“I think New York Fashion Week—it’s like the pinnacle of the modeling industry,” said Payton Thompson ’25, in disbelief as she reflected on walking in New York Fashion Week.
I understand her awe. When models set their sights on working with internationally-renowned brands, there is often a sense that all promising roads lead to New York City.
At age twelve, I signed with Develop Model Management, based in Omaha, Nebraska. It is the premier modeling agency in the region and it places models with top agencies throughout the world. As a teenager, I walked the runways of Omaha Fashion Week for thirteen seasons, but always looked to New York as the next step up.
People would not usually associate Harvard students with modeling or being fashion-minded. I was surprised to find Harvard students modeling at the highest levels of the fashion industry. Semiannually, a handful of Harvard models quietly jet off to New York Fashion Week during the weekends, wearing the most powerful fashion labels and most in-vogue designers on the runway.
Most Harvard models have never met. I set out to discover who makes up the Harvard modeling community.
Onyx Ewa ’24
“I did this really fun thing for Louis Vuitton. It was their new uniform collection for all of their stores. So, Virgil Abloh designed a bunch of uniforms before he died, and that was really cool because it was a video shoot. And we were standing on these platforms, and the platforms spin around,” Ewa said, in an interview conducted with the Harvard Independent. “Getting on and off in heels that didn’t fit me was terrifying, but that was a lot of fun.”
In 2019, Ewa was named Student Advocate of the Year by the national nonprofit GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network). When Morphe Cosmetics partnered with GLSEN for its 2020 pride campaign, Ewa was the model. In 2021, they modeled in trade shows, signing with New York Model and Talent Management. For the 2022 Ugg Pride Campaign photoshoot, Ewa—a former gymnast—did acrobatic tricks across a playground, sporting a colorful faux fur coat and fluffy slides.
Modeling as a full-time Harvard student can be turbulent. Ewa was overwhelmed one month with modeling jobs, constantly summoned to New York. “They would email me Monday night and be like: ‘you need to be in the city tomorrow at 9am.’ So I would have to miss class or whatever, so that was kind of stressful to manage,” Ewa recalled. They added, “Then other times it’s like I don’t even hear from my agent for six months.”
Ewa hopes to have “some sort of robust modeling career after college.” They love the runway but worry they are not tall enough. They also adore “highly-stylized editorial shoots” like those in Vogue.
At Harvard, Ewa has explored fashion through courses like “Threads: Histories and Theories of Clothing and Fashion” and “The Ego in Things: Fashion As a Moral Laboratory.” During the latter, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele addressed students via Zoom from a “beautiful, tufted cobalt blue couch in his immaculately decorated apartment” in Rome.
Ewa is involved in the student Perry Fashion Show and fashion publications such as FIG Magazine and The Lavender Room. They wrote a fashion column for The Harvard Crimson called “All Black Everything.” They now publish a fashion column called “The Renaissance” for Indigo Magazine, where they wrote a historical research piece on “indigo dyeing and adornment as a mode of self-fashioning and finding agency on slave plantations.” Still, Ewa noted that “Harvard is not a school that prioritizes fashion,” and the fashion community “feels really disjointed.”
“There’s not a centralized fashion community, and I would love to see something like that,” Ewa said, adding that “everyone kind of finds their own niche, but there’s no place where everyone comes together.” Boston does little to help. “I wish Boston had more of a fashion and modeling scene, but we do not live in a fashionable city,” Ewa explained.
Payton Thompson ’25
“Every year I would go online, watch the fashion week shows that were live-streamed, and I’d be like ‘one day, that’s going to be me on that runway’ every year. And yeah, here we are,” Thompson told the Harvard Independent, laughing.
As a toddler, Thompson modeled in catalog print photoshoots for clothing brands like Gymboree and Fred Meyer, but her ballet career later took precedence. From age ten onward, she modeled for dance photographers and dance companies. Before Harvard, she took a gap year to dance professionally with Ballet West. In 2022, she discovered an application to model in New York Fashion Week. “I saw this application, and I was like ‘this is my time,’” Thompson explained.
Corii Burns, an up-and-coming designer based in Paris, picked Thompson for her Mental Health Collection. “Her designs were insanely cool, and it felt so high fashion couture, but at the same we were showing off clothes for a good cause,” Thompson gushed.
It was a “whirlwind” experience. “I literally was in New York for like 36 hours. I flew to New York on Saturday morning, had fittings, rehearsals, everything Saturday afternoon and evening. Sunday, I was at fashion week for the actual show from 10am to 10pm practically, and then I flew back to school Monday morning at 6am, so I could make it in time for my Econ class,” Thompson said.
She considers modeling an art form. “We have this kind of stigma at Harvard like: ‘Oh, we support the arts! Go arts!’ But when it really comes down to it, I’m like: ‘Do we, though?’” Thompson said. She added: “If you said ‘oh, I’m a model,’ I don’t know if that would be as respected as saying ‘oh, I’m a varsity athlete.’”
“But I think that when people really understand what you do, or when I said I was going to New York Fashion Week, then it was like ‘wow, that’s amazing.’ So I think it goes both ways,” Thompson stated.
At Harvard, most students know of her professional ballet career but not her modeling. “That’s really my brand. Everyone is like ‘oh, Payton the dancer!’” she noted. Thompson is involved in the student fashion show Eleganza, but describes it as “more like a dance community over a modeling community.”
“I know there are other models at Harvard, but I just don’t know them because I don’t think there’s a common ground where we all connect. Like a club or whatever,” Thompson said. She thinks modeling is more individualistic because “the industry can sometimes be very exclusive in the sense that you’re all competing against each other.”
Despite this, Thompson experienced “a very accepting, loving community” at New York Fashion Week. “My designer was hyping us up left and right. She was literally the sweetest,” she commented. At the afterparty, she said: “They had some singers come, and it was super fun just for all the models. It was like a little mosh pit. It was cute.”
The “one element of toxicity” Thompson experienced was a random audience member who posted an Instagram story with laughing emojis of her walking, making fun of her “for no particular reason.” Another model told her and messaged the audience member to scold them. “My fellow models were so quick to jump in and stand up for me,” Thompson said.
Dakota Degenhardt ’26
“One of the designers I got to model for was actually a Ukrainian designer, and she had some really gorgeous dresses that I got to wear. And the opening dress was actually a symbol of the Ukrainian flag, so that was really beautiful to start off the show,” Degenhardt stated, in an interview with the Harvard Independent.
In 2022, Degenhardt began competing in beauty pageants as a bucket list item. She won Teen Miss Florida Earth, which launched her modeling career. She participated in Miami Swim Week, and her pageant director told her about a New York Fashion Week casting. Multiple designers selected her.
Of New York Fashion Week, Degenhardt said: “It’s definitely something worth seeing. It’s such a beautiful production. There’s so many amazing shows that go on all throughout the week, a lot of them with really beautiful and touching stories.”
As a first-year, Degenhardt is searching for outlets in the Harvard fashion community. She is involved in the Perry Fashion Show. It seeks to create a space where “marginalized groups can escape the confines of hyper-visibility and invisibility, and enter a world of radical love, empathy, and sustainability.”
At Harvard, “no one really knows” about Degenhardt’s modeling career. She knew of one other Harvard model. “People are like: ‘Oh, wow, that’s amazing.’ And there’s other people like: ‘Why are you wasting your time?’” Degenhardt explained about modeling. She added, “Overall, I’ve gotten a lot of support from my community and my community at Harvard.”
“Modeling is something I’m really passionate about, and I’m really trying to get into it and make my career,” Degenhardt asserted.
Holly Fischer ’25
In 2020, Fischer turned heads at London Fashion Week, making her debut as an unknown sixteen-year-old model by opening for the high-profile JW Anderson fashion show in front of numerous celebrities. “What an incredible opportunity to be able to open the JW Anderson show today as my first show!” she exclaimed, in an celebratory social media post.
When Fischer learned of her coveted slot the day before the show, she could not believe it and was “so beyond grateful,” as stated in the post. She was a rising British tennis star, which demanded so much time that she completed high school online. After going to a model casting in London with countless other girls, she never expected a callback.
Fischer was profiled by British Vogue after the show. Soon after, she walked in Paris for the global luxury house LOEWE. Though she had to wake up at 5am to prepare, it was an “amazing experience.”
Since her debut, Fischer has “had the best time” walking in Paris, London, and New York Fashion Week, as she stated in an online update. She has done photoshoots with major fashion magazines, modeled for Vogue, and worked extensively with global fashion houses like Dior. She is signed with The Society Management. At Harvard, Fischer carefully balances her schoolwork with modeling and playing varsity tennis.
Aoki Lee Simmons ’23
In 2022, Simmons greeted New York Fashion Week in a hot pink pantsuit with a coiffed updo, walking for designer Sergio Hudson. In a social media update, she marveled that she was the youngest model in his lineup, “surrounded by women I have grown up watching on the runway, feeling completely out of my depth” but said the “clothes pulled something out of me I didn’t know I had.” She was thankful to Hudson for “trusting me to do them justice.”
In another unforgettable fashion week experience, Simmons walked outdoors for Tommy Hilfiger through pouring rain and winds. She overcame the occupational hazard, saying in an online update, “I could never express my gratitude enough” for the opportunity.
Simmons modeled as a child for fashion label Baby Phat. She debuted as an adult model while a full-time Harvard student, walking for designers like Pyer Moss and Kim Shui. She has worked with major brands like retail company Revolve, shot with Vogue, and signed with Nomad Management.
On social media, Simmons relates her triumphs and struggles as she balances modeling with studying. Trekking from Harvard to New York Fashion Week is no easy feat, despite the excitement.
“You think Boston and New York are really close, but they’re not,” Simmons said. She explained: “Castings are last minute. You’ll get a show. You’ll get put on option. You’ll get canceled. The worst thing is when I miss class because I’m on option, and then I get taken off option. I don’t, you know, make the final cut. I’m like ‘guys, I missed Latin and HUM.’”
Simmons races against time to seize modeling opportunities in New York when they become available.
“I do everything that I can, but sometimes they’ll be like: ‘Oh, there’s a casting at 2pm.’ I’m like: ‘It’s 1:30pm. What am I going to do? Teleport?’ So that sucks, and I think that’s what makes it—for me, I don’t know about everyone else—really hard going to college somewhere else,” Simmons admitted.
Simmons hopes to model full-time after graduation. She would love to walk in London, Paris, and Milan Fashion Week. People sometimes ask why she, as a Harvard-educated woman, would choose modeling as a career. Perhaps this stems from biases favoring practical careers over creative ones. There is also the notion that a woman valuing appearance puts her intellect into question.
“I would like to change the idea that you can’t be smart and pretty, or you can’t be smart and enjoy your looks. Or enjoy a creative beauty or fashion-based career,” Simmons declared, adding: “I really don’t want this to be a question that we’re asking women in ten years.”
Kya Brooks ’25 (kyabrooks@college.harvard.edu) would love to take part in a model mosh pit.