics and Torrid.

Carmen Dell’Orefice

Courtesy New You
Courtesy New You

The oldest working supermodel, 83-year-old Dell’Orefice’s modelling career is still going strong. In fact, she recently told New You magazine that she’s worked more than in the past 25 years than she did in the decades before.

“I had a very respectable career but I didn’t have a specific look,” shesaid. “I was a chameleon.”

“Fortunately, there was always somebody who knew I was good when I showed up, was responsible, not temperamental, and could do the job well,” she said. “Today I am in a territory that business considers unmarketable: age and white hair. Slowly, however, I started to own that territory little by little because I stood up for age.”

Andreja Pejić

Andreja Pejic (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images)
Andreja Pejic (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images)

Australian model Pejić, 23, was billed as an “androgynous” male model until 2014 when she underwent gender-confirmation surgery.

She now identifies as a transgender woman and became the first openly transgender model to be profiled by Vogue.

“She has done what no other model has ever been able to: toe the line between male and female successfully for a long time,” Gene Kogan, co-director of the men’s division at DNA Model Management, which until last year represented Pejic, told Vogue. “Andreja had an extraordinary career as a male model, often modeling female clothes; she pulled it off. It opened a lot of eyes and made people see things from a new perspective. We’re going to see her influence for years to come.”

Shaun Ross

Actor/model Shaun Ross (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for NYLON)
Actor/model Shaun Ross (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for NYLON)

Ross, 24, was born with albinism. That did nothing to stop him from becoming the world’s first successful male albino model, landing campaigns for Alexander McQueen and Givenchy. He’s been featured in editorial spreads for Vogue, British GQ and Paper magazine.

“I challenge photographers,” he told CNN of his “euphoric” and “disoriented” look.

“It’s really weird to say, but I never thought about my skin being weird. I just knew that’s what it was. I never asked myself why I didn’t look like my parents,” Ross said during New York Fashion Week in 2013, refusing to dwell on any perceived imperfections. “My mother has showed me you have no fear. You let people judge you, but who gives a f—k?”

Alex Minsky

Alex Minsky/Instagram
Alex Minsky/Instagram

Minsky, 26, a former Marine, lost his right leg to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. After making a remarkable recovery, Minsky found himself embarking on a surprising new career: modelling.

A fashion photographer at his gym helped him first find viral fame — although he’s straight, Minsky was an instant hit with gay men — then become the face of a campaign for the "Hunger Games"sequel and a runway model at Fashion Weeks in New York and Los Angeles.

“He gives people hope,” said photographer Cedric Terrell. “Models who work the runway are made to blend in. But he is a personality. People are designing photo shoots around him.”

Jillian Mercado

Courtesy Diesel
Courtesy Diesel

Last spring, then-26-year-old Mercado was featured as one of 23 “tastemakers” in Diesel’s “We Are Connected” ad campaign, standing out with her striking cropped blond hair — and her wheelchair.

Mercado, a fashion editor, has muscular dystrophy.

She told MailOnline that she hoped the ad “gives hope to people who are maybe saying, ‘My life is over’ because they are disabled. You can totally do it, nothing should be stopping you.”

“It’s the only way you can live in this world, to try to think positively as much as you can,” she told Elle magazine of how she maintains her positive attitude.

Aydian Dowling

Courtesy FTM Magazine
Courtesy FTM Magazine

You might remember Aydian Dowling from the above photoshoot that went viral earlier this year.

When Men’s Health put out the call for it’s annual cover contest, one man quickly became the frontrunner. Why he made headlines: he was born a woman.

Dowling, 27, started hormone replacement therapy in 2009. He had his breasts removed in 2012. And started bodybuilding to help him gain self-confidence during his physical transition.

“Having a trans person on the cover would tell people that no matter who you are, you can be the man you want to be,” he told Men’s Health. “It’s fully possible if you put the time and effort and balance it takes to find the man in you.”

He shares his story on his popular YouTube channel, ALionsFears.

If he wins, Dowling says he’ll see his Men’s Health cover as a victory for the entire transgender community.

“I want to break the stereotype of what a man should or shouldn’t be,” he told People. “I think it would blow minds. I think it would be so affirming to young kids who are lost right now and depressed to see somebody on a magazine, to see if I can do it, they can do it too.”

Viktoria Modesta

New York Times photo, via Instagram (Viktoria Modest)
New York Times photo, via Instagram (Viktoria Modest)

When 27-year-old Latvian singer-songwriter and model Viktoria Modesta was 20, she elected to have a voluntary below-the-knee amputation on her left leg— a doctor’s negligence at her birth left her with lasting complications all throughout her childhood, something 15 different surgeries failed to fix — to improve her mobility and safeguard her future health.

She quickly embraced her title as the world’s first “bionic pop artist.”

“In sports, ‘overcoming’ a disability makes you a hero, but in pop there is no place for these feelings,” she told Creative Review. “I have never felt comfortable thinking of myself as disabled and this has inspired me to actively challenge old-fashioned views and create a platform in mainstream pop-culture, with other artists, where I have always known I belonged. The time for boring ethical discussions around disability is over. It’s only through feelings of admiration, aspiration, curiosity and envy that we can move forward.”

She is signed with IMG Models worldwide.

Watch the video below for more about Madeline Stuart.