“I left California in 1993 to come to New York and become a model. I’m Japanese, I’m 5’7”, I’m a dyke, I’m tattooed, I don’t have hair—well, I have a little—I don’t wear any kind of feminine clothes, and I had the opportunity to come to New York and be a model and I said, well, of course I have to go because no one has kind of paved the way. My friends woke me up and they took me in a taxi in my pajamas to Times Square at four o’clock in the morning. And that was when I first saw the billboard for Banana Republic that I shot with Bruce Weber in Times Square. It was just a picture of my face and underneath, it said ‘American Beauty.’ It makes me have the chills because never in my life did I think that I was beautiful.” - Jenny Shimizu