A few years ago, Alex Consani was a restless teenager in the California suburbs, filming TikTok videos during the pandemic to pass the time. Today she is one of the most in-demand models in the world, expanding into acting, settling into a Brooklyn brownstone, and stepping into what she calls her experimental era.
On a bright spring Saturday in Brooklyn, Consani arrives at a quiet Japanese café where Williamsburg meets Bushwick, having changed the meeting spot twice already. A black SUV pulls up and a driver opens the door. She steps out with her hair in a chignon and Gentle Monster sunglasses on, all long limbs and startlingly blue eyes. When the car is mentioned as a marker of her new status, she waves it off, explaining she only has it because of a job and that her bike, in need of repair, is stashed in the back.
That insistence on ordinariness runs through the entire conversation. Her outfit is a study in high and low, a Hermès Kelly Pochette she once dropped into the sea in Jamaica paired with dirty denim she admits she has worn nearly every day for four years, plus a Givenchy shirt and Prada mules. She likes the contrast, and she likes not taking any of it too seriously.
From a bedroom in the suburbs to global runways
Consani first found an audience on TikTok, posting spontaneous public dance breaks, absurd bits, and lip syncs to her favorite rap songs. That kind of behavior would once have been unwelcome in the buttoned-up world of high fashion, but for her it became the launchpad. She now has around nine million followers across her TikTok accounts and 4.3 million on Instagram.
The industry recognition followed quickly. She was named Model of the Year at the 2024 Fashion Awards, becoming the first trans woman to win the title. This year she is a face of McQueen, Gucci, YSL Beauty, and Tory Burch, and she has walked for Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs, and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She is also adding acting to her résumé, with a role in the upcoming A24 film Peaked, directed by Molly Gordon and featuring Laura Dern, Amy Sedaris, and Connor Storrie, as well as a part in the next season of American Horror Story.
For every accomplishment listed, she has a self-deprecating reply ready, a grounding that she credits to the people who helped her get there, including her family, her friends, and the trans women who came before her.
A childhood full of energy
According to her mother, Lisa, Consani was making her presence felt before she was even born, describing the pregnancy as feeling like a nightly celebration rather than the usual flutter of butterflies. Consani was born in the small Northern California town of Petaluma in 2003 to Lisa and her father, Anthony. Her brother, Ted, arrived a few years later.
Lisa remembers a fearless child who tested every limit, racing around on a tricycle and taking things right to the edge without ever quite falling. Consani describes herself as behaviorally challenged in her early years, recalling a stubborn refusal to wear a traditional German costume for a holiday festival and a very different enthusiasm for a Zendaya clothing collaboration she loved as a kid.
The family’s focus turned toward supporting Consani as a young trans girl. She says her parents, one raised in Catholic school with little exposure to queer people, had to do some unlearning and open themselves up to understanding what her identity meant, though for her it was never in question. Lisa recalls that puberty was difficult, and that the family hunkered down at home and took things one step at a time. A doctor’s prediction that Consani would grow to at least five foot eleven hinted at a possible future in modeling.
Finding herself through fashion
A friend’s birthday camera in middle school produced photos so striking that another parent suggested Consani could model. At 12, she signed with an agency called Slay that pioneered representation for trans models and also worked with actress Dominique Jackson and model Arisce Wanzer. She describes the experience as important and magical, and says the community of women around her gave her the foundation for who she is today.
Modeling became a way to affirm her identity, a space to explore femininity and womanhood. She soon outgrew the local Los Angeles scene, signed with IMG Models, and made her runway debut for Tom Ford in 2021.
Off the runway her personality is unmistakable, but on it she transforms completely, shifting from French charm at Chanel to sultry poise at Tom Ford to a nineties strut at Gucci. She treats each show like a role to inhabit, asking herself who she is becoming that day.
Peers and mentors speak
Designers describe her as magnetic. Tom Ford creative director Haider Ackermann says a room seems to lean toward her the moment she walks in. Seán McGirr, creative director at McQueen, praises her presence, grace, and authenticity, and calls her a master of her craft. Adam Selman, chief creative officer at Victoria’s Secret & Co., says she has built an empire and makes it look effortless, even though everyone in the industry knows it is anything but.
Consani belongs to a new generation of models alongside Anok Yai, Paloma Elsesser, and Mona Tougaard, figures who are not only walking runways but building platforms and communities and leading with personality. She found a mentor in Mariacarla Boscono, who has modeled for nearly three decades and describes Consani as a never-ending inspiration with a great heart. Consani, in turn, says she is still learning.
A person, not just a picture
The interview is repeatedly interrupted by fans. A passerby stops to say he admires her, a group whispers as they recognize her, and locals at a nearby table wonder aloud whether they should know who she is. Consani’s answer is disarmingly simple. She tells them she is on TikTok.
She keeps insisting she is just a TikToker, noting that in Paris people know her for modeling while in America it is the app. She treats the attention as a privilege and prefers real conversation to a quick photo, often asking fans their names and whether they live nearby. What she wants, she says, is to actually talk.
Using her platform
Lately the people approaching her have changed. Where trans men and women once sought her out, now their parents do, worried about their children’s safety and rights. She says it has affected her deeply, especially hearing parents credit her stories about her own supportive family for shaping how they treat their kids.
Her visibility has pushed her to think about advocacy. She points to the current political climate as a threat to the very care that allowed her to transition, and she is uneasy about being seen as more acceptably trans simply because she reads as more legible to others. She welcomes the growing awareness around protecting trans people but believes a deeper, more honest conversation is needed, one that goes beyond crisis hotlines toward genuine support.
What she values most is the connection within the trans community itself. No matter someone’s background or privilege, she says, the shared experience of being trans creates a bond she finds genuinely beautiful.