![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2020\/05\/Kian0201-web.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Suit and shirt \u2013 Sies Marjan<\/a> | Shoes – Geox<\/small><\/p>\n Photographer \u2013 Ben Lamberty<\/a> for Models.com Back in early March, three months\u2014and what feels like a lifetime\u2014ago, Krow Kian<\/a> strode down the runway at Louis Vuitton<\/a>\u2019s women\u2019s show dressed in a sharp checkered blazer and zip-up leather pants with one of the house\u2019s signature logo duffels under his arm, continuing a streak he has maintained over the course of five straight seasons since he made his d\u00e9but as an exclusive for Spring 2019. As the closing show of Paris Fashion Week, Louis Vuitton has staked a place as the last word of the full fashion cycle in recent seasons, but this show also served to mark the end of normalcy as we knew it, the final spin before we entered our new normal of lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing, now given way to an era of calls for reform, introspection, and racial justice. Back in Paris, Kian saw hints of what was the come but says he never imagined how quickly things would change. \u201cI had a feeling things might get serious, but I thought it would be more like the swine flu of 2012,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIn Paris, people were talking about Milan and people being sick, but we just went about our jobs as normal. By the end of Paris Fashion Week, we were all becoming more and more aware that something was different about this \u2018flu.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In some ways, it is fitting that Kian\u2019s last job for months was for Louis Vuitton, which first gave him his breakout moment back in 2018, when he was one of a handful of transgender male models to walk for the women\u2019s show, vaulting him into a rarefied category of high-fashion favorites that also includes Nathan Westling<\/a>, Casil McArthur<\/a>, and Finn Buchanan<\/a>. Kian\u2019s first turn for Louis Vuitton was also his return to modeling after his transition, a validation after his teenage years of modeling as a female after being scouted at a friend\u2019s birthday party at the age of twelve. His career since then has been marked by a series of highlights, including covers of L\u2019Uomo Vogue<\/a> and Dazed<\/a> as well as a Louis Vuitton campaign<\/a> by Collier Schorr<\/a>, but Kian admits he had not always planned to try modeling again, and only did so as an experiment of sorts for the documentary, Krow\u2019s TRANSformation,<\/em> which followed him on his journey and opened the Raindance Film Festival in London last fall. \u201cOriginally, I wasn\u2019t even thinking about it, but with the documentary, we thought, \u2018What would happen if we tried to see how I am as a transgender male and if I\u2019m going to be accepted in the industry?\u2019\u201d he explains. \u201c[My agent] Liz Bell<\/a> was interested, but she didn\u2019t know about the risk. Then Louis Vuitton came out and wanted to have specifically transgender models to walk the runway for their women\u2019s line and normalize that in the fashion industry, so she signed me right on the day that she met me because she saw I had what it takes and she truly believed that I could make it.\u201d<\/p>\n Left: Trench coat \u2013 Missoni<\/a> | Right: Jacket \u2013 Sies Marjan<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n Fashion likes to imagine itself as a progressive industry overflowing with idiosyncratic creatives propped up by their own individuality, but as recent events have shown, it is far from the utopia it likes to present. Fashion conglomerates, magazines, and international retailers are still overwhelmingly controlled by white, cisgender men and women and often have long histories filled with examples of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. From pioneers like April Ashley and Tracey Norman<\/a> to contemporary models-slash-actors Indya Moore<\/a>, Hari Nef<\/a>, and Hunter Schafer<\/a>, transgender women have fought to carve out a space for themselves for decades, and Kian says he\u2019s not surprised that it is only lately that transgender men are starting to catch up. \u201cIf you look at social media and you look at the number of transgender women versus transgender men that are open about being transgender, you see that there are significantly more women than there are men,\u201d he says. \u201cI think a lot of that can come from the fear of not being accepted as being enough of a man, whether it\u2019s a cultural thing or a personal thing. I think a lot of transgender men are afraid of taking that step and being proud of who they are, so hopefully, by me and other transgender models and celebrities stepping forward and being open about being transgender, we\u2019ll open that up for the rest of the people to be open about that and talk about it rather than pretending that nothing like that ever happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nStylist \u2013 Seppe Tirabassi<\/a>
\nDirector of photography \u2013 Bell Soto<\/a>
\nModel \u2013 Krow Kian<\/a>
\nGroomer \u2013 Riad Azar<\/a> | Photographer’s assistant \u2013 Michael Santos
\nMusic \u2013 “Stranger” written and performed by Jamie Wise<\/a>, produced by Mitchell Kulkin, cello by Brodie Johnson<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2020\/06\/Krowweb.jpg\")
<\/p>\n