The three supermodels that grace British Vogue’s April issue are some of the most in-demand faces of the moment. Jill Kortleve – who joins Paloma Elsesser and Precious Lee on this month’s cover – has enjoyed a steady rise to fame since walking her first show in 2018 (Alexander McQueen’s spring/summer 2019 show), and is now a permanent fixture on the runway. Here, discover more about the Dutch Surinamese talent – from her history-making career milestones to her candid Instagram feed.
She made her runway debut in 2018
Jill Kortleve made her first exit at Sarah Burton’s spring/summer 2019 show for Alexander McQueen back in 2018, wearing a belted A-line dress, layered jewellery and lace-up heels; her dark hair parted neatly into plaits, her power brows in full force. She rocked the same hairstyle in the brand’s subsequent campaign, shot by Jamie Hawkesworth, in which she starred alongside Binx Walton, Jean Campbell, Kesewa Aboah, Lara Stone, Nora Attal and Chunjie Liu. By the time spring/summer 2020 rolled around, Jill was popping up at Area, Simone Rocha, Michael Kors and Prabal Gurung, as well as returning to the McQueen runway.
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Home plays a key role in her life
Born in Heerlen, in the southeast of the Netherlands, Kortleve lived in Amsterdam before relocating to Manhattan when her modelling career kicked off in earnest. Despite her non-stop schedule, the model still makes time for home visits. “I want to create a space where I can be as grounded as possible,” she muses in her cover profile, adding that life in Amsterdam is “so different” from New York or Paris. “When I’m home I try to keep my full focus there, spend time with friends and family, and give them my full attention.”
History-making moments have defined her modelling career
Like Precious and Paloma, Jill has been breaking down barriers since the start of her journey, a mission driven in part by her own personal experience. “I grew up in the ’90s, which were arguably the most toxic years in fashion,” she says in the April issue. “The only images you’d see – especially in Holland – were of blonde, blue-eyed and incredibly thin people. If that’s all you get exposed to, you start to think that’s the only definition of beauty.”
At Fendi’s autumn/winter 2020 show, Jill and Paloma became the first “plus-size” models to walk for the brand (the outing also marked Jill’s first ever Milan show), and Kortleve closed out the season with another history-making moment at Chanel, where she became the first curve model to walk for the house since Crystal Renn a decade before.
“I’m so thankful for this moment to happen and for everybody who made this happen,” she later said on Instagram. “There’s a much needed change happening on the runway and I’m proud and feel grateful to be a part of it. I truly hope that in the future I get to see and work with many more models who used to not fit the briefing.” Now, Jill is a fixture of the maison’s ready-to-wear and couture shows, and she assumed the role of a couture bride at Virginie Viard’s autumn/winter 2022 Chanel couture show last July.
Her Instagram feed is a mood
Jill’s Instagram bio might read “I’m shy”, but her feed suggests quite the opposite. A scroll through her recent posts is a happy-making experience: candid photo dumps, food snaps, BTS pics and holiday carousels all feature on the model’s grid.
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She represents a new guard of supermodel talent
Together with Paloma and Precious, Jill represents a new guard of trailblazing models, whose presence is having positive reverberations through the fashion industry. “Representing different body types doesn’t just mean that you have one model who is size 0 and another who is a [US] 14 – you also have to show what is in between,” Kortleve remarks in her Vogue cover interview, in which she talks about her career and early days of modelling. “I remember during my first seasons I would look at pictures of myself on the runway and think, ‘Why do I look so different from everyone else?’” she says. As her friend and cover co-star Precious puts it: “Inspiring others on this level is powerful.”
