Julia NOBIS

CATWALK and CAMPAIGN VETERAN JULIA NOBIS on DEFINING BEAUTY on her OWN TERMS

- JENNA ROSENSTEIN

When I was growing up in Australia, the absolute peak of beauty was Miranda Kerr and Elle Macpherson. Beachy, big boobs, that kind of thing. They are certainly very beautiful. But as a grown-up, I'm like, that's not the only form of beauty.

Not that I thought I was incredibly ugly or anything growing up, but I never would have used the term beautiful to describe myself. In my family, makeup was never a huge thing. No one really wore much, beyond like a little bit of mascara. That was the most any of the women in my family would wear. In the modeling industry, I've learned to appreciate more graphic-type expressions of beauty, just in terms of crazy makeup. I use the term crazy, which is not necessarily the best word, but it is a form of beauty-that wrongness can be beautiful, as well as symmetry.

What other people think is beautiful is not necessarily what I think is beautiful. Beauty can be found in everything big or small, in people, and in nature. I'm a big fan of moss; I think that it's absolutely stunning when you find a good mossy rock. I live out in the country. We found some on a trail that had been kicked off from its mother rock, and it wasn't going to survive where it was. So we brought it home and put it on a new rock. Now it's in a little terrarium. I'm very proud of that.