Aiming high in world of fashion
‘An incredible story’: Trans model’s journey from Instagram to Paris
Less than six months ago, Harlow Monroe’s modelling career consisted of posting photos of herself on Instagram. They were generally taken by friends and featured Monroe in a variety of supermodel poses. Since she had always dreamed of being a model, she began tagging the photos accordingly: #fashionmodel, #model, #modellife.
Which may be why the pictures initially caught the attention of Chantale Nadeau, a Toronto modelling agent who most recently discovered up-and-coming Canadian teen model Emm Arruda. “She asked me if I was represented by anybody,” says Monroe, in an interview from her new home in Toronto. “I told her I wasn’t and that I was just kind of doing things on my own. She said she loved my look and that I had really great potential and she’d love to meet me. And then she flew me out to Toronto.” What Nadeau didn’t know until Monroe arrived in Toronto, was that her prospective client was transgender. This didn’t dissuade her in the least. In fact, Nadeau said she saw even more potential in Monroe after learning her story. “I love somebody who has a story, somebody who is more than just a beautiful girl,” says Nadeau, who is Monroe’s manager.
“Right now, people love an amazing story and she’s an incredible story.”
She certainly is. Within a few months, Monroe signed with agencies in Toronto, Montreal and Paris. Not long after this interview, she departed for the City of Light to audition for the runways of Paris Fashion Week.
While she has an interesting story, at least some of it will remain shrouded in mystery. Not surprisingly, Harlow Monroe is not her real name, which is something she wants to keep under wraps for now. But Monroe grew up in Calgary in the 2000s. She came out as trans to her parents at the age of 16 and began transitioning two years later. Monroe admits coming of age in a conservative city such as Calgary was not always easy.
“I was really strange,” she says. “People really did not understand me and I was really weird. I didn’t really have a lot of friends growing up. I was pretty secluded. The friends that I did have were very close to me. It was really just about me and my friends, they were kind of like my secret family. We were all weird kids.” But Monroe said she had a fascination with modelling and with fashion. Now that she has her foot in the door, she is aiming high and hoping to eventually hit the runways of New York, Paris and Milan. She has been in Zink Magazine and Schon Magazine and been shot for SSENSE, a high-fashion e-commerce platform.
“It’s becoming a really accepted thing, especially in the fashion industry,” says Monroe about being a transgender model.
“It’s a huge thing with fashion now, which is great. But there are still things that I will never do because I am trans. There are still certain jobs I won’t get. But I feel like the boundaries are starting to diminish.
“People are starting to realize that trans women and trans men are like everybody else . ... The doors are opening up more.”