Free Reeva: A Mother's Story by June Steenkamp Page B

that first trip back, she came to the races to support Barry’s horse and of course I worked there too. When the races finished, all her friends came in. Wayne was the last to arrive but they kissed each other and she said, ‘I still love you, you know.’

Modelling gave Reeva a path and a direction. It is a world where image is everything, and that can make for a very competitive, judgemental environment. Each girl is selling an individual ‘look’, and it’s hard not to take it personally when that ‘look’ is rejected. Equally, each job is so hard to win that praise from your peers is rarely forthcoming. Reeva’s experience of modelling in Port Elizabeth was not so much about competition as about camaraderie. It wasn’t a profession; it was something she did for fun. As her mother, I knew she was in safe hands with Jane at ICE Models in Johannesburg and I knew Reeva had not underestimated the fact that modelling at national level required serious focus. To be ready to forge a career as a model, rather than prepare for an occasional shoot or assignment, she had to get into shape, and she had the brains to realise she was going to have to work on it. It wasn’t going to just happen. She could see what she needed to put in, in order to get well-paid assignments out of it. A lot of girls don’t see that. They’re not driven enough. But Reeva understood her shortcomings.

Before a model is cast for an editorial or TV commercial shoot, a brief goes out to the talent agencies describing the job for which models are to be auditioned. Thanks to Jane’s warnings about the need to push her personality, Reeva’s trump card was that she always made a huge effort to study the brief. If a client wanted a girl to appear in, let’s say, a TV coffee shop commercial in the guise of a corporate worker, Reeva would go out of her way to interpret the brief. She would figure that the client might not have the imagination to see what she’d look like dressed as an office worker if she turned up in the normal model outfit of leggings, flat shoes and casual top, so she would attend the casting looking polished and professional above and beyond. She always went the extra mile to get the booking. In between jobs, she worked extremely hard to maintain herself. She ate well and drank three litres of water a day. She went to the salon to keep her hair in tip-top colour and condition, and her nails camera-ready. She went to the gym to hone her body. She loved the whole business of skin care. A few years later, in 2008 or so, she would decide to have implants to boost the number of jobs she would be eligible to audition for. She underwent quite a transformation, but it was for the purpose of achieving her goals. Whereas some models would consider an FHM cover the pinnacle of a career, Reeva viewed it as a stepping stone.

Her portfolio contained a huge variety of styles and poses. She loved the play-acting side of modelling; she could take on a range of roles – from a tough-glam girl member of a SWAT team for a cinema commercial for Pin Pop lollipops to the yummy mummy cover girl for Afrikaans parenting magazine Baba & Kleuter . She flew between Johannesburg and Cape Town for the cities’ respective annual fashion weeks in October and July, and to film and shoot some of the leading national campaigns for brands such as Toyota, Clover and the Italian designer label Zui. When you get your FHM cover, they produce a book bound to the main magazine to present the new cover girl. In Introducing Reeva , she posed in roles based on a Marilyn Monroe theme. She could play lots of different parts and project different attitudes. I loved her modelling – because, as her mother, I loved bragging about it. She’d phone up and say, ‘Mummy, get this magazine and that magazine.’ I had to. I made it compulsory for her to tell me whenever she was in a publication, and then I’d go and get the magazine and show it to, well, anyone and everyone! She