The List That Keeps Growing

Three names before Tom Nicon: Daul Kim, Alexander McQueen, Isabella Blow. A sequence that shouldn’t exist, keeps adding entries anyway.

Nicon was found dead outside his Milan apartment on a Friday morning—twenty-two years old, fallen from a window, in town for Fashion Week, which opened that same day. Whether he jumped or fell, no one could say for certain. Whether the distinction changes anything is a different question.

A fellow model said what most people inside that world already know: People think we are young and beautiful and rich and happy. But we’re not. We go to castings and directors take one look at us and then we’re dismissed. You spend your whole life wondering what’s wrong with you. Why didn’t I get that job? You’re competing with your friends, you’re away from your family. The pressure is immense. It’s not the fairytale life people would expect.

That quote lands harder than any industry statement. Fashion sells aspiration at industrial scale while running on the anxiety and exhaustion of people who can barely afford to be in the cities it sends them to. The gap between what the clothes represent and what the models experience is where something keeps breaking.

The conversation about the industry’s cost flares up every time another name gets added to the list, then fades before the next show. Shows go on. Tom Nicon was twenty-two and supposed to be at a runway that morning. My condolences to his family and friends.