What’s not to like about Jessica Gagen’s hair? It’s the hair of a goddess—silky, flowing, and falling halfway down her back. Most women would kill for it. The color is also a miracle.
So many different shades are present in the strands and depending on how the light hits it, the effect can be copper, auburn or strawberry blonde. What color does she call it?
‘Red. Or ginger. I have nothing against ginger, although some people do. Some people with hair like this make it a point to say “auburn.” But it’s red. I own it.”
Anyway, it’s the kind of hair that L’Oreal pays teams of scientists to study with the impossible goal of figuring out how to replicate it from a bottle. And it’s all natural.
“It was always about the hair,” admits Jess. “When I signed with a modeling agency, it was the hairstyle they wanted. Ironic, really.”
As a matter of fact. Jess is now 26 and an impressive young woman in every way. From Skelmersdale, Lancashire, she is currently studying at Liverpool University for an Integrated Masters in Aerospace Engineering, one of only a handful of women on her course.
She sleeps with a soaring miniature airplane on her end table and dreams of a career as an astronaut. For many it is a pipe dream, but for them it is quite achievable. She’s on course.
She lectures to younger girls to encourage engineering too and is passionate about breaking down those sexist barriers. When it comes to role models, she is very special.
Jessica Gagen, 26 (pictured), from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, is currently studying at Liverpool University for an Integrated Masters in Aerospace Engineering but is also a beauty queen and model in her spare time
Then why are we talking about her hair? It was revealed last week that Jess has other, more immediate ambitions.
When she’s not studying or modeling for money, she’s also a beauty queen. This year’s goal is to represent England in the Miss World pageant. If she succeeds, she will be the first redhead in history to do so.
Some might see this as a more trivial “first” than space ambitions, but if you hear their story, you’ll understand the motivation behind it.
This one is deeply personal. Because in high school, Jess’ hair wasn’t something to celebrate or marvel at. Being a redhead made her a target for abuse. Her hair was fine a beacon – except for the bullies. “There could also have been other reasons. When I started school I didn’t have any friends, so I didn’t have anyone to eat lunch with.
“For four years I had braces – one of those big blocks followed by splints. I was going through a baby fat phase like most people.
“But mostly it was really about my hair. After PE it would get frizzy. I remember once in the girls’ bathroom I was trying to get to the mirrors to smooth it out and a girl just looked at me and said, “Eugh!” Everyone laughed. I just ran I ran to the restrooms on the other side of the school. I locked myself in a booth and just sobbed.’
There was a lot of that and worse. We’ll cover the spitting, shoving, swearing, and even burning, but it’s particularly sad as she says, “A lot of redheads will get it.”
“I think it’s one of the last acceptable forms of bullying,” says Jess. “I don’t get teased openly anymore, but I still get teased about my hair and I don’t like it, even if people think it’s just funny.
“I attracted people to it. I’m mostly with guys in a class and one of them made a joke about my hair color and I said, ‘Please don’t. This isn’t just banter. Try everything else but not my hair.”
“People still feel like they can say things about your red hair when they wouldn’t comment on a person’s height or religion. It’s not on, and if I can challenge that in a beauty pageant then…fine.’
Perhaps it’s a blessing that Jess’ family celebrated everything about her, including her hair. Her father Paul, 56, works for Airbus (“He used to buy me Scalextric sets even though it was a “boys toy”) and her mother Lesley, 52, works for the Post Office. She was the only one in the family with red hair; Your sister is blonde.
“But Mum and Dad always told me how special I was because my hair was so rare. I think mine is the rarest genetic combination – red hair and blue eyes. Even in elementary school I never felt ashamed of it.’
Then she went to high school and all bets were off. “There’s a pecking order, and blondes are on top, then brunettes. Ginger is at the bottom.
“One of my most vivid memories is of being on the school bus and a girl shaking out her coat and sort of holding it up across the aisle in front of me and saying, ‘Only pretty girls in the front of the bus.’ Everyone laughed. I’m sure she wasn’t malicious. humans are rare. It is only done to make others laugh. It did.’
Haven’t you ever forgotten? She smiles quite a stunning beauty queen smile. ‘Never. I have never forgotten a single thing that was said or done to me.’
It sounds like the first two years of secondary school were miserable. A girl invited her over after school and offered to curl her hair, but continued to burn her with tongs. The next day, another girl said to her, “She burned you on purpose because you have reddish hair.” “I remember crying my eyes out about it in the restroom, too,” she says.
Did she tell her parents? “Not immediately. You never want to rock the boat. You are afraid that if you challenge the bullies it will get worse for you, they will think even less of you. I never wanted to make a fuss.’
However, her parents discovered it. “When I was about to do my GCSEs, there was an incident with a boy in the class. Again, I don’t think he was malicious. But he spat at gum and confiscated my books. He flung his spit all over me.” She flinches just describing it.
“After class, he came up behind me and pushed me. I fell to the ground. I was scratched all over the back of my hand. My father saw that. He went insane. He wanted to go in and talk to the boy, but I wouldn’t let him. I think by then I had just decided to get through school, do my exams and focus on that.
“Even then I had this feeling: ‘This is happening for a reason. I just have to keep my head down. I don’t need people to like me. I just have to be at school to take my exams.” That was my mentality.”
But she says she never wanted to cut her hair “because it was my identity too.”
“I wondered if I would be more popular if I didn’t have red hair. But if I colored it and they still hated me, maybe it would have been worse because they hated my personality.’
In high school, Jess’ hair wasn’t something to celebrate or marvel at. Being a redhead made her a target for abuse. Her hair was alright a beacon – but for the bullies (pictured aged 11)
Jess started making friends later in school. Some of them called her “Ginge”. She may have resisted at first, but it’s complicated. “It was nice to have a nickname because it meant you were accepted. I found it pretty good. I felt like if I had a nickname I belonged, although I still preferred Jess.”
She excelled academically, with ten A’s and A*s in exams. She was named Deputy Head Girl and won a Best Athlete award.
By the time she graduated from high school, she had blossomed physically. The bracket was gone. She was 5ft 9 inches tall with endless legs and this amazing hair. She also gradually realized that her looks were something very special, even if some schoolmates hadn’t realized it yet. She swiped through Instagram and saw women who looked a lot like her.
“I remember watching America’s Next Top Model and seeing all these women who were strikingly pretty rather than conventionally beautiful. It was their differences that set them apart.”
She secretly visited a model agency. She was registered immediately. Were your classmates green with envy? “I didn’t tell most of them. I told a few close friends, but most people didn’t know. Some found out when they saw me on the Boohoo website.”
How delicious. She played it cool. Her previous modeling jobs have included Adidas, Marks & Spencer, L’Officiel and Regatta.
This is extraordinary – the ultimate redhead revenge, sure? She doesn’t crow about it, but is quietly content.
“It was just confusing for a while. The thing is, in the modeling world, my hair is what has made me money. It’s what everyone wants.’
She assumes that being bullied as a child hardened her for the industry, so she ultimately has the bullies to thank for it. “It can be pretty brutal, but nothing anyone can say about my looks can ever be worse than what I heard at school. It’s water off a duck’s back now. I don’t take it personally.”
The world of pageants is a recent departure. She was scouted for the Miss England pageant last year and finished second, missing out on Rehema Muthamia. She didn’t mention to the organizers that she was bullied growing up, she says, “because I don’t like to dwell on the negative things and moved on.”
This year, as she’s going through heats for the competition, perhaps being wiser about the platform she has, she’s decided to speak out.
“Actually, it was my parents who encouraged me to take the beauty pageant path. They knew it offered everything I wanted – a chance to travel and advance women in engineering. That is my great passion.”
Indeed, if she makes it to Miss World, the whole world will be watching.
I ask if she knows what the bullies who made her life like hell are doing now. Do they even know what became of the girl they spat on and banished to the back of the bus?
“Some of them do. They look at my Instagram Stories on social media. I don’t follow them. You can be interested in what I do if you want. I don’t care what they do.”
When she was 21, she met one of the perpetrators and he apologized. ‘He said he wasn’t very nice to me at school and he was sorry. He hadn’t meant it that way. He was just a boy.
“I said, ‘It’s fine. It was a long time ago.” But I still thought, “Don’t think you’re going to be friends with me now.”