Aine Campbell is a model, community organizer and lover of creative, social impact collaborations. She is half Chinese, quarter 
Scottish and a quarter Irish and was raised in England. Áine is an Irish name pronounced “Anya”. As a model, she promotes sustainable and ethical fashion, and collaborate with conscious brands to align her image with her beliefs as much as possible. This choice has allowed her to deep-dive into what ethical and eco-friendly fashion really means-from the long term environmental impacts of making fashion, to the labour behind the production of clothes throughout the entire supply change, and what “sustainable” truly translates into as a lifestyle and culture. In December 2016, she co-founded the Model Activist Community, aka the Model Mafia, with fellow model, Cameron Russell. The Model Mafia is a group of dedicated fashion models who take collective action to create a more fair and just world. The Model Mafia was featured in the Edit and has collaborated with organizations such as Eco-Age, the United Nations, BRAC and Pure Earth.
Aine shares how she was able to become more of her authentic self through her life experiences and also tips that can help you in your own journey to self confidence.
Bio
Aine Campbell is a fashion model and activist.
Cultural Background
Aine is of Chinese and British descent.
Favorite Self Confidence Quote
Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Definition of Self Confidence
Self confidence is feeling at ease in yourself, and being ok with who you are and where you are at in life.
Her Life Before the Discovery of Self Confidence
Aine thinks that confidence is part of everyone’s personal growth journey and your relationship with it changes over time.
Growing up when she was at school, she never thought of herself as beautiful. She grew up in a mostly white suburb just outside of London and no one looked like her. Aine wished desperately that she looked like the English girls-wider eyes, fairer hair. She was teased for the way that she looked and that made her extremely unconfident.
The “AHA” Moment
Aine had many AHA moments that helped her build her confidence along the way.
Modeling, although it brings its own challenges and demoralizations, flipped that narrative for her. It happened slowly over the years, but a few years in working as a model, her mind had been changed about the way that she looks and she thought that she was beautiful in her own way.
She also thinks that you feel more confident in some situations and less confident in others. She knows that when she is in a new situation she can be less confident, for example, when she did her first runway show at London Fashion Week, she was so nervous, but now she completely comfortable. When she co-founded the Model Mafia and was suddenly in a position of leadership, despite having worked all over the world and having walked runways with loads of eyes on her, she felt out of her depth and had to learn how to step up, how to step back, how to facilitate and hold space, how to guide others.
Her Life After the Discovery of Self Confidence
For Aine, confidence is like a muscle: the more you do use it, the bigger it becomes. She finds this to be very powerful to remember too. When she started consciously seeking out sustainable fashion brands and talking about their work on social media and why their processes were so much better than those of fast fashion, she was challenging the status quo and also the clients that she normally worked for. She found that she was quite apprehensive at first, but the more you share what you really think and feel, not only is it easier to do that, but you become more of your authentic self when you move about in the world.
The One Self Confidence Tip For the Listener
- Practice gratitude, have a gratitude journal
- Detach from the thing itself that you’re doing, and focusing on something that her dad told her: “always do your best” which leads to the next point
- Being prepared e.g. if it’s a speech, make sure your practice it at least 20 times and walk in there knowing you’ve done yourself justice.
- Meditation – Aine loves meditation, it gives so much perspective and centers you.
- Remember that circumstance is a real thing that will affect your confidence levels at any given time, so give yourself a break.
