It’s pouring down in Sydney’s northern beaches when I arrive at Pilu, a chic waterfront restaurant, usually buzzing with diners. On an unusually cold and blustery morning, the swell and the rain are the only sounds to be heard. The white-linen tables are silent, the doors not yet open to the public.
Samantha Harris, one of Australia’s most recognisable faces, sweeps into the restaurant. She is casual, in activewear, her baby bump visible beneath her puffer jacket, her longtime modelling agent Kathy Ward by her side. Sipping her chai latte, Harris is smiling as she is congratulated on two fronts: her first child and her first book, Role Model: Taking Up Space in the Fashion World.
The book has been more than a decade in the making.
Harris, 35, spent 22 years in the spotlight. Her career began at 13, when she was named runner-up in the Girlfriend modelling competition (Abbey Lee Kershaw took first place). The first half of her book charts her stratospheric rise from a schoolgirl in Tweed Heads to a world of catwalks and editorial shoots. The second half belongs to her mother, Myrna Davison, who writes of her early childhood on a New South Wales Aboriginal mission before being forcibly removed as a young child, like tens of thousands of Aboriginal children torn from their families.
Reading those chapters, Harris says, was gut-wrenching. She pauses before continuing: “I’m still learning about it and it’s still very hard to read.
“We know what happened to so many Indigenous people but when it’s your mum, it hits very close to home. It’s really hard.”
She owes the book’s existence to their shared pact: “She said she only did it because I wouldn’t share my story if she didn’t share hers. So that’s how it all came about.”
For many millennials who grew up on a steady diet of teen magazines, Harris’s face is familiar: her wide eyes, bee-stung lips and graceful limbs catapulted her into fame and the media spotlight still dominated by blue-eyed blondes. “No one could pick where I was from,” she says. “They thought I was Brazilian or they thought I was Italian. In London they thought I was Indian.”
Back then, “I wanted to look like the other models – and kind of just slot in and just do the job,” she says. “Now, I love that I stand out.”
Today, inclusive and diverse casting is more common for fashion brands and magazines, but in the early 2000s, Harris was one of few models with Indigenous heritage and the fashion world had yet to recognise the creativity and rich heritage of First Nations design and culture.
“When I started, I didn’t know any Indigenous models … just seeing so many beautiful girls on the cover of Vogue now. I’m really proud,” she says, listing models who have come after her. “Charlee Fraser being in movies, Magnolia [Maymuru] is doing great things.
“Just having stand-alone Indigenous designers within [Australian] fashion week, is really cool to see. It’s not just an outfit, it’s hundreds of years of history and storytelling, it’s so much more special. And being able to see the fashion on the runway. I’m very proud because back to my mum’s time that would be unheard of. She’s so proud.”
At just 14, Harris was working around the world. She was flown to New York, with a chaperone, after her photo was spotted by legendary fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier. The significance of the Demarchelier shoot was a little lost on the teenager. “[Kathy] told me how amazing Patrick was but I was 14, and I was like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s nice.’ I remember when Patrick shot, he was in and he was out, just a few snaps.”
In Tahiti for a shoot for Marie Claire, being flown to Bora Bora and staying at fancy resorts was a culture shock for the teen who used to hang out at fast-food restaurants in Tweed Heads.
Being far from home was a challenge for the intensely shy model. She struggled being away from her family, and would sleep with the lights on in strange hotel rooms. “I sound like such a big baby – now I love it and it’s a fun experience. It’s exciting.”
Ward says she still remembers Harris as a young girl; when staying at her agent’s house in Sydney for castings or shoots, Harris preferred playing with Ward’s kids and watching cartoons to talking with the adults. Even the front desk at her modelling agency, Chic, felt imposing, says Harris.
“Modelling was always something I wanted to do, even though I was so shy, I still wanted to do it.”
Harris went on to front campaigns and catwalks for Australian designers Carla Zampatti, Lisa Ho, Josh Goot, Romance Was Born, among others. She was named an ambassador for department store David Jones, along with Miranda Kerr and Megan Gale. She landed an international campaign for Italian fashion house Miu Miu and appeared often in Vogue, Marie Claire and Elle.
Harris always knew she wanted to model and in the book her mother writes that she was posing even in her first ultrasound image. “My big dream was, if I made it in a Kmart catalogue,” she says.
But while international fame beckoned, family and community held a much stronger appeal, so Harris made a “conscious choice” to remain in Australia.
“The grasses aren’t always greener on the other side. I’ve had such a great time. Met so many great people, and worked with amazing clients. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything at all.”
Ward has a maternal warmth, and it’s easy to picture her taking the younger Harris under her wing. She says Harris captivated her from the first time she saw a Polaroid of the 13-year-old.
“It wasn’t because she was Indigenous. She just had this most extraordinary face, the lips, the eyes, everything was totally in proportion. She had the height. We were just like ‘Wow, we found a star’.”
Ward says the industry has changed dramatically over the past two decades. “When Sam started, they were putting 13, 14, 15-year-olds on the cover of Vogue … Fortunately, these days, girls do have to be older,” she says.
At Chic, they aimed to support Harris and her family through the intensity and pressure of the modelling world. “Knowing her background, her mum and her upbringing, we took a lot more care, and a bit more time,” Ward says.
Ambition, professionalism and resilience saw Harris succeed in a fickle and demanding industry but Role Model reveals disheartening experiences too.
The 2000s era of skinny models dominated magazine covers. In the book, Harris writes “it felt supercharged between 2005 and 2010”. “Gotta be skinny, gotta be skinny” was a phrase that played through her mind, but she says it came from internal pressure rather than her agency.
She writes that brands would tell her – even at her thinnest – that she wasn’t thin enough. One even rang her agency saying she had been spotted eating pasta backstage.
Harris and her brothers were raised by her mother in a tight-knit, loving family, which helped her navigate the challenges and pressures in the industry.
Her mother urged her to stay grounded during her early career and instilled in her pride and gratitude for her heritage, family and culture.
Even today she says that despite her years in the modelling industry she prefers to hang out with those behind the scenes rather than those in front of the camera, making friends with makeup artists rather than models and actors.
For many Australian girls, Harris’s success meant something bigger – seeing themselves reflected in the glossy pages of a magazine. These girls are now women, and that connection continues on Harris’s Instagram, where she shares scenes from her daily life with her dog and husband, Luke.
“People will message me like, just a daily chat. They remember seeing me in magazines, so they’ve kind of watched me grow and been a part of my journey.”
Now Harris is excited to step away from the spotlight for a while, to focus on her growing family (she’s already a proud dog mum). When I ask her what she’s most looking forward to about motherhood, she replies with a smile: “Everything. Just all of it. I feel like I have done everything but this – being a mum.”