Sunday night’s Miu Miu show in Paris may have starred mega-models like Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Joan Smalls and Jourdan Dunn, but it also made a stellar debut for newcomer Hanna Sylla.
Until last Thursday evening, Sylla, 22, worked as a cocktail bar waitress at Paris’s Hotel Tremoille. A chance meeting with Miu Miu casting director Anita Bitton - the woman behind supermodel runway lineups for Mulberry, Marc Jacobs and more - saw her catapulted onto the catwalk for the brand’s Resort show, which took place in Paris last night.
"When Anita came in to the studio and said she had scouted her waitress that morning at breakfast we all laughed, but the minute Hanna walked in you could tell she's a star," Katie Grand, the LOVE magazine editor who also styled the Miu Miu show, says of the . "Her skin is perfect, amazing bone structure and so elegant."
"Pat McGrath immediately spotted her backstage at the show and said 'Oh my god, who is she?' She couldn't believe how beautiful she is and that she'd never modeled before. Miuccia [Prada, the Miu Miu designer] loved her too."
"She's the face of this season’s Paris Haute Couture," star makeup artist McGrath added of the Senegalese model, who befriended Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid backstage and posed for pictures in McGrath's makeup chair.
Miu Miu has a track record of launching modelling careers. Supermodel Arizona Muse opened and closed the show during her debut season, and Lindsey Wixson, the model known for her bee-stung lips, opened the show her first season on the scene.
Models who debut with Miu Miu each season often go on to appear in the brand’s campaigns, so watch this space -- and welcome to the runway, Hanna Sylla.
