✎
✎
✎
✎
✎
Photos by Kaden Bard Dawson
02.28.2025
Rather than slowing down to sit for an interview, we caught up with her on the fly as she traveled here, there, and everywhere from castings → fittings → presentations → runways during New York Fashion Week.
This is no calm before the storm. It’s pre official-NYFW calendar season, but Riley is already running. Last night she closed the Twiggy More runway presentation and has spent the day at castings and fittings. We hop on FaceTime to learn more about how she got to this point in her career.
Q: Tell us about your origin story… your evolution as a model. Was this something you were seeking or did it find you?
A: A little bit of both. So when I first started out, it was really just like a heavy dose of delusion. I lived in a small town in North Carolina and I had people (who really didn't know anything about fashion) say “You're tall. Have you ever thought about modeling? You seem like you could do it.” And enough people said it to me [that] I was like, you know what, let me give this a go. So I decided to try my luck with an agency, and that went really well.
When I was around 17, I got started professionally. Before that, I dabbled in it just a little bit, but it was more like, a friend has a camera, let's shoot some fun photos kind of thing. But then later on in high school around my junior or senior year, it was like, let's go ahead and really let's do it. So I did that for a little while and I kind of was in and out of agencies and I had a lot of wiggle room to do a lot of collaborative work. I do feel like a lot of what's going on in the industry is very collaborative.
Then slowly but surely I decided I wanted to take it more seriously. So that was when I ventured into doing things that are a lot more high fashion editorial, doing things that are more geared towards a very specific branding, which I would say I've really tailored for myself.
I definitely consider myself on the darker side of editorial. Like it's funny, my agency recently told me I need to be less goth and I was like, girl, I don't know… but yeah, I definitely prefer for stuff to have an edge to it, but I want it to be palatable. So stuff that still reads as fashion for people who are not crazy immersed in the fashion community, it makes sense.
February 3, 2024. 12:00pm
It’s the final casting for downtown-NYC fav Jane Wade. Forget about office-siren aesthetics, Jane Wade has been crafting collections for those who actually WORK (WERK) since day one. Kaden, our Visual Director, has just loaned out their wired headphones to the styling team. The scene is a quiet storm akin to humming bees hard at work. It’s an intimate crew of seamstresses, designers, and stylists focused on finishing touches.
A: Well, it's interesting when you get with agencies, especially when you're young. For me, my agents would give me tidbits of information or advice like, “Here's what we think you should do,” and I would just really take it with a grain of salt. So, I would try to adhere to the rules of the game. But at the same time, I did kind of have a little bit of room to play around and figure out what it was that I actually enjoyed and the types of projects that I enjoyed working on.
When you're exclusive, it makes it a little bit more difficult to have like the wiggle room to try and experiment. But back in the day, a lot of my contracts were non-exclusive. So I really had the ability to just jump into different projects and see what I liked. I got really lucky in that regard, I would say, because I know for everybody, that's not the case. But it gave me the opportunity to try new things.
Riley is running through the streets of Bushwick/East Williamsburg. She’s wrapped the final fitting and is off to her next engagement. We keep pace and take a moment to breathe in the crisp February air scented by the recent, now-melted snowfall.
Q: What have you learned about yourself and how have you grown on the journey? You’re in this career that demands embodiment and demands confidence. So I'm curious, what has your self-growth journey been like?
A: When I was younger, when I was in high school… I was just kind of known as, you know, the thin girl who was the same height as the guys who played basketball. So I wasn't really super interested in what guys thought of me or anything like that. I was never really trying to impress anybody.
I feel like because of that I just developed [the ability to adapt]. I had groups of friends that I would float in between… like I had the girly girls that I would hang out with. Then I had the super tomboy friends. Then I had the band geeks, and the people who play sports, and just different athletes. So I feel like that gave me a lot of room to grow and learn like, okay, I can be this type of person who enjoys people from various walks of life.
So that carried over into fashion because you have people who are from all over the world, especially in New York City, you work with people who have very different backgrounds and different beliefs. The way that I was brought up really helped to set things in motion for the career that I currently have, which is, just being able to stay true to yourself and find ways to just pivot and lean into whatever art form you're working on in the moment.
I’ve learned a lot about my level of adaptability. I really do feel like you have to be that way to be in fashion. You also kind of have to be willing to change things about yourself at a moment's notice when you're doing a shoot or working on a specific project. But at the same time, you've got to be true to yourself, and you have to make it your own. So you have to figure out what works for the brand, the designer, and the project itself while still being true to what it is that you stand for and what it is that you do.
Our team is en route to the final fitting for Melke’s presentation.
Lily, our Editor and New York Den Mother notes: “As we hustle to meet Riley, Kaden gets slammed by an opening car door. He laughs and we keep walking – there’s no time to react.” Emma, the designer hailing originally from Minnesota, wants to bring Midwestern hospitality and warmth to the stone-cold coolness of the city. Her incoming collection for Melke will be shown as a presentation rather than a runway to similarly instill a sort of intimacy, comfort, and authenticity to the clothes. Contrasting the chaos of the hectic industry schedule this week, she wants to present the clothes with slowness and allow time to digest the collection.
- Emma Gage, Melke Designer
A: I think it's different for everybody, but I really think at the end of the day, and I sound like a broken record saying this, but just being genuinely kind to people and being genuinely interested in them and what they're doing. People get those vibes – like they understand when you're being genuine and when you're not. So I really just think at the end of the day, being genuinely nice to people and then really cultivating and curating a look for yourself. I like to consider myself a little bit of a chameleon. Like I do a lot of different looks, I do a lot of different things that maybe don't even necessarily have the same overlap other than myself being a common denominator.
So yeah, that's it: be really true to yourself, kind, genuine, those things will get you very far.