What Is Beauty? with Shaun Ross.

Shaun Ross

Albino supermodel Shaun Ross was taunted by bullies as a child, but is now one of the most sought after faces in fashion. Following on from his ‘Radical Beauty’ talk at the TEDXHackney event, Patrick Cash went to meet him at the Dalston Superstore to talk more about modern ideas of beauty.

Shaun RossTell us a bit about yourself. 

I’m obviously a fashion model, of course, but I’m just a very creative individual that likes to do all kinds of different things.

Talking about radical beauty itself, in my research it said you suffered at the hands of bullies as a child, how does it feel to have been both taunted for the way you look and to have been more recently celebrated?

I mean the taunted came more so from when I was younger. When you’re younger you definitely go through things. You know kids are cruel and kids say mean things. But the taunting and everything, it definitely made me stronger to do the things I’m doing today.

Does it keep you grounded?

It definitely keeps me grounded, especially when I look at other people and I see what they go through, it keeps me grounded, because it’s like ‘I’ve been there before, that’s very familiar.’

Do you think the contemporary gay scene is too obsessed with aesthetic, the way people look? 

Without a doubt. Predominately in gay culture you have Grindr and you have Instagram where you post pictures of yourself on social media of your body and things like this, and it’s like ‘why are you doing that?’ The only reason you’re doing that is because you want some sort of validation from another person because you can’t find it within yourself, which is why a lot of men, especially gay men, are very, very insecure, they don’t even really notice it.

Just looking for fleeting affirmation? 

Of course. Even getting a lover, it’s: ‘I want to be with him because we look good’, more so than ‘we feel good’, and that could be the reason why a lot of gay relationships don’t really last.

So, what to you is beautiful? 

Certain things are not meant to be jammed in a jar and certain things are not meant to be categorised, so that’s beautiful and beauty to me. Beauty as a feeling, like an air you can’t really feel, you can’t explain, you just know how it feels and you’re like that’s beautiful.

And what to you is physically beautiful? 

Physical beauty doesn’t exist to me.

But there must be some guy in a club who you walk in and think ‘wow!’

Well, I have a boyfriend.

That doesn’t stop you looking. 

I look at people and I think they’re hot but I’m a very logical person, that’s my problem. I’ll look at a boy and think ‘Oh my god, he’s so cute’, but I know x, y and z, why this would never happen, why it would never work, so they automatically look ugly to me.

And who are the most radically beautiful people you yourself have encountered in your life? 

Grace Jones. Because Grace Jones is so different, even as a person, what is she like fifty or sixty? She’s still walking around in a leotard and high stilettos and a mink. I mean come on, it doesn’t matter, and she doesn’t have the body of a supermodel and she embraces it and I love that. And she’s probably one of the most radically beautiful people I’ve ever met.

Do you think there’s a hypocritical aspect to modern society’s treatment of beauty? 

I think that it’s very hypocritical because while you’re saying that you want to be innovative and different, you’re showing the same shit.

What do you think would push people forward to doing something different? 

People like me. People like myself and you. Like having a gay magazine about gay men doing successful things as if you were reading another magazine. It’s making what we feel unnormal the norm, because it is normal.

Excellent. And finally, this is a kind of devil’s advocate question, but what to you is ugly? 

When I see people who don’t live their lives the way they want to, that’s ugly to me. When I see somebody living a false life, that’s very ugly, extremely ugly.

So truth is beauty? 

Yes.

Shaun Ross: www.facebook.com/Model Shaun Ross

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