Lisa den Boer is a cheese loving 18-year-old Gemini from Holland. She originally hails from a little town called Waddinxveen—located next to the cheese epicentre of the world, Gouda—but is planning to spend the next year travelling the world. Lush! Overall, she had a solid childhood fit out with everything she could have wished for—nice friends, lots of sports, a good education, a loving family, and lots of time spent playing outside. While there were a couple of “less pleasant experiences” for her growing up, she acknowledges that they helped to shape the person she is today (a complete legend, IOHO!). She’s thankful to have grown up in a time before smart phones, because it “forced you to go outside and find friends you could play with”, and also to her parents for teaching her to be independent from a young age.
“My parents divorced when I was about 11, [and it] made me more independent, because both of them worked to make a good living and I was often home alone in the afternoon after school,” she explains. “But the divorce is not the only thing that made me more independent, my parents gave me also the freedom. For example, in primary school we had lunch break from twelve to one (where we were allowed to go home to eat), and when I was 10 or 11 I was allowed to go home alone with a friend of mine two days a week to eat without our parents or someone else picking us up from school (which a lot of kids did).”
If she had to pick between city and nature, she’d go the latter because of the “peace and beauty”, but in saying that, wouldn’t want to live in the middle of nowhere, either. Since being in Australia, she’s learned to accept insects more, which makes sense because, as she puts it, there’s “cockroaches as big as your finger and spiders as big as the palm of your hand” down here. On behalf of Australia, sorry! In her downtime, you can catch her listening to Ed Sheeran, but when she’s in a party mood, she’s not adverse to a little bit of Dutch music, which is “a little bit of Reggae with most of the songs being a mix between rap and singing.” Of all the things she’s proud of our generation for, it’s “the way people from all different cultures are learning to live together without big clashes” that takes out first spot.
On the other hand, she does think we need to work on being nicer to other people and eradicate bullying completely. “There are still a lot of children who commit suicide because of bullying,” she continues. “That just breaks my heart.”
The best shoot she’s ever been on was for Marie Claire, which was “very cool to do” and happened right at the beginning of her modelling career. The most fun shoot she’s done, however, was one she did with Oracle Fox for Calvin Klein swimwear which was shot in Noosa National Park (Google it for confirmation of why!). Her fave model in history is Gisele Bündchen, because “not only did she do amazing things, which she worked very hard for… she also supported good causes and is acknowledged for them, which shows that she also has a good heart.” Yep! A good friend to her is someone she can trust and laugh together with, and someone who she can talk with as if they’ve seen each other yesterday, no matter how long the gaps in between hanging out are. Her favourite thing about travelling is seeing different cultures and “just sitting somewhere and looking around me, watching what people do or eat”, something she’s loved to do since a young age.
The most important things in life to her are love (because it makes her happy), friends and family. In the next 10 years, she hopes that she’s happy and has a job she loves, whatever that may be. For humans as a whole, she hopes that we can get better at preserving nature for future generations better.
“Nowadays, communities are building on every single piece of land, resulting in less nature and more pollution,” she adds.
“In my country, I see that a lot. I just think that’s a waste.” Yes x 1000! To unwind after a long day, she loves to do “totally nothing.” Preach! She relaxes by way of watching Dutch TV programs which “don’t make sense”, or nestling in for a big afternoon of Netflix ‘n’ chill.
To her, cool means “being yourself and doing your own thing.” We couldn’t agree more!
Words: Maddy Woon Images: Dakota Gordon Fashion: Suzannah Snow
Lisa is represented by:
Kult SYDNEY
Future Faces AMSTERDAM
Shot on location in Sydney's CBD, Australia
