Emily Ratajkowski knows that everyone is looking at her. Or maybe she doesn't, because she's never not being looked at. On Instagram, walking down the street or here, backstage at a New York Fashion Week show. All those eyes, desiring, judging, calculating.
As a model who rose to fame in the Instagram age, and wrote a bestselling book about what it was like, she has learned to deal with the collective gaze by turning inward. She stands at the back of a line of 34 other models, in position to close the Simkhai runway show in an oversize bedazzled blazer and combat boots. Photographers approach her, and she poses dutifully.
"Every angle is giving. Sickening. She's fierce," one says. She doesn't respond, just keeps offering different angles of her face to the camera. The other models, newer to the industry, gather in clusters, excitedly discussing the other brands they're walking for in the coming days. Ratajkowski exchanges pleasantries but doesn't join any of the conversations.
