With all of the negative business news stories circulating, we are happy to be congratulating one of our long standing clients, Louise Dyson, on becoming a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE).
Louise’s entire objective is to “change the public mind set on disability, by changing the media mind set first. Promulgating an understanding that there is no them and us.. it’s all us!”
In fact Louise does not like the term disabled, when her artists are so very ABLE, which is why she has named her business ‘VisABLE’.
Louise’s story started at aged 18, when she set up The Louise Dyson Modelling Agency in Birmingham, later becoming the largest agency of its kind outside of London. The agency provided models and produced fashion shows that attracted clients such as Tesco, Rolls Royce Motors, Next, Barclays and many more. Louise established relationships with prestigious agencies and not only with the main supermodel agencies in London, she connected with many in Tokyo, Milan Paris and New York.
However, it wasn’t until Sunrise Medical were in need of a model with genuine disabilities to promote their wheelchairs that Louise found a real issue with the market. Louise could not locate a single professional disabled model!
In response to this Louise worked with Sunrise Medical and DN to create the world’s first competition to find potential models with disabilities.
The ‘Sunrise Model in a Million contest’ had a celebrity judging panel, including a Marie Claire fashion editor, a top photographer and Heather Mills to find a disabled male and female winner among over 600 entries.
The contest attracted the attention of the TV and press with interviews sought from as far afield as Germany, Italy, The USA, Japan, France and even Russia. This opened Louise’s eyes to the possibility of changing the face of advertising by creating the opportunity for disabled models to appear in campaigns promoting everyday mainstream products and services.
What followed was another momentous event where Louise produced the first ever professional fashion show to feature only wheelchair models, with NEXT at Wembley. The BBC coverage was their top news story for an entire day, which led to huge publicity for the initiative.
Louise sold her shares in Louise Dyson Agency Ltd, dedicating all of her time to the disabled model division ‘VisABLE’. Years later, she has successfully put disabled models, actors and television presenters on the map with artists regularly featured in TV series such as Coronation Street, New Tricks, Bad Education, Midsomer Murders, Call the Midwife, Eastenders, Doctor Who, placing top Children’s TV presenters and many more. Louise books actors in theatre roles at the National and the RSC. Some of the largest organisations in the world that are using Louise’s models, include Eurostar, BA, Ford, Vodaphone, HSBC, NatWest, BT, Sainsbury’s, Sky, Virgin, even HMRC – the list is endless.
When chatting with Louise she said “My motivation has always been to achieve the best quality. From the day I began my first business aged 18, it was important to me to only spend my time doing something I loved rather than pursuing the fastest profit and I have found that having passion for my work, along with being scrupulous about detail, has always resulted in profitability too”.
It was announced at the Queens 90th Birthday that Louise would be receiving the MBE and she will be receiving a letter from Buckingham Palace to inform her of the date of her investiture.
I think we can all agree that Louise is a great role model for business owners and her commitment to the cause certainly deserves her MBE. We hope she enjoys her big day and that her story can be an inspiration to others.
If you would like to book a VisABLE model, actor or presenter then please visit www.visablepeople.com. Louise is always looking for actors, presenters and models, so please get in touch if you know anybody that would be interested.
