With their lofty height, quirky style and flaming red hair, the Jenkins twins are hard to miss on Dunedin streets.
But when they plunged themselves into the public realm of national television, being on the street became a very hard place to be.
The pair auditioned for New Zealand's Next Top Model in June, and were an instant hit with the judges for their distinctive look and modelling talent.
They became household names when the show went to air in August, with Nellie making it to episode eight and Elza to the final three.
The hit TV3 show wrapped at the end of October, and while they believe it helped them make contacts in the industry, its format left a bitter taste in their mouths.
"It was just a big game," Elza says.
From far harsher judging sessions than those that aired, to being abruptly separated from their friends and family and only allowed one brief phone call a week, aspects of the show still make the twins angry to think about.
"I've done modelling, but that was not modelling," Elza said.
Both wished they were able to be more "up front" on the show and hated that the audience saw so many clips of them crying, but never what led to the tears in the first place.
"We were just stunned mullets. You could not really stick up for yourself," Nellie said.
While both conducted themselves professionally and gracefully on the show, one "criticism" often made about the twins is how unbelievably nice they are.
Most reality shows try to pick out characteristics in people and tease them out for entertainment. But with the twins, the worst many people could say about them was that they were polite and friendly.
Their mother, Rachael, knows the pair are "not angels", but choose to vent frustration or anger in "an appropriate form".
"It's not that we are really, really nice, we just know when it's professional to hold your bitchiness," they say.
They describe the experience as a "lesson in sensitivity", but since coming home, the "10 times" more identifiable pair have learned some scarier lessons about fame.
Toddlers and "really sweet" small children point at them in the street and are ecstatic to meet them.
They both love "making a little girl's day", but the nastier side of being a public commodity is harder to handle.
Going out in public has become a "horrifying and terrifying" experience, with abuse regularly hurled at them.
Hearing remarks such as "ranga" (a derogatory term for redheads) and "you're ugly" wear the twins down.
"As soon as we were known, we were more of an object and people feel like they know us," Nellie says.
Elza has even had the distressing experience of a woman stalking her and knocking on her friend's door simply to meet her.
"It's crazy what lengths people go to. I'm so glad I've got Nellie," she says.
Most of the time they try to keep their cool, or simply avoid going out in public, but largely they have learned to pick their battles, knowing the people who attack them are not worth the effort.
"You focus on the positives; you'd go crazy if you didn't," they say.
Despite the ups and downs, they do not have any regrets about their time on the show.
"It's so worth it, coming back and being called a role model," Nellie says.
Back home, the twins are busy earning money and forging their modelling careers.
They work full-time at Southern Laboratories and part-time for their agent, Aliana McDaniel, tutoring children as young as 5 in confidence, deportment and life skills.
The twins have always been in demand because of their unique look and versatility, but they have found, now that they are more widely known, more fashion students and designers are wanting to book them for work.
They hope a move to London next year will not only allow them to see the world, but also test the European modelling waters.
Post-modelling, they are hoping to use skills honed by creating and altering their own clothing and jewellery to establish a fashion label together.
"If you think about it, it's only half the work," Nellie says.
Being two halves of one whole suits the twins.
In that intrinsically twin manner, they are close in a way most people will never comprehend, let alone experience.
They are highly sensitive to each other and know when something is wrong with the other, no matter how far apart they are.
They are also so identical, their boyfriends have been known to try to hold the wrong girl's hand and their mother sometimes mistakes them.
"All of their natural markings and scars are within a few millimetres of each other," she says.
For them, being twins is "having your best friend and your sister in one".
"We are just so close because she is me," Nellie says.
TWIN FILE
• Who is older? Elza by 35 minutes.
• Who is taller? Elza by one inch.
• Do you finish each other's sentences? Yes.
• How can you tell each other apart? When we were born, we both had small holes in each of our ears, Nellie's closed over on her left ear, but the others remain. Our other freckles and scars are all within millimetres of each other.
• Have you ever sat an exam for each other? No, but we swapped classes and Nellie has impersonated Elza to get money out of her bank account.
