“We Demand Respect:” Valentina Sampaio on Protecting Brazil’s Trans Community

Valentina Sampaio is on a mission. The Brazilian modeling star made history in 2017 when she became the first trans woman to appear on the cover of Vogue Paris, and has been a vocal advocate for the rights of trans people in Brazil ever since. Sampaio is an ambassador for today’s three-hour long Pride Live event, joining speakers Barack Obama, Donatella Versace, and Taylor Swift to honor the LGBTQ+ community and the 50th anniversary of the movement’s inception. For Sampaio, the opportunity to join in the fight for equality aligned with her philosophy. “I try to lead by example, walk the talk, transmit love to the world, plant a little seed of understanding and acceptance in people's hearts, one person at a time,” she shared via email from Aquiraz. “I believe that better people build a better world for all of us, and I stand for any and everyone who, like me, suffers prejudice for not fitting into society’s standards.”

At present, trans rights in Brazil are almost non-existent. The nation’s idyllic landscape conceals an ugly legacy of violence against trans people: it is ranked the number one country for murders of trans people according to the Trans Murder Monitoring Project. “We have never had a respectful place in society,” says Sampaio. “Much like in the United States and across the globe, transgender people in Brazil are marginalized. We are seen as immoral and labeled as ‘something’ perverted, widely insulted, publicly beaten, and in some cases murdered.” The brutality has only increased since the conservative president, Jair Bolsonaro, came into office last year. The Supreme Court’s decision to make gender identity discrimination a criminal offense in 2019 was a sign of progress in Brazil, but there’s still a long way to go when it comes to changing societal attitudes across the board. “That was a great victory and a step in the right direction. However, laws need to be respected and enforced, and which is not necessarily the case in Brazil,” she explains. “Last year alone, we witnessed the brutal killing of 129 transgender people [in Brazil]. Our protection comes from God. Even with the new laws, people don’t widely respect and comply with them, and the authorities aren’t enforcing them either.”

The discrimination Brazil’s trans community faces daily, particularly when it comes to employment, is especially disconcerting. “It is rare to see a transgender person have a public-facing ‘official’ job,” explains Sampaio. “Outside of Brazil, I have had the chance to meet trans people working in a great variety of professions. Salespeople in fashion, cashiers in supermarkets, makeup artists, security, and many other careers. It brings me great happiness to arrive somewhere and feel represented.” Sadly, the level of success Sampaio has found abroad has yet to be replicated at home. “I am almost ashamed to say that I have been much more accepted outside of my own country,” she says, noting her in demand status in New York, where she is represented by talent agency, The Lions. “Much is said about us during Pride month by the media in Brazil, but they don’t let us speak for ourselves. They do not allow our voice to be directly heard on their platforms.”

To that end, Sampaio hopes to use her platform to amplify voices in her community beyond Pride month. “It is important to reaffirm our existence,” she says. “We have always existed and will continue to exist. Pride honors a pivotal event for our LGBTQA community, The Stonewall Riots, but it is important to honor the community all year round.” Through her work with local organizations she wants to affect systemic change. “The first step is judging less; the next is giving opportunities for employment and support,” she says. “We want respect, and the more people are involved, the stronger we will be; unity is strength.”

While there’s plenty of work that needs to happen in Brazil, discrimination is a global issue. “We’ve seen the violence towards the trans community recently in the United States through the Black Trans Lives Matter movement highlighting the recent brutal murders of Riah Milton, Dominique Fells, and Tony McDade,” says Sampaio. “Black trans people are suffering immensely, as they are disproportionately targeted. This fight is not only within the LGBTQ community, it’s with everyone, and it’s important to advance the trans-rights movement. We’re holding firm and committed to doing everything we can, every day, to create space for a peaceful, dignified existence. We demand respect—the basic right to exist as we are.”

The World’s First Animal Crossing Fashion Show Is Here

Nintendo has sold more than 13 million copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons since its release on March 20. The avatar-style game allows players to create their own worlds and communities—but just as important, players can also design their own outfits. This is why it’s interesting: Unlike other video games where only specific customizations can be made, Animal Crossing allows users to essentially design a garment from scratch, creating the exact hem length, flounce, or pattern on the outfit their avatar wears. Unsurprisingly, the game has quickly been adopted by the fashion community, with dozens of Instagram accounts sprouting up to showcase runway-inspired designs from Dior, Sports Banger, and Louis Vuitton, while brands like Valentino, Anna Sui, and Sandy Liang create custom garments for the game.

Reference Festival, a Berlin-based fashion organization, is taking Animal Crossing’s fashion potential one step further with a virtual fashion show of Animal Crossing avatars dressed up in current season looks inspired by Loewe, Prada, and GmbH. The show was conceived by photographer Kara Chung, who runs the Instagram account @animalcrossingfashionarchive, and stylist Marc Goehring of 032C. “We met through a mutual friend, curator Evan Garza, who had contacted the both of us for an Animal Crossing piece on Art Forum. We connected on a call right after, and thought it’d be a fun way to collaborate!” Chung and Goehring tell Vogue.

The final show takes the form of a three-minute video, and like a prestigious IRL fashion event, it’s soundtracked by Michel Gaubert. “This is the first all digital fashion show I have worked on, and I approached it the same way I would approach a physical show, which is instinctively,” Gaubert says. “The difference here is that the show is actually a video clip of an incredibly popular video game—and I aimed for a playful, free-spirited fashion moment; fun and games.” Set to music by Joon, the Animal Crossing figures hit the runway in Craig Green, Paco Rabanne, and Chanel looks while an audience of foxes, cats, and a hot pink Birdo-esque creature look on from the front row. “I hope it will reach a lot of people from every horizon, and especially people who may only have a vague idea of what a fashion show actually is like,” Gaubert continues. “It was important for me that the music remain as accessible as the game, the show had to have a fun and enchanting spirit as it is a bit of a sweet little parody—just like Animal Crossing itself is an imitation of life which connects a lot of people these days, for the same reasons.”



All-in-all, the final video is not that different from a real fashion show. Although, who’s to say what’s real nowadays? As Goehring describes it, putting together the event was quite similar to prepping a physical fashion show or shoot. “To be honest, [we prepared] very much like a normal pull in the first stage when working on a shoot: I went through my favorite collections of the season and picked the looks,” he says. Of course , as in any fashion editorial, there were a few wrinkles. Now, instead of working with PRs to determine which looks would be available for a shoot date, Goehring worked with Chung to select looks that would translate well to the aesthetic of the video game. “You have to really think about which specifics you can delete from a look and what you pixelate, so that in the end it remains this one specific look which everybody knows—and it’s recognizable!” he continues.

For Reference Festival, staging a virtual fashion show on a popular video game is an extension of the organization’s non-traditional approach to fashion events. (Last year, the group debuted a 24-hour fashion festival-turned-party.) “I believe that the future of fashion is a broad field of many aspects, and that anything virtual and engaging, and gaming in particular, are among them,” Reference Studios founder Mumi Haiati tells Vogue. “An intention of the first edition of our festival was showcasing new formats of presenting fashion, innovation at its very core—a subject that has now become more important than ever. With the second edition we will carry on doing so and push the idea even further. Gaming specifically adds an aspect of community which of course is a most significant factor in contemporary communications.”

So will specific brands follow suit and stage their own Animal Crossing runways? Can we kiss dreams of Milan Fashion Week goodbye and instead pray we can find a Nintendo Switch? Let’s not go quite that far. Goehring says replacing IRL runway shows isn’t the point. “It’s just a fun project between two fashion industry related gamers. High-five, Kara!” he cheers.

To Gaubert, the video represents a joyous escape from the physical world. “You can live your life in a game as you like while being stuck at home, and you can wear your favorite looks from Undercover, Prada, and Raf Simons as you buy turnips or plant red mum flowers in a gender-free environment.” Doesn’t sound like a little slice of paradise? Though like anything good these days it comes at a cost. The Nintendo Switch gaming console is sold out globally, making it harder to score than a Supreme box logo tee. For now, this fashion show video will have to do.

How This Painter’s Artful Pants Caught the Eye of Bella Hadid

When Bella Hadid wears your hand-painted pants, expect to garner some attention. Juliet Johnstone never intended to work in fashion, but shortly after the Los Angeles–based artist began experimenting with clothing, Hadid wore one of her pieces—and it ignited an instant craze for her work. “People went crazy—within five minutes, I had hundreds of messages,” Johnstone says. Before, Johnstone had been posting one pair of old Dickies or Carhartt pants decorated with hand-painted affirmations to Instagram. They’re free-spirited in feel and often say the words love or peace. In other words, the kind of pants that make you stop while scrolling. “It’s wearable art,” Johnstone says, adding that she has been creating these pieces while sheltering in place at her parents’ house in the Malibu area. “I moved my studio into their garage,” she says.

Johnstone originally studied to be a classic painter: She graduated from Parsons in 2017 with a fine-arts degree but found herself lacking inspiration and direction for her work. “I was working for a bunch of artists and doing the studio-assisting lifestyle, and I just felt really stuck,” she says. “I felt like this huge responsibility to be making hyper-conceptualized work.” Last year, around October, she began experimenting with painting onto trousers instead. “One day, I painted on my own painter’s pants because I ran out of canvas that day,” she says. “I wore them out, and people were asking me where I got them.”

Interest grew even further after Hadid posted an image of herself wearing them earlier this month. Hadid’s pair was in a khaki colorway, with hand-painted flowers and the words baby and love on them. Though the two have never met, Johnstone and Hadid have mutual friends: Johnstone also models on the side and is currently signed with the agency One Management in New York City. The artist sent Hadid her own pair this past Paris Fashion Week, after noticing the fellow model had begun liking a few of her pants posts. “I wasn’t really selling them that much then,” Johnstone says. “The demand hadn’t grown to what it is now.”

Johnstone says she gets inspiration for her designs from daily nature walks, vintage botanical books, and Japanese flowers, among other references. Her upbringing also lends to her ongoing creativity: Her father is a musician and part of Elton John’s band, and her childhood was often spent going on tour with the crew. “I would help out in the wardrobe department,” she says. “That was what I loved to do. Elton’s clothes brought happiness into the world, and his idea of fashion definitely influenced my own.”

Sustainability is also an important aspect of Johnson’s work. She only uses vintage or upcycled pants, and each pair is one of a kind; Johnstone herself mostly wears vintage. In the future, Johnstone is open to expanding her hand-painting onto vintage jackets or shirts—but amid the coronavirus pandemic, Johnstone says creating the pants brings joy to both herself and her customers, and that’s enough. “Painting flowers and butterflies—these things make me happy, and I think now, more than ever, we need breaks from what real life has become,” she says. “I realized that my role can be to give people a break, make people smile, and take these pressures away.”

Adut Akech, Paloma Elsesser, and More on the Realities of Working as a Model Today

The image of the modeling industry often conflicts with its reality. Television, magazines, and social media have sold the idea of the glamorous, globe-trotting runway star, but few see the long hours and hard work that lead up to that. In this episode of Vogue’s model documentary series, the young women in front of the camera get real about how the business has shaped their lives. The distinction between fashion’s fictions and its truths can be challenging—especially when the job requires 24/7 commitment. “I think there’s a misconception where people think that modeling is just about looking beautiful or having a certain look that people like,” shared Adesuwa Aighewi during a candid moment at the Vogue offices. “[In actuality] you have to be your business manager, you have to be your PR. You have to be a therapist; you have to be your mom and your dad, your own life coach.”

The multiple roles models now have to juggle are due in part to the changing nature of celebrity. In an era of multitasking stars whose creative endeavors have become fully-fledged brands, it isn’t enough to score a big cover or work with a key photographer. Entrepreneurship has become the expectation and new models—many of them teenagers and twentysomethings—are tasked with building online followings, collaborating with fashion heavyweights, and becoming a living commodity. “It’s draining, emotionally, physically, and mentally,” says Adut Akech. “That’s the side people don’t see. They only get to see the glamorous bit of it.”

Even the moments of mystique are underpinned today by real-world concerns. A decade into the industry-wide sea change that pushed fashion to acknowledge issues like diversity and size inclusivity, the power of those shifts is still being felt, particularly by those seeing themselves reflected in media for the first time. “Working in an environment that is all about beauty and how you look obviously it shapes you a little bit,” shared Dutch model Jill Kortleve. “I’m 26 now, so when I was reading magazines [growing up], it was all the same type of girl; white, blonde, tall, skinny. I was the opposite of that so there was no representation at all. I thought that was the norm, but obviously now that it’s changed, now that I know it can be different I see that this should have happened way before.” The sentiment is echoed by Somali-American star Ugbad Abdi, who realized she could enter the industry upon seeing the success of fellow Muslim model Halima Aden. “It made me feel that because she was doing it, I could do it too,” she says. “My little sister is five years old, and she was watching me on YouTube [now] she says she wants to walk the runway because she saw herself in me.”

Above, eight of fashion’s most prominent faces get real about what it is to work in fashion, and how images resonate long after they appear in a magazine.

Director: Shaina Danziger
DP: Marcus Burnett
Audio Recordist: Ana M Fernandez
Editor: Victoria Mortati
Color: Jaime O’Bradovich at Company 3
Sound: Ric Schnupp

Who Was the Fabulous Woman Who High-Kicked on the SAG Awards Carpet?

Amid all of the glitz and glamour on the step and repeat at tonight's SAG Awards, there was one star who approached red carpet posing a tad differently. Hollywood stuntwoman and actress Zoë Bell, who is from New Zealand, stole the spotlight when she performed an impressive high kick (in stilettos!) instead of a traditional hand-on-hip stance. The action film-worthy move had the paparazzi going wild.

Bell’s chic outfit certainly made enhanced the unexpected red carpet moment. She impressively flexed her fighting skills in a tasteful white wrap dress design by Leave Her Wilder, a bridesmaids and resort wear label. She accessorized it with gold jewelry by Cathy Pope Jewellery, a gold clutch, and clear PVC stiletto sandals that she, somehow, was able to kick well above her head.

You've likely seen Bell's work, even if you're unfamiliar with her name. She has appeared in many Quentin Tarantino’s films, most recently in Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood. She also served as Uma Thurman’s stunt double in Kill Bill, and had a leading role in Tarantino’s film Death Proof (one of the best heroine roles in a Tarantino film, hands down). Her karate-worthy pose on the carpet tonight, however, cemented her status as one of the industry’s coolest chicks.