Curated by international model and AURY Collective founder Anya Marcon, the new anthology brings together 22 women from fashion, film, media, business and culture to tell the stories that exist beyond the photograph.
By Peter Koloff
As New York Fashion Week got underway, models, creators and members of the city’s fashion community gathered at The Riff Raff Club at Virgin Hotels New York City for the launch of Model Life, the anthology curated by international model and AURY Collective founder Anya Marcon.
The evening functioned as a pre Fashion Week kickoff. It brought together established models, media personalities, creatives and industry insiders in a setting high above Manhattan.
The atmosphere was polished and unmistakably Fashion Week. But the book at the center of the evening was built around a quieter question: what happens when the person in the image gets to tell the story?
In an intimate conversation with guests, Marcon spoke about her own path as a model and the experiences that led her to create the book.
She did not focus only on campaigns, runways or the outward glamour of the industry. Instead, she returned to the fuller life behind the profession and the work of building an identity beyond what the public sees.
The Story Behind Model Life
Model Life gathers 22 women working across fashion, film, television, media, entrepreneurship and culture.
Each woman is given space to tell her own story.
Contributors include Yaya DaCosta, Eugenia Kuzmina, Skye Stracke, Eugena Washington, Zarina Yeva, Eva Sita, Riley Woodell, Michaela Vybohova and Anastasia Bogushevskaya.
Their careers place them in front of cameras and inside image driven industries. But the stories move well beyond appearance.
They explore ambition, reinvention, grief, motherhood, entrepreneurship and resilience.
Who Controls the Image?
The timing feels appropriate because fashion is an industry built around constructing images.
A photographer chooses the frame.
A stylist builds the character.
An editor decides what runs.
A brand helps shape the larger message.
The model often becomes the most visible person in that chain while having less control over what the final image says about her.
Model Life reverses that arrangement.
Here, the women are not simply subjects. They are the authors.
The room reflected that shift.
It was full of people whose careers are tied to visibility and presentation. Yet the evening became most interesting when the focus moved away from appearance and toward experience.
A Life Worth Modeling
The title carries the same double meaning.
On the cover, Model Life is defined first as “the life of a model.”
Then comes the second definition:
“A life worth modeling.”
That second definition is where the book opens up.
A life worth modeling does not require the right look or a major campaign.
It can mean building something after rejection.
It can mean becoming a mother, starting a business, surviving loss or finding an identity beyond the one others assigned you.
That raises a larger question about how we consume fashion imagery.
A photograph can create fantasy.
It can preserve a moment.
It can make someone iconic.
But it cannot hold an entire life.
Behind every image is a person carrying contradictions, ambitions and experiences the camera may never reach.
As Fashion Week began unfolding across New York, Model Life shifted the focus from the finished photograph to the women standing behind it.
Its message was simple: being visible has never been the same as being known.
