Elaine George

Elaine George, later known as Elaine Tanaka, is an Aboriginal Australian fashion model. She was the first Aboriginal model to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine, for the September 1993 edition of Vogue Australia.

Early life Elaine George was born around 1976 and brought up in a housing commission (a form of social housing) home in Inala, south-west of Brisbane, Queensland. Her mother is of Arakwal descent from the Bundjalung Nation, and her father (white) Australian of German ancestry. George's family was part of the Stolen Generations.

Growing up, George was a tomboy who liked sport, and her family, being poor, had never bought magazines. She was not allowed to wear make-up. She eventually decided to confront the woman and ask her to stop following them, at which point Finke gave her her contact details and discussed modelling.

The next time an Aboriginal model would be featured on the magazine's cover was not until Samantha Harris in 2010, 17 years after George's cover issue. George commented, "I thought it was beautiful [but] I was a little disappointed it took 17 years".

Further modelling during the 1990s Following the Vogue cover, George quickly became widely recognised for her modelling and booked many more jobs over the course of the next two years, including multiple overseas jobs. At age 18, she moved to the United States to pursue her career. She often found that makeup artists at her modelling jobs did not have makeup that matched her skin tone. As she travelled to other countries, many people she met did not know that Australia even had Indigenous peoples, instead believing that all Australians were "blonde-haired, blue-eyed" racially white people.

In 1995, she returned to Australia for a modelling and met the man who would eventually become the father of her children. She decided to retire from her modelling career to focus on other pursuits.

George appeared on an episode of the 2023 ABC TV series The Way We Wore, a show about Australian fashion.