In-demand model Alex Consani celebrated a major milestone on Tuesday.
The 21-year-old catwalk star became the first openly transgender woman to be nominated for one of the top honours ahead of the 2024 Fashion Awards ceremony.
Consani was nominated in the Model of the Year category alongside other rising and veteran stars including Alva Claire, Amelia Gray Hamlin, Anok Yai, Liu Wen and Mona Tougaard.
The awards are presented by the British Fashion Council, which said in a statement announcing the nominees that the Model of the Year category “recognises the global impact of a model who, over the past 12 months, has dominated the industry, with an influence that transcends the catwalk.”
Although Consani is still at the beginning of her career, she has been modeling since 2015 and, at age 13, became the youngest transgender model to sign with a modeling agency, according to The Independent.
Model Alex Consani, 21, became the first openly transgender woman to be nominated for one of the top honours ahead of the 2024 Fashion Awards ceremony; pictured in March at the Oscars in Hollywood.
The British Fashion Council said in a statement announcing the nominees that the Model of the Year award “recognises the global impact of a model who, over the past 12 months, has dominated the industry, with an influence that transcends the catwalk”; photographed in September 2023 in Paris.
She later joined the prestigious IMG Models agency in 2019.
Though she noted that she had a positive upbringing in Marin County in California’s Bay Area, Consani told The Independent that it wasn’t until a visit to New York City to tour colleges that she felt she had truly found a “community” for trans people.
The blonde beauty continued to diversify her career in 2020 when she became a TikTok star under the username ‘captincroook’.
So far, his comically absurd videos have earned him an impressive three million followers on the social media platform.
Although Consani is the first woman nominated for model of the year who identifies as trans, she is technically the second transgender person overall.
In 2023, Kai-Isaiah Jamal, who came out as trans in 2014, was nominated for this honor.
Since then, they have refused to exist in the gender binary, according to the London Evening Standard newspaper.
Consani is also one of two openly LGBTQ+ models nominated in the category, as Mona Tougaard previously revealed she was “being part of the LGBTQ+ community” during a 2023 interview with Vogue Scandinavia.
Consani has been a model since 2015 and at age 13 became the youngest transgender model to sign with a modeling agency, according to The Independent; seen in May 2023 in Cap d’Antibes, France.
She is the second trans person to be nominated for Model of the Year, as Kai-Isaiah Jamal, who was nominated in 2023, came out as trans in 2014.
Consani is not only a sought-after model, but she is also a TikTok star. She posts hilarious and absurd videos under the username ‘captincroook’ and currently has three million followers.
Consani’s whirlwind career recently included walking around 20 shows for the fall/winter 2024 fashion season, according to Teen Vogue.
That season, she was courted by some of today’s biggest fashion houses and haute couture brands to walk their runways, including Marc Jacobs, Ferragamo, Mugler, Helmut Lang, Simone Rocha and Thom Browne, among others.
Other high-profile fashion houses she has walked for in the past include Alexander McQueen and Versace.
Then, in March of this year, she made her red carpet debut at the 2024 Oscars, cementing her expansion beyond the fashion industry.