March 2026 - Fashion Week Aftermath

Fashion arrives exactly when it wants, sometimes early, mostly late, and never waits for you to be ready. It demands that you are born ready. There is no winning or losing in fashion, it follows momentum. One minute you are out, the next you are in, and nothing about you changed except their willingness to see you. Somewhere in between those moments is where I feel most present. The moment when I am alone with my body again. 

Here is what no one tells you about Fashion Week: it exists in parallel with everything else. While I was attending shows, taking pictures, dancing at parties, my phone was a war feed. I felt like I was in a room full of people all alone together. And I thought: this is also a reflection of the world. Fashion was always my escape... When I was really young, I would watch Fashion TV over and over again, imagining myself inside that world. But growing older, I understand now that sometimes I fight hard for nothing until suddenly I am fighting for everything. I kept my attitude positive not because I am naive, but because positivity is strategic, if you know what I mean. 

Anyway, Milan first, then Paris, and the panic of trying to be in four places at once, skipping meals, not calling my mum, responding to everyone, sums it all up. Fashion Week is glamorous, but the truth is that it’s also incredibly strange. I, who once had to memorize the French civil code, am impressed by its complexity. And observing all of it reminds me why I love fashion in the first place. 

I came into this industry by accident. I was dreaming of a pay check that would let me live a little lavishly while I figured out my next move, stuck at a desk job from home in Toronto, away from my homeland, where nobody could see me or my outfits. Modeling suddenly appeared in my life and seemed like a turning point. And it was.. not exactly the way I thought it would be. It looked simple. And my mind has a way of making everything look possible, so of course, I pursued it, until it took most of the space in my life. It is so addictive. But that's love. It enters your life unexpectedly. You keep adjusting until it adjusts back to you, and it did. 

Being somewhere between those two worlds, not a celebrity, but also not completely invisible, gives you a certain je ne sais quoi of perspective. You see the system from both sides. I’m a model, which means I was initially running to hundreds of castings, hoping to be chosen for the runway, knowing that sometimes a single walk can change everything. Or absolutely nothing. They ended up all being Nos for me. But I ended up attending shows instead - my first invitation to the Burberry Winter 2025 show in London. After that, things escalated. One invitation became another. Another became ten. Now, I can say, I have almost been to every show. Almost. I am proud. I am so proud. And that sentence means more to me, because "almost" is the space where I used to live. 

Fashion is a reflection of the world. It reflects the chaos. It reflects the hierarchies. It reflects who gets seen and who gets ignored. But it also reflects something else: the audacity of showing up anyway. Which I did. I showed up to castings when I knew I didn't necessarily fit the traditional measurements and I showed up to shows when my phone was a war feed back home. I will show up to the next thing, whatever it is, because I have learned that this is the only way to exist in a world of contrasts. 

The teams I have dealt with during fashion week were also just wonderful. The Maisons that welcomed me did so with generosity and respect, and those things matter more than anything else. In an industry that moves so quickly, those gestures never go unnoticed. Because without those, it’s impossible to build real relationships. 

This season also felt like a breath of fresh air. I love when fashion gets rebellious, but also sometimes grace can feel like a force on its own. For a while, it almost seemed like beauty had become something forbidden. As if loving beautiful clothes, beautiful details, beautiful silhouettes was somehow outdated. But this season felt different. There was something unmistakably nostalgic in the air, silhouettes that carried echoes of the 70s and the 90s, but interpreted in a way that felt modern rather than sentimental. It felt as if fashion was remembering itself. There was a return to elegance, to sensuality, to craftsmanship, to the idea that fashion can still be about making the world a little more beautiful.

I watch the clothes, because I genuinely love them, because I know how hard they were to make. I love every detail, I love how many hours, and how many hands, went into making something beautiful. I love the months of work, dreams, emotions, and obsession behind a collection. I watch it all with a certain detachment, because I know this is not the real world. We live in contrasts. We always have. But Fashion will remain a place where I can dream. 

Romy N