Doris
Mayday is not your typical 23-year-old girl. She captured the eyes of America
when she was first seen on TLC’s new show ‘My Crazy Obsession,’ publicizing her
infatuation with the 1950s. The episode follows Doris' through her everyday life showing how every aspect of it is surrounded by the 1950s era. Her episode caused so much buzz that just days after its airing, internationally known reporter Anderson Cooper flew her out
to New York to have her on his show.
This
pinup model was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada by her two parents, who
surrounded her with hot rods and black-and-white movies. Doris spent countless
hours with her grandparents, listening to their childhood stories and dressing
up in her grandmother’s clothes.
In an interview with TLC Doris reveals that
growing up was hard for her, she was bullied because she was overweight,
freckle faced and had a gap between her two front teeth. At just 13-years-old
Doris purchased a 50s inspired dress for a school dance that changed her life.
“I had
never felt prettier” Doris tells Anderson Cooper in an interview, “I knew that
this was how I wanted to look. I wanted to look classy and feminine, I didn’t
wanna look like my peers.”
A pinup photographer and good friend of Doris' said that,
"Doris is unique and takes her lifestyle to a whole new level; she's in it full force."
At the
age of 16 Doris, whose birth name is Ashley, joined a roller derby team. She
showed up to the first practice wearing fake eyelashes and had pin-curled hair,
realizing that the name 'Ashley' wasn't a suitable name for a derby girl, she came up with Doris Mayday, after the
famous actress and singer Doris Day, from then on the name stuck.
Doris
began modelling at the age of 21. In 2009 she was judging a pinup modeling contest when she was asked by the head
of Bettie Page Clothing to be a model for their company. Doris then went on
from being a model to becoming the manager of the Bettie Page Clothing store in
the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she now lives with her
boyfriend Dylan.
Doris
is a collector of anything vintage, her home is filled with vintage goodies
that go back all the way to the 1930s- her couch, TV, kitchen table and even the curtains are all vintage pieces that she has collected over the
years. Doris does her best to avoid any modern conveniences and has even hired a personal etiquette coach to ensure that she behaves like the perfect, put together woman of the 1950s.
When
asked by Anderson,“why the 50s” Doris replied with,
“I
don’t like my generation. I don’t like their music, I don’t like the way they
treat people and I don’t like the way they dress.”
I
contacted Doris hoping to ask her some questions about a MySpace blog post of
hers from February 2007, but she was unable to get back to me. In the post she vents about a group of girls
who glared and stared at her because of the way that she was dressed. Doris
goes on to state that,
“Corsets,
heels, stockings, satin gloves, tight dresses and divine accessories are things
that embrace your [womanhood]… and make you OH SO POWERFUL.”
She
professes that it is unsettling to her that ladies choose to “hold grudges,
talk shit and just be flat out rude to our own gender [when] we don’t even know
each other."
I
would have liked to asked Doris how she deals with the “glares and stares” now and what she would say to women out
there who are being bullied because they choose to dress a certain way that
is different from the ‘ideal image"of the twenty-first
century.
-Keltyn
Want more from Doris? Here are her links!
Some clips from her 'My Crazy Obsession' and 'Anderson' episodes:
