ODD IS HOT – MOLLY BAIR {FASHION/ARTIST TO WATCH}

Tall, thin, blonde: three stereotypical features that come to mind when the “Oh, you look like a model!” sentence is uttered; is this fault of the Supermodel status of sparkling princesses that walked every runway in the 90s, or just conditioning from the perfect pretty faces of Barbie dolls of our childhood?

If not sure what to pick, turn the page with a fascinating Claudia Schiffer blinking her eye in a Chanel haute couture dress and get a look of what’s on now that is turning the fashion world upside down: same hair color, slightly taller and a lot skinnier, Molly Bair from Pennsylvania is changing the beauty canons in a really sharp way.

Born in 1997 with a difficult past on her shoulder, Molly is now one of the most requested models in the fashion industry; even though during her childhood she has been frequently mocked by her school mates due to her strange appearance, now she walks fiercely on the catwalk, proud of what she is and still surprised by what the fate has set aside for her.

Bair was scouted in a flea market in New York and immediately signed with The Society Management, a branch of one of the most prestigious modeling agency, Elite. After just one week she was already walking the runway for Proenza Schouler SS15.

And this is just the beginning: Prada, Dior, Fendi, Gucci, Alexander Wang, Michael Kors, Narciso Rodriguez, DKNY, Gareth Pugh are just few of the names that wanted her to promote the brand and to walk on the catwalk; magazines like Vogue, Dazed & Confused, i-D, Vogue, Another, W, Love, Intermission proudly show Molly’s face in editorials. Her favorite collaboration has been with the haute couture brand par excellence Chanel and its creative director Karl Lagerfeld: she closed Spring 2015 Couture collection in a royal white wedding dress.

Molly Bair is definitely a non-conventional beauty: protruding ears, little face, defiant gaze and a very long and super-skinny body. Her features destabilizes the audience, her eyes sting and her pout bites; she embodies the features of the Baudelarian albatross: solemn and stunning in front of the camera, people point at her as “weird”, “alien” and “unusual” in everyday life. Nevertheless, she decided to embrace her “alien-rat-demon-goblin-gremlin sort of vibe” and not be afraid of how she looks.

It could be said that fashion and especially haute couture are changing direction to another level: fixed beauty canons from the past are gradually put aside in order to let the “different” triumph; original in terms of new and never seen before on one side, and with the meaning of unique personality on the other: models like Molly Bair, Winnie Harlow (she has a prominent form of the chronic skin condition vitiligo) or RJ Mitte (he has mild cerebral palsy, like the character he played in the famous TV series Breaking Bad) are changing the face of a long-life industry that has always dictated rules of what is cool or not, by highlighting their particularities rather than hiding them.

Article by Marina Lepori

Follow Molly Bair’s fashion adventures here: INSTAGRAM / PORTFOLIO / FACEBOOK