Alva Claire: "I don't do things by halves"
Even through a computer screen, Alva Claire is luminous. Her skin has the glow and glow of someone on a diet rich in omega and antioxidants, her smile is campaign ready, her cleavage, cartoonishly framed by a skintight black top, is gorgeous and encourages a dull fall afternoon in my kitchen. I'm pretty confident Claire won't mind me saying that. Not only does the 30-year-old London-born model have a devilish sense of humor and an infectious cackle, but she also knows that clothes have the power to attract and provoke. "We tell stories when we get dressed in the morning," she later said. “Whether you like it or not, we all tell a story. »
It is mid-October and Claire is in her apartment in Brooklyn, where she lives when she is not in London. She's been in town for a week, the longest she's been in one place since the summer. Fashion month took place in September; Claire took part in 14 fashion shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris. "I feel like I've been on tour," she says, "but without the pretty singing voice."
Claire may not have hasn't reached Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell's levels of familiar name recognition yet, but give it a minute. She doesn't care about being famous, but for those who follow fashion or models, Alva Claire McKenzie is a rock star. For the past few years, she has been the face of MAC cosmetics and Rimmel London. She starred in a campaign for Beyoncé's activewear brand, Ivy Park. All this after capturing worldwide attention in 2020, when she walked for Savage x Fenty, Rihanna's underwear brand, wearing lacy lingerie and latex boots. A few days earlier, she had been one of the first "plus-size" models to parade on a Versace catwalk, alongside Jill Kortleve and Precious Lee. While some have raised eyebrows at the fact that it's taken the brand so long to employ plus-size models, Claire has nothing but positive things to say. "There's a feeling when you put on Versace. That's what I projected when I went there, feeling super strong, super powerful. She continues, 'As a model, I see myself as embodying a character. I love shoots or shows when it's hard to present a different type of imagery. I guess it's seeing myself and my body in places I've never seen it before .Where I've never seen someone like me do this before."
In November, Claire attended the fourth Savage x Fenty fashion show.When Rihanna first launched these loud and proud shows - now airing annually on Amazon Prime - with a cast of diverse models embracing a multitude of ethnicities and body shapes - it changed the conversation around women's lingerie. the dominant years of the annual Victoria's Secret fashion shows, which defined the ideal of the female body as predominantly white, thin, air-busted, and endorsed by A-list men who always sat front row critically appraising… outfits? In contrast, the women on Rihanna's shows seem to enjoy and embrace their own idea of sexy, not someone else's. It changed the experience for women who previously felt alienated from fashion shows and underwear.
"It makes me really happy whenever someone one tells me how the show made them feel, because it shows that fashion and art can really make a difference," Claire says. "It's amazing to see the power that is instilled in people when they start to recognize themselves in different parts of society. When I realized it was like, 'OK, that's strong enough. I'm pretty proud.'"
Growing up, Claire didn't have that experience. Passionate collector of fashion magazines ("i-D, Dazed, Vogue...I spent years deciding which one to buy because when you spend £4 on a magazine it's no joke, right?”), she recently made a small selection from her collection. “It was interesting when I went through them, how many of these magazines were just white models from cover to cover. And not even that long ago,” she says. "I thought how strange it was to have grown up with that."
What did she find so compelling in them then? “Oh, the creativity, the photographers. Being able to go off in your imagination or romance or dream about something. That's what a good fashion editorial does. It creates a world that you can enter. That's what I remembered. It definitely wasn't, 'Oh wow, that looks like me!' " She ...
Even through a computer screen, Alva Claire is luminous. Her skin has the glow and glow of someone on a diet rich in omega and antioxidants, her smile is campaign ready, her cleavage, cartoonishly framed by a skintight black top, is gorgeous and encourages a dull fall afternoon in my kitchen. I'm pretty confident Claire won't mind me saying that. Not only does the 30-year-old London-born model have a devilish sense of humor and an infectious cackle, but she also knows that clothes have the power to attract and provoke. "We tell stories when we get dressed in the morning," she later said. “Whether you like it or not, we all tell a story. »
It is mid-October and Claire is in her apartment in Brooklyn, where she lives when she is not in London. She's been in town for a week, the longest she's been in one place since the summer. Fashion month took place in September; Claire took part in 14 fashion shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris. "I feel like I've been on tour," she says, "but without the pretty singing voice."
Claire may not have hasn't reached Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell's levels of familiar name recognition yet, but give it a minute. She doesn't care about being famous, but for those who follow fashion or models, Alva Claire McKenzie is a rock star. For the past few years, she has been the face of MAC cosmetics and Rimmel London. She starred in a campaign for Beyoncé's activewear brand, Ivy Park. All this after capturing worldwide attention in 2020, when she walked for Savage x Fenty, Rihanna's underwear brand, wearing lacy lingerie and latex boots. A few days earlier, she had been one of the first "plus-size" models to parade on a Versace catwalk, alongside Jill Kortleve and Precious Lee. While some have raised eyebrows at the fact that it's taken the brand so long to employ plus-size models, Claire has nothing but positive things to say. "There's a feeling when you put on Versace. That's what I projected when I went there, feeling super strong, super powerful. She continues, 'As a model, I see myself as embodying a character. I love shoots or shows when it's hard to present a different type of imagery. I guess it's seeing myself and my body in places I've never seen it before .Where I've never seen someone like me do this before."
In November, Claire attended the fourth Savage x Fenty fashion show.When Rihanna first launched these loud and proud shows - now airing annually on Amazon Prime - with a cast of diverse models embracing a multitude of ethnicities and body shapes - it changed the conversation around women's lingerie. the dominant years of the annual Victoria's Secret fashion shows, which defined the ideal of the female body as predominantly white, thin, air-busted, and endorsed by A-list men who always sat front row critically appraising… outfits? In contrast, the women on Rihanna's shows seem to enjoy and embrace their own idea of sexy, not someone else's. It changed the experience for women who previously felt alienated from fashion shows and underwear.
"It makes me really happy whenever someone one tells me how the show made them feel, because it shows that fashion and art can really make a difference," Claire says. "It's amazing to see the power that is instilled in people when they start to recognize themselves in different parts of society. When I realized it was like, 'OK, that's strong enough. I'm pretty proud.'"
Growing up, Claire didn't have that experience. Passionate collector of fashion magazines ("i-D, Dazed, Vogue...I spent years deciding which one to buy because when you spend £4 on a magazine it's no joke, right?”), she recently made a small selection from her collection. “It was interesting when I went through them, how many of these magazines were just white models from cover to cover. And not even that long ago,” she says. "I thought how strange it was to have grown up with that."
What did she find so compelling in them then? “Oh, the creativity, the photographers. Being able to go off in your imagination or romance or dream about something. That's what a good fashion editorial does. It creates a world that you can enter. That's what I remembered. It definitely wasn't, 'Oh wow, that looks like me!' " She ...
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