From Style Assistant to Breakout Star, Here’s How this Model Made Her Runway Debut

In How I Got Here, Black and brown creatives explore how they worked their way to the top of the fashion industry. In conversation with Vogue, these editors, social media stars, and more reveal the unforgettable moment that would change their careers completely. How I Got Here offers (stylish) life lessons, in the artists’ own words.

British model Alva Claire made her runway debut at the 2019 Fenty Savage Show in Brooklyn, New York. You could hardly ask for a better way to launch your career, especially considering she had been first hired to work as a backstage assistant and was later asked to model. Since then, Claire has covered Vogue Thailand, Elle UK, and Office magazines. The former breakout star is now a runway regular and committed to taking on more challenging projects. Here, Claire reflects on her very first show, a true testament on hard work paying off.

There are a lot of moments that stand out for so many different reasons in my career. But I ultimately think it was the Savage Fenty Show at the Barclays Center in 2019 [that changed my career forever]. It was my first New York fashion week show ever. My family would often joke that I never do anything in halves. My first show just happened to be this huge performance. I had never done anything like that before in my life. I was afraid, but it was a breakthrough moment for me stepping out onto that stage. It felt like I was part of something really, really important.

Achieving that for myself and for other people that follow what I’m doing was such a milestone win for me. You really have to trust in the process of what you’re doing, especially within [modeling], and I feel that when something doesn’t happen for me. I used to get kind of heartbroken, but moving forward I learned that when something doesn’t happen, it’s not meant for you at that moment.

In preparation of the Fenty Show, every day we all would be rehearsing every look. There were so many performers and so many dancers. I had been working with a stylist to make each look for the cast [as a backstage assistant]. So at that moment, I wasn’t sure if I was going to actually be a part of the show, but I was still so grateful to be in that environment. It was very close to the final calls when I found out I was going to be walking in the show. I was blown away. By assisting with the looks for the show and having been part of the process from early on, I felt so connected to everything that was happening. It was just so exciting to see all of the people in order of the looks that I had fit, but also my own look. It was surreal.