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Paloma Elsesser    

Plus Sized Model & Body Positivity Activist

After being discovered by Pat McGrath to front her first beauty line, plus-size model Paloma Elsesser has become an outspoken voice for plus-size models through her vast Instagram following, fronting campaigns for Fenty Beauty, Glossier and Nike, and appearing in editorials for Allure, Elle and Teen Vogue.

Born in North London, to an African-American mother and a father of Chilean-Swiss descent, Elsesser then grew up in Los Angeles and attended private school. She moved to New York to attend The New School for psychology and literature, and waitressed at Jamaican restaurant Miss Lily’s. Her large social media following caught the eye of Pat McGrath, who tapped her to star in the launch of her namesake beauty line.

Elsesser has since appeared in advertising campaigns for Fenty Beauty, Glossier, Nike, ASOS and H&M, and walked the runway for the likes of Eckhaus Latta at New York Fashion Week. She scored the cover of Vogue Arabia alongside Ashley Graham, and the cover of British Vogue with Vittoria Ceretti, Halima Aden and Adut Akech. Elsesser’s Instagram following has resulted in an engaged audience that follow her life in New York. “The general commentary and discourse is about how the work that I do aids them, whether it be getting dressed or feeling better in their body and who they are, whether it be skin color, race, size, so I just want them to feel a part of my day in some way,” she told W Magazine about her Instagram account.

In March 2019, the CFDA announced that Elsesser would be joining the selection committee for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award. She is represented by IMG Models.

News


How model and social justice advocate Paloma Elsesser found her voice in an industry that, for a long time, didn't have a place for people like her.
“I've been thinking about the idea of utopia,” Paloma Elsesser says. “Not what it looks like, but what it feels like.” The model and designer is Zooming with me from her apartment in Manhattan's Chinatown, her warmth radiating through the computer screen, and she's envisioning what could come out of fashion's reckoning with its legacy of bias and racism.
Paloma Elsesser on Being "Plus-Size," "Not Black Enough," and Pat McGrath's Instagram Muse
Paloma Elsesser will introduce herself to you as a plus-size model. "That's my profession—how I support myself—but I don't want that to always be part of my description. My story is different," she tells us in her (seriously cute) New York City apartment. It's true: She's the exact opposite of a stereotypical model.
How Paloma Elsesser Is Changing Fashion for the Better
On paper, the idea of fashion insiders hitting up the local pumpkin patch seems utterly absurd, but on a chilly weekend in October, Paloma Elsesser and her friends find themselves amid an expanse of Dutchess County farmland nestled deep in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, the stuff of grade school field trips and pastoral postcards. The birthday celebrations for Elsesser’s friend Camille Okhio, a Nigerian American writer and fine- and decorative-arts historian, are in full swing.
See Model Paloma Elsesser's Vogue Cover and Read Her Quotes ...
Paloma Elsesser is the third of Vogue's four January 2021 cover stars. The curve model posed in gorgeous gowns for the cover story, which was shot by famed ...
Paloma Elsesser Is on the TIME100 Next 2021 List | TIME
It's easy to lose yourself in the fashion industry if you don't have a sense of who you are. But Paloma Elsesser knows who she is.

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