The Girl Who Stole Shoes at Dinner Parties

She says she discovered fashion at age three: at a dinner party, she stole shoes from the guests and staged an impromptu runway show across the living room floor. That’s either an origin story or just an entirely normal Pasadena childhood, possibly both.

Joanie Del Santo has been modeling since she was seventeen and works as a stylist—a career that developed, she says, because friends kept asking her to help with their own wardrobes, one thing leading to another in the way real careers actually happen. Photographer James Drew shot her for C-Heads, and the images have that Southern California quality where everything looks effortless but is obviously considered.

What interests me more than the modeling is everything adjacent to it. She runs her own vintage store, Saint Liberata—the first project that’s really entirely mine—and her grandfather models on the site, which is genuinely charming in a way no PR team would have invented. She’s also a committed anime nerd, deep into Japanese culture, who cosplays regularly despite her friends’ loud objections. That last detail is the one I keep turning over. Someone this invested in developing her own visual identity choosing to spend her free time wearing someone else’s entirely—and doing it sincerely, not as a bit.

I’m a little bit in love with her, honestly.