The Power of Being Seen

Paralympian. Entrepreneur. Traveller. Advocate. Model. Lynda Holt has spent a lifetime forging her own path. Now, she’s bringing that same determination, and a fresh perspective, to fashion.

There are photographs that capture a moment, and then there are photographs that reveal something about the person in front of the camera. For Lynda Holt, seeing herself in a modelling photograph is a chance to reflect on a life that has taken her from sporting arenas to boardrooms, airports and now, fashion studios.

She began competing in sport at nine years old, went on to represent Australia at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, built businesses from her own experiences and travelled extensively for work and sport. Now she’s adding modelling to the list of her achievements.

“I’m still relatively new to the modelling industry,” Lynda says, “but stepping in front of a camera feels like another way of telling a story I’ve been telling my entire life: I belong here too.”

Represented by ZBD Talent and AEFM International, Lynda Holt has already secured her first paid modelling campaign through ZBD for a major telecommunications company. For her, this isn’t simply about entering a new industry. I’s about embracing an opportunity to express another side of herself.

“I want to wear beautiful clothes. I want to work with great photographers and designers,” she says. “I want fashion campaigns, beauty campaigns, sportswear, swimwear, editorials, covers and, yes, I’d love to work internationally.”

Her ambition is refreshingly straightforward.

“I want all of it. Because why shouldn’t I?”

CHANGING THE IMAGE

The fashion and advertising industries have long influenced how women see themselves. Yet women with disabilities have rarely been represented as complete, complex and fashionable women in their own right. Lynda remembers a time when women with disabilities were more likely to be viewed through the lens of their disability than their individuality. “We weren’t routinely shown as women who could be fashionable, ambitious, powerful, sexy, successful or desirable,” she says. “We were often somewhere on the sidelines.”

For Lynda, authentic representation doesn’t mean disguising disability. It means allowing it to exist alongside everything else that makes a woman who she is “I don’t want people to forget that I have a disability. Quite the opposite. I want them to see it, see my wheelchair, see me exactly as I am, and then see everything else.”

Her wheelchair is undoubtedly part of her story, but it isn’t the whole story. “It isn’t all of me.”

That distinction is important. Lynda isn’t asking fashion to redefine her. She’s asking it to see her in all her dimensions.

FROM THE TRACK TO THE ICE

Long before fashion entered the picture, Lynda was competing at an elite sporting level. Her sports career took her to the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, where she won silver in shot put and finished second overall in discus. She also maintained a world ranking of second in both events and went on to compete at international World Championships. The experience of competing at home, in front of an audience that included young people with disabilities, gave her a strong sense of responsibility.

“I knew young people were watching,” she says. “I knew I had a responsibility to conduct myself as a professional athlete because I wanted them to see that a life with a disability could be bigger than simply surviving.”

After athletics, Lynda turned her attention to business, work and travel. But sport wasn’t finished with her.

Para ice hockey brought her back to competition, offering an entirely different sporting experience — fast, physical and demanding. In 2025, she represented Australia at the Women’s Para Ice Hockey World Championship in Slovakia as vice-captain.

Today, Lynda is Head of Para Ice Hockey at Ice Hockey Australia, where she works to grow the sport and create greater opportunities for athletes across the country. Her sporting career is represented by Inner Sanctum Sports Management (ISSM), separately from her modelling representation.

The next major milestone will arrive in November 2026, when Newcastle hosts the second Women’s Para Ice Hockey World Championship. For Lynda, the significance extends beyond the competition itself. “I want the young girl discovering para ice hockey today to look at it and think, ‘That could be my future’.”

TURNING EXPERIENCE INTO ACTION

Lynda’s entrepreneurial career has followed a similar trajectory to her sporting life: identify a challenge, then do something about it. She founded Wheelie Essential after finding that some of the assistive products she needed weren’t readily available. “I needed assistive products that made life easier, and I realised other wheelchair users needed them too.”

Her response was to build a business around those needs.

Travel has also played a significant role in her life and her experiences navigating the world with a disability have given her an understanding of the barriers many travellers face. Rather than allowing those obstacles to restrict her own adventures, Lynda has used her experience to help make travel more accessible and achievable for others. “If I need something, chances are someone else does too,” she says. “So I build it.”It’s an approach that has served her well. She’s practical, entrepreneurial and unapologetically proactive.

A PLACE IN FASHION

Now, as she enters the modelling arena, Lynda is looking towards a new creative world. Modelling allows her to explore fashion from a different perspective. Not as an athlete, businesswoman or advocate, but simply as a woman who loves fashion and wants to be part of the industry.

She wants the editorial shoots, the campaigns and the fashion stories. And she has clear ambitions about where this could lead. “I want to work with great photographers and designers,” she says. “I’d love to work internationally.”

For Lynda, the appeal isn’t simply about being photographed. It’s about having the freedom to experiment, dress up, create an image and enjoy the sheer pleasure of fashion. After years spent in sporting uniforms and practical clothing, there is something liberating about entering a world where the clothes themselves become part of the story.

MORE THAN A PHOTOGRAPH

There is, however, a bigger reason Lynda believes representation matters. She knows how powerful it can be for a young person to see someone like themselves doing something they had never considered possible. “I want young disabled girls to see me in a fashion photograph and think, I can do that.”

Then they might see her in an Australian jersey and think, I could do that too.

They might see her building a business, travelling internationally or competing at the highest level and understand that none of those worlds are necessarily closed to them. That is the power of visibility when it is done properly. It doesn’t need to announce itself. Sometimes it simply needs to be there.

THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR LYNDA HOLT

Lynda has spent much of her life moving between worlds, from elite sport, business, travel and advocacy. Fashion is simply the latest. She isn’t interested in being defined by the things she has already achieved, or by the assumptions others may have about what comes next. “I’ve spent my entire life being told, directly or indirectly, what people with disabilities could and couldn’t do,” she says. “I’ve never been particularly good at listening.” That attitude may be one of her greatest strengths.

“I don’t believe in waiting for someone else to make a place for me,” she says. “If a door is closed, I’ll look for another one. If there’s an obstacle, I’ll work out how to get around it. If the path doesn’t exist, I’ll create one.”

For Lynda Holt, modelling isn’t a reinvention. It is actually another way of being seen. And perhaps the most exciting thing about this latest chapter is that she isn’t arriving in fashion with something to prove. She’s arriving with a life already lived, a wardrobe still to explore and plenty more stories to tell.

“I want to be known as the woman who chased big dreams, made change and refused to let other people’s expectations decide how big her life could be.”

And if her past is anything to go by, Lynda Holt is only just getting started.

Featured Image: The Photo Studio Fashion by Angelo Dibenedetto; HMU – Kaori Harigae 
See more at: The Photo Studio – 20 Disabled Models and How They Got Their Starts

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