Alex Consani on Her Rise to Supermannequin Standing and Having Enjoyable Alongside the Approach

It’s a cloudless spring Saturday in Brooklyn, and I’m texting Alex Consani to discover a spot to satisfy. We had deliberate to satisfy at a restaurant in Fort Greene, her new neighborhood (she simply moved right into a brownstone there), however she’s had a change of coronary heart. She suggests a social-enterprise espresso store known as Peace Cafe, tucked away on an unassuming thoroughfare in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the place she is tight with the proprietor and eager to go to, as she used to stay close by. “It’s owned by a really cute woman who turned the space into a coffee shop with community events,” Consani says. It’s closed, so we pivot once more. “I need to drop my bike off to get fixed. Can we meet at Brooklyn Ball Factory?” It’s a neighborhood Japanese café, the type that solely those who know find out about, on an in any other case sleepy road the place Williamsburg meets Bushwick.

Consani’s entrance says a star has arrived. A black Suburban SUV pulls as much as the café, and a driver opens the door. She pops out, hair pulled again in a chignon, Gentle Monster sun shades capping off her supermodel-cum-It-girl air. Her limbs and eyes jostle for consideration (extremely lengthy and piercingly blue, respectively). She provides a heat embrace earlier than apologizing for the change in plans. Gesturing to the automotive, I ask if that is the standard method issues go, now that she’s a supermodel. “I just have him because I had a job,” she says. “My bike that I need to get repaired is in the back! Girl, I am not that fancy!”

“Oooooohhhh, you fancy!” says Consani, eyeing my bag (a hard-earned Chanel, afforded solely after months of saving) as we stroll towards the counter to put our orders. “I tried to get some of Matthieu’s shoes. I thought they were on hold in Paris, but they said no,” she says, laughing. It’s considerably comforting to know that even the mannequin within the Chanel present can’t skip the strains at Rue Cambon.

Consani is carrying a mixture of excessive and low. No, actually: Hermès with soiled denim. It’s a brand new Kelly Pochette that she says she dropped into the ocean when she was in Jamaica. “It got taken out to sea, but it’s kind of fab. I jumped in after it and got Kate Moss-ified a little bit.” She additionally has a white Givenchy by Sarah Burton shirt that’s designed again to entrance, slip-on Prada mules, and denims from Icon Denim that she says she has “worn every day for four fucking years. They’re nasty. Don’t even get near, bitch!”

This turns into a by way of line of our dialog: an insistence on normality in a life that’s develop into more and more extraordinary.

“I’m having FUN. I’m DOING IT for ALL 50 of the other BITCHES that would LOVE to BE in that ROOM.”

Beginning on TikTookay, Consani exploded with viral movies of impromptu public dance breaks, absurdist antics, and lip syncs to her favourite rap songs. It’s conduct that may have been frowned upon within the decorous world of excessive style even just a few years in the past. But for Consani, these movies have been her meal ticket. She has 9 million followers throughout her early account (@bannedbarbie) and the extra present accounts (she toggles between @captincroook and @ms.mawma) and 4.3 million followers on Instagram. She is among the world’s most sought-after fashions and was named 2024’s Model of the Year on the Fashion Awards, making her the first-ever trans lady to win the title. This yr alone, Consani is a face of McQueen, Gucci, YSL Beauty, and Tory Burch. She has walked the runway for Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs, and the supermodel Super Bowl, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She can be including actor to her rising résumé, with roles within the upcoming A24 film Peaked, directed by Molly Gordon, which options Laura Dern, Amy Sedaris, and Connor Storrie, and the following season of American Horror Story, probably the most recognizable collection within the Ryan Murphy universe. But with each achievement I checklist off, she delivers a reply with simply sufficient endearing self-deprecation to guarantee me that her toes are firmly planted on the bottom. It’s a self-awareness that comes from a deep understanding and respect for the communities that obtained her there within the first place: her household, her buddies, and the trans foremothers and fathers who confirmed her the way in which.

According to her mom, Lisa, even when Consani was within the womb, she was making her presence identified.

“When I found out I was pregnant—she’s my firstborn, and I had heard people say, ‘Oh, it feels like butterflies,’ and it was like a disco party every night in my belly,” recollects Lisa. “She came out at 4:20 in the morning, four hours into the sign of Leo. And from there, it was just all energy, just on.”

When I recount this story to Consani on the café, she laughs between sips of yuzu-ginger tea. “She felt me strutting in the womb!”

Consani was born within the quaint Northern California city of Petaluma, in 2003, to mother Lisa and pop Anthony. Her brother, Ted, was born just a few years later. Lisa says Consani was all the time pushing the boundaries: “She would be flying around the deck on this tricycle, coming within millimeters of falling off and going down the stairs, but she had full control. She would take it right to the edge. She was always that kid who challenged the norm.”

“I was so behaviorally challenged when I was a kid,” Consani says. She recollects, intimately, her dad dressing her for a German Christmas bazaar known as Kringle Fest and her resistance to the normal German boy costume her dad and mom had chosen for her. “I would wear the hat with the little feather and the overalls, the lederhosen, and there was a time it was a physical fight to get me out of the house. But we would go to Target, where Zendaya had a Shake It Up Target collaboration, and, bitch, I would run that!”

“FASHION is a very fickle INDUSTRY. But having FUN is ALWAYS going to be IN. PERIOD.”

In center faculty, considered one of Consani’s buddies obtained a digital camera for her birthday and the 2 fooled round taking images. “They looked like album covers,” Lisa says. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing.’ And the mom was encouraging me. She’s like, ‘Oh, Alex could be a model.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever. She’s in sixth grade!’”

Figuring out how finest to help Consani as a younger trans woman took priority. “I think my dad had a lesbian friend growing up, and my mom didn’t really have any queer people in her life at all. And she went to Catholic school,” Consani says. “It definitely took a lot of maybe unlearning, allowing themselves to be more open to the conversation of what that meant, because I’ve always been a girl. It’s never been a question.”

Though Lisa and Anthony embraced Consani’s id, Lisa recollects that “puberty was tricky. Everybody’s body does weird stuff in puberty. We sort of hunkered down at home, and we were just like, ‘Okay, what do you want to do?’ And for a long time, she kind of just shelved [the modeling idea]. I remember her doctor saying she’s going to be at least 5 foot 11. No matter what, even if she’s on these cross hormones, she’s going to be tall, so I knew there was a possible future there.”

At 12, Consani signed to an company that pioneered the illustration and platforming of trans fashions known as Slay, which additionally represented actress Dominique Jackson and mannequin Arisce Wanzer. “It was super important and magical. I mean, slightly problematic, but the concept was fab,” she causes. “There were a lot of really beautiful moments and memories that came out of that.”

Becoming a mannequin helped Consani affirm her id. “For someone like me, it was kind of an escape, being hyperfeminine, and exploring what being a woman was to me was really a fashion kind of experience [first],” Consani explains. “I had the luck of coming upon a group of people, like Dominique and people at that agency—there were so many amazing women that really gave me the foundation to be who I am now.”

Consani shortly outgrew the native style scene in Los Angeles, signed with IMG Models, and made her runway debut for Tom Ford in 2021. For how robust her off-runway persona is, she is a real chameleon on the runway. She is ready to embody precisely what’s required of her: French coquettishness at Chanel (“I don’t know many other shows where every single girl is so excited to do it”), sensual side-to-side sauntering at Tom Ford (“I love Haider Ackermann. I mean, it’s sickening!”), or a ’90s pump down the runway at Gucci. (“Demna is my sis! He casts his shows like movies. Genius!”) Consani can do all of it. She takes on her function as mannequin virtually because the script of the day, asking: Who am I turning into right this moment?

“What I will say about the TRANS COMMUNITY as a whole and what I think is so SPECIAL is that no matter what PRIVILEGE you have within it, whether you’re BLACK and TRANS, WHITE and TRANS, RICH or POOR, you’re STILL TRANS.”

“There is something immediate about [Alex’s] presence. The moment she enters a room, the world seems to lean in and embrace her energy,” says Tom Ford inventive director Haider Ackermann.

“Alex is a master of her own craft,” provides Seán McGirr, the inventive director at McQueen. “Aside from being an incredible friend, she commands the space with incredible presence, grace, and humility. She understands the power of empathy, always being authentic.”

Adam Selman, EVP and chief inventive officer at Victoria’s Secret & Co., takes it one step additional. “She has built an empire,” he says, including that she makes all of it “look fun and carefree, when anyone who has worked in this industry knows it’s anything but.”

Fashion has no scarcity of lovely faces, however Alex and her friends (Anok Yai, Paloma Elsesser, and Mona Tougaard) symbolize the brand new technology of tremendousfashions—those not simply strolling the runway however cultivating platforms, constructing communities, and main with persona. They are regulars on the Oscars, they make music-video cameos, and they’re on the Met Gala internet hosting committee. People don’t simply need to see them, they need to know them. “I’m having fun,” says Consani. “I’m doing it for all 50 of the other bitches that would love to be in that room.”

“Some models are just a pretty face and hate the work. You could give mystery all you want, but ultimately, there’s a powerful sentiment to seeing somebody really enjoy what they do, right?” Consani continues, “Not to shade anybody else, but there are girls who just do not know how to model. They’re not enjoying the art of it. I think that to really enjoy and be good at your job means being able to take a step back and appreciate every side of it.”

Consani is shut buddies with lots of her friends, however she discovered a mentor determine in Mariacarla Boscono, who has been modeling for almost three many years. “I don’t have the lessons and the stories of life. I don’t know how it works in the same way Mariacarla does,” Consani says. “I’m still learning.”

Boscono, although, says Consani is “a never-ending inspiration.” “We’ve talked until the morning. We have so many shared experiences,” Boscono says. “To me, having something to say, to talk and being able to listen to others, is one of the greatest human qualities. Alex has it. She has a great heart!”

We are tucked in a nook of the café’s out of doors seating space. Our dialog is frequently interrupted by Consani’s followers. First, a passerby lets her know he’s an enormous fan. Then a bunch of buddies whispers, heads swinging round as they stroll previous, upon recognizing her. (“Yes, that’s her, dude!”) And at a close-by desk, Brooklyn locals Siang and Amita interrupt us mid-conversation: “We heard so many people stop, and we thought, ‘Wait, should we know who she is? Is she famous?’”

Consani swiftly replies, “I’m on TikTok!”

I’m struck by her insistence that she is just a TikToker. “In Paris, they definitely know me more for modeling, but in America it’s definitely TikTok,” she says. “It’s a privilege that people even care to take a picture with me. That’s why when someone asks me for a picture, I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, but what’s your name? Do you live here?’ This is my favorite type of interaction. I think for me it only gets stressful when people just come up and just ask for my picture. Because I’m like, ‘I am a person.’ No shade. I love to talk. I love to chat. I want the tea.”

“I’m ALWAYS going to be on a MOTHERFUCKING RUNWAY. It forever has MY HEART. But I think that it GETS to a POINT where you think, ‘I want to DO THINGS specifically FOR ME.’”

Consani has seen a shift in who’s approaching her. Earlier in her profession, it was fellow trans women and men; extra just lately, it’s been their dad and mom, involved for his or her security and their diminishing rights in Trump’s America. “It’s been really affecting me,” she says. “They say, ‘I support my child because of the stories that you’ve told about your parents supporting their children and how much that has shaped you.’” Her visibility as a trans individual with a platform has her asking how she will be able to develop into extra of an lively advocate. “It sucks now because the political situation in this country is going against everything that I’ve had. I had the ability to get medical and gender-affirming care that allowed me to transition, and that, in turn, validates my transness. I’m considered more acceptably trans than someone who just transitioned, even though we’re the same type of trans, just because I visibly appear more understandable to people,” she says. “The support that I’m giving people is really about letting them do what they want, but you can’t even let your children do what they want anymore.”

Consani says she’s glad there’s a rising consciousness round “protecting the dolls” however thinks there’s an even bigger dialog that must be had. “I know people that have reached out and they get a suicide help number,” she continues. “I’m like, ‘Girl, that’s not doing shit.’ There isn’t really an ability to converse positively about experiences. What I will say about the trans community as a whole and what I think is so special is that no matter what privilege you have within it, whether you’re Black and trans, white and trans, rich or poor, you’re still trans. Ultimately, you’re seen as trans people before anything else that you are. And I think, not to diminish anyone else’s struggles, that it’s a really beautiful connection that [trans] people have.”

Brooklyn Ball Factory is an archetypal East Williamsburg scene, filled with younger, enticing creatives. I ask Consani if she’d ever strategy somebody. “Yeah. I don’t give a fuck,” she says. “I’ll be like, ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ Whatever. And if they’re not into it, then that’s fine, girl. I move the fuck on. I have moments to make, baby. I got things to do.”

Consani says she’s not courting anybody. “I like to fuck more than I like to date,” she says. I assume, although, {that a} supermodel has no drawback getting a date. “Girl, nothing,” she says. Not even a DM? I problem her to look, providing to assist undergo them. Nope, nothing! “Going through them would be a good video,” she says. “I do have a Notes list with my types, though.” She whips out her cellphone and talks me by way of it: “DL [down-low] events planner. European soccer player. Female firefighter. Chef. Son or daughter of a family who owns a hotel chain. Kids of the Rosewood owners…call me!”

Consani would love children, however proper now, between modeling, appearing, and ambitions to deliver her personal tales to life, it’s not a precedence. “Girl, I got a lot going on,” she says. “Definitely by the time I am 35, though.”

Consani talks loads about eras: her sober period (she says she’s just lately stopped ingesting) and her “experimental” period, stylistically (she simply splurged on a bunch of Dario Vitale’s one-and-done Versace assortment) and in her life. It’s what’s led to her actress period. That begins with Peaked, which has simply wrapped. She gushes in regards to the expertise: “I’m so excited. It’s such an amazing cast of people.” Unlike modeling, the place she’s on the high of her recreation, this function was hard-earned. She despatched in her audition tapes and was on maintain till she was confirmed. “I love to feel humbled,” she says. “I could always learn more.”

“I’m a DEDICATED-ASS BITCH. And trust, I’ll be GOING OUT tonight with the LINES in my HAND. Don’t get that TWISTED. The only LINES I’m doing are the ones on the ACTING SCRIPT.”

It’s not that she thinks she’s realized all the pieces there’s to find out about style. “There’s this feeling in fashion where you get to a certain point and it’s like everyone’s asking you about it,” she says. “But I’m still 22. I started working in high fashion in 2021. I’m not Kate Moss or Mariacarla. And I think it’s nice to remind myself of that, because you can get all jaded when people around you are always expecting me to be, like…on.”

Consani credit being round so many inventive folks in style as a part of the impetus to department out. “I’m directing, I’m writing, maybe singing, maybe dancing, girl. You never know,” she says. “That’s the energy I want to be able to create.” Right now, she matches appearing jobs round her modeling gigs and is being extra selective in what she chooses to tackle. “Listen,” she tells me after I ask how she has the time. “I’m a dedicated-ass bitch. And trust, I’ll be going out tonight with the lines in my hand. Don’t get that twisted. The only lines I’m doing are the ones on the acting script.”

She’s enthusiastic about American Horror Story particularly. “It’s big,” she says. “Hopefully gives me a little bit of… range.” She provides, “You can either devote your whole pussy to fashion, or you could just take a step back and think about what you want to do. American Horror Story is definitely going to be a life-changing experience.”

I ask Consani if she’s going to ever cease modeling.

“Never, bitch,” she says with out hesitation. “Always going to be on a motherfucking runway. It forever has my heart. But I think that it gets to a point where you think, ‘I want to do things specifically for me.’”

Influencer Quenlin Blackwell, Consani’s shut pal, is a fellow Gen Zer discovering fame with the identical form of humorous movies that made the mannequin a star. She describes their friendship as one which began on-line however flourished in actual life. “I feel like her growth on the internet is because of her comedy, but her growth in the modeling industry is because of her groundwork, footwork, and hard work,” Blackwell says. “She’s someone who works relentlessly and is just so professional. Whenever I see her walk, I’m like, ‘Bring back the word super. She is a supermodel.’”

Part of Consani’s enchantment is that she’s not too cool to be enthusiastic about her success. And that, in flip, makes her cool.

Fashion is run by gatekeepers who are likely to hold the business overly severe. Consani’s continued domination of style as an alternative reveals how she chooses to benefit from the trip. She’ll take the journey, put on the outfit, stroll the style present, and make a hilarious TikTookay about the entire thing, bringing us all alongside to expertise it too.

“I say, why not ask for a bartender on your rider? Why not ask for an ice cream truck to come to the shoot? All these things make it fun, and everyone enjoys it,” says Consani. “I feel like I’ve definitely gotten to a point in my career where I’m more respected because I have fun with it. Because you can be so serious and strategic all you want, but at the end of the day, it’s a very fickle industry. Everyone is very like, ‘What’s in now? What’s not in now?’ But having fun is always going to be in. Period.”

This story seems within the Summer problem of Harper’s Bazaar.

Hair: Shiori Takahashi for Oribe; make-up: Thom Walker; manicure: Chisato Yamamoto for Essie; casting: Anita Bitton on the Establishment; manufacturing: the Arcade; set design: Tilly Power