Unfortunately, Models Direct is well aware those who have modelling potential at a young age are quite often bullied for their unusual beauty before they’re discovered – whether it’s for being tall, having big lips, or in Candice Swanepoel case, for being ‘awkward-looking’.

As was the case with teen model Lindsey Wixson, British pouter Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Britain & Ireland’s Next Top Model’s freckly Jade Thompson, Swanepoel recently revealed that she too was bullied at school for her strikingly different looks.

While modelling her far from awkward-looking body in lingerie and swimwear for GQ Magazine this month, the now ultra successful Victoria’s Secret model revealed she felt like an outsider growing up in South Africa before she became a model.

She told the men’s fashion magazine: “A year before I got scouted, I would watch a lot of FashionTV. At school, I got teased because I was so thin and awkward-looking. But the girls on TV looked similar to me. I would say to my mom ‘The girls at school are teasing me, but I look like those girls on TV’. A year later, someone took me to an agency and that’s it.”

Indeed, Swanepoel was scouted by a model agent at just 15 years old, providing the perfect revenge for her bullies.

“Revenge is always… I know it sounds terrible, but it does feel good to show those people,” she said. “I put all my eggs in one basket when I left South Africa. I put my head down and worked my ass off. And look where it got me.”

Today, at 23 years old, the tables have most certainly turned as Swanepoel’s long legs, which once provided bullies with ammunition, have now become her biggest asset.

The team at Models Direct, a modelling agency known for supporting diversity and unusual beauty in the modelling industry, are happy to see that modelling has allowed Swanepoel to be confident in her body and that she is paving the way for more unconventional looking girls to follow their dreams of becoming a model.