Alex Consani, a TikTok influencer with 4 million followers, is the primary overtly transgender particular person to win the British Fashion Council’s accolade.
In a photograph snapped at her 2021 commencement from Petaluma High School, Alex Consani is smiling, having simply acquired her diploma, and striding throughout the soccer subject in a pair of black boots with 4-inch heels.
Those chunky boots couldn’t maintain Consani from hovering to unprecedented heights in her chosen profession as a style mannequin.
On Monday evening on the Royal Albert Hall in London, the 21-year-old was named Model of the Year on the British Fashion Council’s annual awards gala — the primary overtly transgender particular person to win that accolade.
In accepting the award, she paid homage to the Black transgender pioneers who blazed a path earlier than her. Models like Dominique Jackson, Connie Fleming and Aaron Rose Philip, Consani mentioned, “actually fought for the house I’m in in the present day.”
While thanking her dad and mom, Consani recalled sharing with them, when she was 12, that she “needed to hitch this business. And they met me with assist.”
She inspired different dad and mom to observe their instance of acceptance.
“Because change is greater than potential. It’s wanted.”
In recognizing Consani’s personal pioneering accomplishments, the British Fashion Council praised “the worldwide affect of a mannequin who during the last 12 months has dominated the business.” Consani’s affect, mentioned the council, “transcends the catwalk.”
Consani, who couldn’t be reached for remark Tuesday afternoon, signed with the IMG Models company in 2019, when she was simply 15.
Her rise to fame was accelerated throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, when her spontaneous, unfiltered TikTok movies, filmed to battle the boredom of quarantine, attracted an infinite following. She now has 4 million followers on her web page, @captincroook.
“This Rising Model is the Master of Gen-Z Humor on TikTok,” declared a 2022 Vogue.com headline, above a profile of Consani describing her as “a brand new star on the catwalks” who’d just lately walked for such labels as Alexander McQueen and Versace.
In October, Consani grew to become the primary overtly trans mannequin to stroll within the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, together with Brazilian mannequin Valentina Sampaio.
In that Vogue story, she expressed her pleasure over sharing glimpses of her profession together with her followers.
“I used to be at all times serious about (modeling,)” mentioned Consani. “Especially as a younger trans lady, I at all times noticed the dearth of illustration. I needed to fill the void and present different trans and nonbinary those who it was stunning to be trans — not one thing to be ashamed of.”
With these phrases, Consani was returning to a theme she’s been articulating, with outstanding poise, since adolescence.
“Models don’t must be feminine, they don’t must be male,” she states in a single undated interview. “They may be no matter gender they need.
“Anyone may be stunning. You don’t want a particular gender to be stunning.”
You can attain Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.
