Pink Hair Don’t Care: Fernanda Ly Is Fashion’s Fresh Face
Whenever you hear about how a supermodel got their break, it usually involves a Cinderella-esq story of a scout approaching an unsuspecting beauty at an airport, or similar. Fernanda Ly’s story begins with the surprise “you could be a model!” moment (at a mall in Australia, while shopping with her mum) but that’s pretty much where the typical narrative splits.
At five foot eight inches (comparatively on the petite side, for a supermodel), with long pink locks and a look all of her own, Fernanda was an art-loving Honours student on her way uni, until the day she was approached, and almost reluctantly agreed to give it a go: “I was like, this sounds nice, I’m just going to send in my photos and see”, she said. After walking in just one show, and despite the fact that she had little social media following to speak of (2015’s modelling pre-requisite to success, aka Kendall and Gigi) she booked her first Vogue cover.
Despite quickly firing up the fashion scene in Australia, Fernanda was still set on going to university, until the gigs kept rolling in and the zeitgeist came calling, in the shape of casting director Ashely Brokaw, who loved the fact that Fernanda just didn’t look like anyone else. Spurred on by this acknowledgement, she deferred uni, embarking on an international array of shoots and shows; walking for Nicolas Ghesquiere at Louis Vuitton (during FW15) and taking her own brand of pink-POW! personal style, to Vogue Italia, i-D, Love magazine, among many others.
In a year where there’s been much discussion about the lack of equal representation (of models) from different backgrounds in the industry, if Fernanda’s trajectory continues at the same pace, she’ll become the only non-white model from Australia to be an international success; dope style from down under, and we’re diggin’ it!
FERNANDA LY on the net: INSTAGRAM
PHOTOGRAPHY: Daniel Jackson
STYLING: Beth Fenton
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