Sometimes ideological light shines through the colo what is sometimes known as the ugly business of beautiful women. Take Alex Cansani, who was named model of the year at the annual fashion awards in London on Monday.
For the first time in the award’s three-decade history, Kansani is a transgender woman. She’s a TikTok phenom with nearly 4 million followers and a slew of catwalks to her name (Chanel, Stella McCartney and another first, Victoria’s Secret in October) after signing to IMG Models in 2019.
Previous winners of the award include Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid and Kaia Gerber. Recognizing Kansani’s outstanding achievements, the event’s organizers, the British Fashion Council, noted the “global influence” of the woman who “dominated the industry” last year.
Intentionally or not, the council also honored a person who was sometimes divisive in her own circle, a woman whose misleading viral video reels sometimes put her at odds with socially acceptable conduct. Entire platoons of Redditors exist to police the tendency of Kansani, a 21-year-old white woman from Sonoma County, California, to use an accent that mimics the way some black people speak.
Wearing a Union Flag dress by British Turkish designer Dilara Findikoglu, Kansani addressed an audience of fashion elites with a rousing acceptance speech that appeared to shield her from some critics. (In classic frenemy style, another candidate, Anok Yai, congratulated Kansani as Yai passed, writing on social platform X, “Alex can be proud and I can be tired at the same time.”)
Paying homage to black transgender pioneers such as Mugler model Connie Fleming, Dominique Jackson and Aaron Rose Phillip, Kansani also notes her own advantages as someone from a marginalized community. Black transgender women, she said, “really fought for the space — which allowed me to flourish today.”
Kansani expressed her gratitude to her parents for supporting both her modeling aspirations and the transition that began in childhood. While Kansani – who, with bleached hair and eyebrows, resembles the love child of Candy Darling and albino rocker Edgar Winter – her true gender identity has never been in doubt for her, there are some issues that have been hotly contested in the war. Transgender rights as the use of chemical puberty blockers.
“Now, more than ever, it’s an important conversation to be having within this industry about how to truly support and uplift each other, especially those who have been marginalized,” Kansani said as she accepted her award from the model. Body activist Ashley Graham and Nava Maui, the transgender star of “Baby Reindeer.” “Because change is more than possible—it’s necessary.”