Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Sian McIn­tosh's im­age has been every­where late­ly. She is the face of the new mod­el search com­pe­ti­tion, Face of T&T, and a much sought-af­ter mod­el for top Car­ni­val bands and ad agen­cies.

Af­ter the re­cent launch of Tribe's 2014 pre­sen­ta­tion Tribe 10, a blog­ger re­port­ing on the event de­scribed the 32-year-old as, "be­ing able to make sack­cloth and ash­es look sexy." It prob­a­bly isn't a co­in­ci­dence that Sioux, the cos­tume she mod­elled at the launch, is one of Tribe's fastest-sell­ing sec­tions.

Away from the glam­our and lime­light, McIn­tosh, the daugh­ter of Op­po­si­tion MP Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh, is a sec­ondary school­teacher at a co-ed school. She talked to the Guardian about get­ting in­to mod­el­ling, keep­ing her teach­ing and mod­el­ling ca­reer sep­a­rate and how her par­ents feel about her work.

I bal­ance mod­el­ling and teach­ing by try­ing as much as pos­si­ble to keep them sep­a­rate. But this does not al­ways work out. My stu­dents are aware of what I do but they al­ways re­main re­spect­ful. There are ac­tu­al­ly girls I have taught who are now get­ting in­to the in­dus­try and seek ad­vice from me. I un­der­stand my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a teacher and some­one who sets stan­dards for chil­dren, so I am very care­ful with the types of mod­el­ling that I do.

I got in­to mod­el­ling to gain more con­fi­dence. I was al­ways very shy grow­ing up. I was al­so a chub­by kid. I start­ed mod­el­ling when I was 23 but my first band launch was in 2010 when I was asked by de­sign­er San­dra Hor­datt to mod­el her sec­tion Xi'an War­riors (for Tribe's 2011 pre­sen­ta­tion Way of the War­riors) and the rest is his­to­ry.

I have been a body mod­el for the past eight years. I don't re­al­ly like be­ing de­scribed as a body mod­el be­cause I find it sort of con­ceit­ed. I have learned to change this mind­set by al­low­ing peo­ple to see the re­al me, which is a very down-to-earth, fun, geeky and very ap­proach­able per­son.

Be­ing a mod­el has giv­en me a lot of ex­po­sure pro­fes­sion­al­ly in terms of get­ting dif­fer­ent types of mod­el­ling jobs and again, it has def­i­nite­ly giv­en me the con­fi­dence that I did not have when I was younger.

My ex­pe­ri­ence as a face mod­el was dif­fer­ent to be­ing a body mod­el be­cause it was the first weave I have ever worn, but it was fab­u­lous. Sec­ond­ly, I was not ac­cus­tomed to hav­ing the fo­cus sole­ly on my face so that took a bit of get­ting used to. But I must say, work­ing with Kirk Thomas was re­al­ly an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, he is so tal­ent­ed and he's fun to be around.

I was re­cent­ly com­pared to renowned mod­el Iman af­ter I did the face shot for Face of T&T. This was a big deal for me, be­cause I wouldn't com­pare my­self to her, she is just such a huge fash­ion icon.

I am good at be­ing a mod­el be­cause I think I'm very easy to work with and I think I take di­rec­tion re­al­ly well. The key to stay­ing ground­ed is be­ing hum­ble and nev­er let­ting this pro­fes­sion go to my head.

I work in­de­pen­dent­ly be­cause this bet­ter for me, I get to have more say in what I do.

My moth­er sup­ports what I do. Ini­tial­ly she was ner­vous about the kind of mod­el­ling I'd be do­ing, but when she saw my work, she was proud. She is very sup­port­ive and she col­lects every­thing I do. I'm the on­ly daugh­ter, and my Dad's "lit­tle princess", but he is al­so quite cool with what I do.

I keep in shape by do­ing a lit­tle tae bo and go­ing to the gym but ten­nis is my re­al sport. I don't make joke with my food ei­ther be­cause I love my bel­ly.

My di­et con­sists of every­thing that can be con­sumed by a hu­man, ex­cept caraille. Yuck!

I pre­pare my­self for a shoot or show by clear­ing my head and fo­cus­ing on ex­e­cut­ing my rou­tine at its best. I don't re­al­ly feel that pres­sured nowa­days but if any­thing, I just take a shot (drink), and I'm good to go!

Some beau­ty tips I swear by in­clude us­ing mois­turis­er and not stay­ing up too late or over-par­ty­ing. I sound­ly be­lieve in the old peo­ple's ad­vice, 'stay way from night dew.' And you must have a chap­stick, be­cause crusty lips aren't cute.

I think I am go­ing to be mod­el­ling as long as the good Lord will smile on me and keep me look­ing young. But you must al­so know when to stop too! And leave on a high note.

I am at my best when I am home wear­ing a vest and shorts, hang­ing with my boyfriend or when I am at the beach. I am a re­al beach bum.

I don't think the mod­el­ling in­dus­try is bad, but I do think that in T&T we should be a bit more se­lec­tive with mod­els. Not just be­cause you are pret­ty means that you are a mod­el. This is a se­ri­ous pro­fes­sion for those who want to do it pro­fes­sion­al­ly and there are spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments that should be ad­hered to. I am not stat­ing that you have to be six feet and skin­ny, nowa­days there is a health­i­er stan­dard for mod­els and there are dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of mod­els. Find what works for you!