Mona Tougaard Always Finds the Light

After a season of closing runway shows, fronting covers, and stacking campaigns like Uno cards, Mona Tougaard has more than earned a summer respite. In a world where fashion shoots often mean hours of waiting in the cold for a 0.3-second shutter click, the New Super has done it all: swimming through desert sand, trekking glaciers in kitten heels (they could have at least given her some height), and yes, even sharing a boat with a lizard (presumably unpaid). “I’ll do whatever it takes to get the shot,” she quips, and she often does; for photographers like Steven Meisel, Mert & Marcus, Alasdair McLellan, and Rafael Pavarotti, who’ve captured her singular presence across billboards, bi-annuals, and everything in between. Yet for Tougaard, even the most surreal setups register as just another day at the office.

Enter the Danish-Somalian model’s latest assignment for Models.com, directed with satirical flair by Columbine Goldsmith. Here, Tougaard does what she does best: everything and nothing, with equal elegance. One moment, she’s soulfully gazing into the void in the latest Versace styled by Ronald Burton III; the next, she’s offering key modeling wisdom: “Move very slow… like this.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek ending to the wonderfully absurd cadence of the fashion season that was, with one of fashion’s most magnetic forces. Models.com linked with Tougaard at our new favorite uptown hub, The Surrey, to spotlight her surreal on-set anecdotes, her signature slow-motion modeling wisdom, and the subtle art of finding the light, even if it means braving the elements.