The British Fashion Council (BFC) announced its nominations for the 2024 Fashion Awards on Tuesday, and Alex Consani snagged a nod for Model of the Year, making her the first out trans woman nominated in the category. What can we say but, “Well, yes!”
The 21-year-old is the second trans person overall to be nominated for Model of the Year. Kai Isaiah Jamal, who uses they/them pronouns and doesn’t identify with gender, per the London Evening Standard, was nominated for the award in 2023. In the BFC’s press release announcing the nominations, the organization wrote that the Model of the Year category “recognizes the global impact of a model who, over the last 12 months, has dominated the industry, with an influence that transcends the catwalk.”
You could certainly say that of Consani, who has taken both the runway and TikTok by storm in the past few years. According to Teen Vogue, she walked nearly 20 shows for the fall/winter 2024 fashion season, including Mugler, Ferragamo, Simone Rocha, Marc Jacobs, Luar, Helmut Lang and Thom Browne. She’s no newbie to the industry, though: Consani started modeling in 2015, when her mother “saw this really scary, dingy Facebook ad for some modeling agency,” as she said in an interview with Vox. According to the Independent, she became the youngest trans model to join an agency at age 13, signing with the trans-focused Slay Model Management.
Consani signed to the prestigious IMG Models just three years later, at age 16, and moved to New York after graduating from high school in 2021. But her crossover appeal beyond the fashion world took hold after she started posting to TikTok in 2020 under the username “captincroook,” which she still uses to this day.
Though the dolls are currently in the spotlight for being mindful and demure, Consani became known for her chaotic, unpolished approach to posting. In her most-liked TikTok, which is captioned only “Dolls on tour,” she bangs on a trailer door to be let out and screams “HELP! HELP!” before saying, “Sorry, I was just kidding.” In another — captioned “When they be giving me the fancy water” — she waves around a carafe of lemon- and cucumber-infused water like it’s a bottle of Henny, to the tune of “Lifestyle” by Rich Gang.
TikTok content
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TikTok content
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Consani isn’t the only out LGBTQ+ person to be nominated for Model of the Year this time around. She’s joined by Danish model Mona Tougaard, who identified herself as “being in the LGBTQ+ community” in a 2023 profile in Vogue Scandinavia. In the profile, Tougaard said that her experience as a model “helped me understand my sexuality.” “I never really started fancying girls until I started working… Then I fell in love with one,” she told the magazine.
The 2024 BFC Fashion Awards will be held December 2 at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
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