Mom and Dad speak on Cady-Ann Brown
Fifty year-old June Brown is still trying to come to grips with the fact that her ‘baby’ sixteen year-old Cady-Ann Brown is Jamaica’s Fashion Model for 2003.
“I don’t even know if I accept it all now,” said June, who is a staunch Seventh Day Adventist. “It (her win) was overwhelming, I was elated but I kept on thinking what would it entail…what after this…”
She wonders if her sheltered daughter is ready for the limelight both locally and internationally. Will Cady-Ann be so busy that she will no longer have time for her family? Will this mean the start of the ’empty nest’? (Cady-Ann is the last of four children and the only one who is still at the family’s modest home in Seaview Gardens, Kingston.)
“She’s 16, I don’t need to lose her now, especially to the fact that she will be going away from home. She’s our baby, the last one and she has always been a sheltered child. We know everywhere she goes,” says her mom. ‘Plus I would like to spend more time with her.”
Brown, a five feet eight and a half inches brown-eyed beauty, emerged the winner of the coveted Jamaican fashion model title two Sundays ago – beating 129 female contenders. The contest was held as part of Pulse’s Caribbean model search 2003 and the fifth former at Ardenne High school in Kingston took home $100,000 in prize money. But it is the modelling opportunities both locally and internationally that her family will have to adjust to.
For her father, 51-year old juice vendor Cecil Brown, the whole thing is not so much a big deal.
“…The most important thing right now is some schoolwork,” said her dad, who had the role of taking her to rehearsals, go-sees, auditions, interviews and any other idiosyncrasies of the business.
‘Anywhere she is going I carry her…” said Brown, who is an ex taxi-driver, trying to ensure his daughter’s safety.
As her career takes off though her parents are hoping that at least one of them will be able to travel with her.
“Right now I prefer to travel around with her (globally) as I know her better than anybody else,” said her mother, who does dressmaking.
Cady-Ann and her mom theorise that her mother’s profession may have been a strong factor in sparking her daughter’s fashion interest.
“From the day I was born I saw people coming to our house to try on and collect articles of clothing,” said Cady, as she is affectionately called at home. “Based on the fact that my mom has machines, I would let her alter my clothes. I had even designed a dress and she made it.”
More often than not, she was called upon as a mannequin, to do fittings while her mother worked.
“I didn’t realize that it had such an impact on her,” said her mom in amazement.
Ironically though, Cady-Ann had not aspired to be a model despite being constantly told that she looked like one: tall, slim with a nice walk.
She was discovered in New Kingston by Pulse’s head honcho, Kingsley Cooper.
” I was in New Kingston one day and Mr. Cooper saw me and asked if I interested in modelling…I went at first to Pulse to watch and was subsequently asked to walk and they were impressed since I’ve never had any training. From there, I’d continue to go to rehearsals,” she told All Woman last week.
“I never thought I would actually win a competition, moreover, this one,” she said while expressing gratitude to her sole sponsor, Junior Williams of Will Haven Enterprise, a real estate and construction dealer, who after one meeting decided to put up the $23,000 needed.
Now that the realisation is sinking in, the sixteen year-old discussed her future ambitions
“I want to become a successful model and my back-up plan is to be a journalist. I’ve always wanted to travel and to meet a lot of people,” said the born-again Christian. “I definitely want to finish school and have a degree. I will be taking seven CXC subjects next year, but during the school year I’ll be doing photo shoots and shows abroad.”
