O’Connor became famous for her gameness and bravery as a model. During an Alexander McQueen show, she emerged into an “asylum” in a dress made of razor clams that cut her skin. Her father, in the audience, wept. “Anything that was deemed terrifying to another model was absolutely reassuring for me,” she told me. “But walking into a room, doing a casting, exchanging small talk, was nothing short of terrifying.” The photoshoots were where she found herself. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to convey the feeling, truly, that excites me more than being held in a harness, 30ft in the air, being struck by imaginary lightning. Because there comes this brilliant moment for me where I’m literally untouchable. Nobody can tell me off. Nobody can tell me I got it wrong. Nobody can tell me it’s not good enough. And so for this very timid, still introverted person who I am, it’s like… the weekend.” She will “always be addicted to that,” she went on. Though it may have been detrimental in her personal life, causing anxiety and exhaustion, it was the “masking” – the performing and pretending – she has come to realise, that made her a supermodel.
