Model reveals how embracing her unique appearance helped to boost her fashion career

Melanie Gaydos, 27, was born with ectodermal dysplasia, a genetic disorder that affects the growth of teeth, pores, cartilage, nails and even small bones. The condition means Melanie is bald, and doesn't have any adult teeth. 

Melanie, a Connecticut native, talked to Yahoo! Style about getting her start in modeling, dealing with negative comments - and why she refuses to wear dental implants despite not having any teeth.

'People are more comfortable when I have teeth in my mouth,' she said, before adding: 'But I’m not.'

Melanie also has a bilateral cleft palette and alopecia, which inhibits natural hair growth. 

Her form of alopecia causes ingrown hairs, and as a child, unchecked eyelash growth damaged her corneas and resulted in partial blindness.

Having spent years dealing with the symptoms of her condition, it wasn't until she was 26 that Melanie, who counts Miley Cyrus among her fans, got her first set of false teeth, while appearing on the medical talk show The 

But Melanie stopped wearing the dentures only eight months after the episode aired, saying that, although she thought getting teeth would be 'life-changing', she was actually happier the way she was.

Of her inspiration to become a model, Melanie revealed: 'I always had this fascination of being larger than life. I wanted to be on a billboard or on a big movie screen.'

But the model's first passion was fine art, which she studied at New York's Pratt Institute and which first helped usher her into modeling, after she began focusing on self-portraits, allowing her to discover and embrace her own unique beauty.

'I think it helps other people to see me in a different way rather than if they met me on the street, and what their preconceived notions might be,' she explained. 

Eventually, a boyfriend convinced her to try modeling. Melanie recalled: 'He helped me to understand that I am the only person who looks like me, that there was potential.'

She began responding to Craigslist ads looking for 'unique' models, and soon built up a small portfolio. Melanie was shocked when her fan letter to the famous Spanish photographer Eugenio Recuenco resulted in a casting.

Eugenio had been taken with the photos she had enclosed in her letter and flew her out to Berlin for a music video he was directing for the German band Rammstein.

When asked if she is bitter about her disorder, Melanie said: 'No. It doesn’t bother me, and it never did. Or if it did, it’s because it was something people were telling me I should be upset about.'

She added: 'People used to ask me: How do you eat without teeth? Well, people with no legs run marathons. It’s all a matter of perception.' 

Model with rare genetic disorder on reactions from fashion world

(dailymail.co.uk)