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Dsquared2 S/S 2024
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"Baby Shower" / The Face Magazine Summer 2023
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Marc Jacobs Fall 2023
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SSENSE
Interview: Devan Diaz
Photographer: Richie Shazam
Stylist: Dara Allen
Life moves fast in New York City. For Alex Consani, life moves even faster. The 19-year-old Bay Area native debuted for Tom Ford in late 2021 and never stopped walking, pummeling 18 runways last year and already besting that personal record in 2023. She’ll likely double that number at the spring shows this fall. Before signing with IMG, she was with Slay Model Management and worked alongside a pre-Pose Dominique Jackson. Early shoots were low-stakes opportunities to get comfortable in front of the camera without leaving home—that changed when she joined TikTok as @captincroook during the lockdown, eventually amassing an audience of nearly 1 million followers. Early posts feature hauls, dance challenges, and story times shared with a silliness and freedom that calls back to a premonetized internet and the hysterical comedy of creators like Jenna Marbles or Cara Cunningham, the artist formerly known as Chris Crocker. In the twenty-first century, nothing hits like a girl lost in her bedroom with a camera.
Against the stereotypes of her generation, however, Consani has been very much outside. On TikTok, she has walked into oncoming traffic, screamed on subway platforms, and tormented a wax figure of Anne Hathaway. When we met for our interview on a Sunday evening, it’d been two days since she’d finished a gig in Sweden for H&M before she was back on a plane to Paris the next day.
When we shake hands, Consani asks: “Am I allowed to curse in this interview?” The politeness of the question surprises me; I’ve seen plenty of her videos that playfully disrupt public order. But we’re on the set of a fashion shoot, not on our way to a party. “It’s taken a second for my social media and modelling to merge,” she says. “There’s Alex, and then there’s Alexandra.” What’s the difference? “They’re actually the same,” she says. “Alexandra is when I have to pull out the personality for work, but I feel like everything I do is exactly who I am. I never cringe at old posts.”
She sucks on a pink Elfbar between thoughts, legs bouncing beneath a blanket to generate heat. We’re sitting at a table above an ice rink at the Aviator Sports & Events Center in Brooklyn. There’s also a gymnasium, an indoor soccer field, and a gymnastics room with beams and a trampoline floor. As a child, Consani did gymnastics and ballet but ultimately gave up the latter for the former. “I got to wear a leotard as a boy and feel femme in gymnastics,” she says. Like a few of us on set, Consani is transgender. “If I ever have a say in it, I’ll choose to work like this. It’s cool for us to be together, especially now.” There’s no need to explain what “now” refers to: twenty states have tried banning hormone replacement therapy for transgender children this year. Alex, who rerouted puberty using HRT, was once one of those children.
So here we are, making pictures on the fourth day of June. As we wait for Consani to get her makeup touched up, photographer and girl-about-town Richie Shazam brings up the lack of corporate Pride dollars this year. Everyone sitting around the table of the Sports Center’s mezzanine slowly agrees. (Most of us have known each other for years, through nightlife and bumping into each other on set.) The performative allyship was corny, but it kept many of us afloat. “I know people who earned half their salary through Pride,” says Fern Cerezo, right hand to the mononymous stylist Dara. I ask everyone if the lack of funds has anything to do with another TikTok personality, Dylan Mulvaney, and that viral Bud Light sponsorship gone awry. No response. Shazam calls on an assistant to retrieve her rolls of Kodak Portra 400 while monologuing about “creating our opportunities.” Fresh off the heels of a new photography book, Shazam is a clarifying, no-nonsense force on set, and I’m willing to take her word. And while monetary support dwindles, it’s nice to know we were all brought on this particular set for reasons other than identity—one step forward, two steps back. As the first looks come together, we all huddle behind the camera to watch.
After a few uninspired setups on the basketball court, Shazam asks Consani if she’d be willing to sit on the hoop 10 feet above our heads. A couple of production assistants try to hoist her to the top, but it’s easier for Consani to lift herself through the net and metal ring. The musty red gymnastics mats dragged over by the PAs to catch her fall don’t offer much assurance. Everyone goes quiet as Shazam’s camera flashes: The gags and whispers on set egg Consani on. Somehow she manages to give Shazam a variety of poses while clutching the basket with both hands, legs caught in the net. I watch her with Dara. “The bucket hat was the right choice,” she says, content with the buzz in the room. This is the feeling you chase in fashion. That moment when the sitter becomes someone who couldn’t exist without a camera. As the fashion director for Interview, Dara constantly sees new faces. She explains: “A single-girl fashion story is an ultimate test for a model. Not every girl can carry it by herself.” But this girl can; she’s willing to do anything for the image.
Consani evokes a bygone era of studied girls who loved clothes. It’s only been three seasons of runway shows, but her walk feels mature. “I watched the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show every year,” she says. “Gisele Bündchen down, mama.” To me, Consani feels fresh, but for many commenters on TikTok, she’s Jules from HBO’s Euphoria come to life. Early on, the comparison made sense, as a trans teenager with a penchant for Y2K fashion. But as time passes, the comments get tired, don’t you think? “I met Hunter recently, and we laughed about it,” Consani says. “It’s fine; it’s a kiki. I’m happy to be doing this job.” This response reads as media training, but it isn’t. Consani saw herself here, living life in the flesh with the friends she made online. She met her current roommate and best friend online during the pandemic. I watch her conceal a yawn by hitting the vape. “Just bring me another Celcius, and we’ll be good,” she says while Dara considers putting her in a pink headband for the next outfit. The look is complete after hairstylist Sonny Molina turns a messy soccer bun into a sleek gymnast pony. Consani swings the pony around, screaming, “It’s a cis girl summer!” before skipping away to meet Shazam, the punchline trailing behind her: “Just kidding, I still have a c*ck and balls!” She then runs into a round-off, laughing, while Richie clicks the shutter.
It’s shocking and funny to hear these words come out of her mouth. Because Consani was able to pause male puberty at such a young age, her trans identity isn’t immediately legible. She could keep it stealth if she wanted, as many working models today still do, despite the progress we think we’ve made. A particular French, haute couture glass ceiling has yet to burst. But Consani has taken the pay cut so she can queen out, speaking on set in a gay internet-speak that holds the closeness of an inside joke to those who know. When Molina runs in to respray the ponytail between clicks, she tells them a joke only they can hear. Molina has worked with her before and tells me, “Her humor and excitement immediately endeared me the first time we met.” The social aspects of a set can be fraught, but Consani has a stubborn desire to have fun. “My high school prom happened during COVID,” she says. “People were standing six feet apart on a football field. I didn’t go; I was ready to move here.”
ssense.com
Interview: Devan Diaz
Photographer: Richie Shazam
Stylist: Dara Allen
Life moves fast in New York City. For Alex Consani, life moves even faster. The 19-year-old Bay Area native debuted for Tom Ford in late 2021 and never stopped walking, pummeling 18 runways last year and already besting that personal record in 2023. She’ll likely double that number at the spring shows this fall. Before signing with IMG, she was with Slay Model Management and worked alongside a pre-Pose Dominique Jackson. Early shoots were low-stakes opportunities to get comfortable in front of the camera without leaving home—that changed when she joined TikTok as @captincroook during the lockdown, eventually amassing an audience of nearly 1 million followers. Early posts feature hauls, dance challenges, and story times shared with a silliness and freedom that calls back to a premonetized internet and the hysterical comedy of creators like Jenna Marbles or Cara Cunningham, the artist formerly known as Chris Crocker. In the twenty-first century, nothing hits like a girl lost in her bedroom with a camera.
Against the stereotypes of her generation, however, Consani has been very much outside. On TikTok, she has walked into oncoming traffic, screamed on subway platforms, and tormented a wax figure of Anne Hathaway. When we met for our interview on a Sunday evening, it’d been two days since she’d finished a gig in Sweden for H&M before she was back on a plane to Paris the next day.
When we shake hands, Consani asks: “Am I allowed to curse in this interview?” The politeness of the question surprises me; I’ve seen plenty of her videos that playfully disrupt public order. But we’re on the set of a fashion shoot, not on our way to a party. “It’s taken a second for my social media and modelling to merge,” she says. “There’s Alex, and then there’s Alexandra.” What’s the difference? “They’re actually the same,” she says. “Alexandra is when I have to pull out the personality for work, but I feel like everything I do is exactly who I am. I never cringe at old posts.”
She sucks on a pink Elfbar between thoughts, legs bouncing beneath a blanket to generate heat. We’re sitting at a table above an ice rink at the Aviator Sports & Events Center in Brooklyn. There’s also a gymnasium, an indoor soccer field, and a gymnastics room with beams and a trampoline floor. As a child, Consani did gymnastics and ballet but ultimately gave up the latter for the former. “I got to wear a leotard as a boy and feel femme in gymnastics,” she says. Like a few of us on set, Consani is transgender. “If I ever have a say in it, I’ll choose to work like this. It’s cool for us to be together, especially now.” There’s no need to explain what “now” refers to: twenty states have tried banning hormone replacement therapy for transgender children this year. Alex, who rerouted puberty using HRT, was once one of those children.
So here we are, making pictures on the fourth day of June. As we wait for Consani to get her makeup touched up, photographer and girl-about-town Richie Shazam brings up the lack of corporate Pride dollars this year. Everyone sitting around the table of the Sports Center’s mezzanine slowly agrees. (Most of us have known each other for years, through nightlife and bumping into each other on set.) The performative allyship was corny, but it kept many of us afloat. “I know people who earned half their salary through Pride,” says Fern Cerezo, right hand to the mononymous stylist Dara. I ask everyone if the lack of funds has anything to do with another TikTok personality, Dylan Mulvaney, and that viral Bud Light sponsorship gone awry. No response. Shazam calls on an assistant to retrieve her rolls of Kodak Portra 400 while monologuing about “creating our opportunities.” Fresh off the heels of a new photography book, Shazam is a clarifying, no-nonsense force on set, and I’m willing to take her word. And while monetary support dwindles, it’s nice to know we were all brought on this particular set for reasons other than identity—one step forward, two steps back. As the first looks come together, we all huddle behind the camera to watch.
After a few uninspired setups on the basketball court, Shazam asks Consani if she’d be willing to sit on the hoop 10 feet above our heads. A couple of production assistants try to hoist her to the top, but it’s easier for Consani to lift herself through the net and metal ring. The musty red gymnastics mats dragged over by the PAs to catch her fall don’t offer much assurance. Everyone goes quiet as Shazam’s camera flashes: The gags and whispers on set egg Consani on. Somehow she manages to give Shazam a variety of poses while clutching the basket with both hands, legs caught in the net. I watch her with Dara. “The bucket hat was the right choice,” she says, content with the buzz in the room. This is the feeling you chase in fashion. That moment when the sitter becomes someone who couldn’t exist without a camera. As the fashion director for Interview, Dara constantly sees new faces. She explains: “A single-girl fashion story is an ultimate test for a model. Not every girl can carry it by herself.” But this girl can; she’s willing to do anything for the image.
Consani evokes a bygone era of studied girls who loved clothes. It’s only been three seasons of runway shows, but her walk feels mature. “I watched the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show every year,” she says. “Gisele Bündchen down, mama.” To me, Consani feels fresh, but for many commenters on TikTok, she’s Jules from HBO’s Euphoria come to life. Early on, the comparison made sense, as a trans teenager with a penchant for Y2K fashion. But as time passes, the comments get tired, don’t you think? “I met Hunter recently, and we laughed about it,” Consani says. “It’s fine; it’s a kiki. I’m happy to be doing this job.” This response reads as media training, but it isn’t. Consani saw herself here, living life in the flesh with the friends she made online. She met her current roommate and best friend online during the pandemic. I watch her conceal a yawn by hitting the vape. “Just bring me another Celcius, and we’ll be good,” she says while Dara considers putting her in a pink headband for the next outfit. The look is complete after hairstylist Sonny Molina turns a messy soccer bun into a sleek gymnast pony. Consani swings the pony around, screaming, “It’s a cis girl summer!” before skipping away to meet Shazam, the punchline trailing behind her: “Just kidding, I still have a c*ck and balls!” She then runs into a round-off, laughing, while Richie clicks the shutter.
It’s shocking and funny to hear these words come out of her mouth. Because Consani was able to pause male puberty at such a young age, her trans identity isn’t immediately legible. She could keep it stealth if she wanted, as many working models today still do, despite the progress we think we’ve made. A particular French, haute couture glass ceiling has yet to burst. But Consani has taken the pay cut so she can queen out, speaking on set in a gay internet-speak that holds the closeness of an inside joke to those who know. When Molina runs in to respray the ponytail between clicks, she tells them a joke only they can hear. Molina has worked with her before and tells me, “Her humor and excitement immediately endeared me the first time we met.” The social aspects of a set can be fraught, but Consani has a stubborn desire to have fun. “My high school prom happened during COVID,” she says. “People were standing six feet apart on a football field. I didn’t go; I was ready to move here.”
ssense.com
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POP #43 Fall/Winter 2023-2024
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Helmut Lang Spring 2024
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Dion Lee Spring 2024
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Area Fall 2024 & Haute Couture Fall 2024
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Zara Woman by Carlijn Jacobs
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When Your Name Is On The Door / W Magazine VOLUME 4: THE FASHION ISSUE
Ethan James Green - Photographer
Charlotte Collet - Fashion Editor/Stylist
Jimmy Paul - Hair Stylist
Sam Visser - Makeup Artist
Piergiorgio Del Moro - Casting Director
Megumi Yamamoto - Manicurist
[@wmagazine]
Ethan James Green - Photographer
Charlotte Collet - Fashion Editor/Stylist
Jimmy Paul - Hair Stylist
Sam Visser - Makeup Artist
Piergiorgio Del Moro - Casting Director
Megumi Yamamoto - Manicurist
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Luar Spring 2024
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at NYFW
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Diesel Spring 2024
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Re-Edition Magazine #21 S/S 2024 : Madonna & Alberto Guerra by Ricardo Gomes (3 Viewers)- Latest: phungnam96