We Speak Fashion
From Cybersecurity at Los Alamos to the Paris Runways: Lucia Richardson Breaks Out at Spring 2027
Lucia Richardson may have the most unusual résumé in fashion right now. The 23-year-old from Santa Fe was working in cybersecurity at Los Alamos National Laboratory when she was scouted — and this season, Vogue named her one of its nine Breakout Models of Spring 2027.
“My entry into fashion was anything but conventional,” Richardson told Vogue. “I was working in cybersecurity at Los Alamos National Laboratory when I was unexpectedly scouted in Santa Fe, and suddenly, everything changed.”
What changed, specifically, was her calendar. Her Spring 2027 season highlights, per Vogue, were Chloé, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Loewe, Khaite, Fendi and Valentino — seven major houses across the fashion capitals. Models.com’s Top Newcomers panel highlighted her Balenciaga appearance, and she also walked Valentino’s Spring 2027 show and Victoria Beckham’s Paris presentation. The fashion press back home noticed too: New Mexico Magazine flagged its hometown model citizen’s breakout for its readers this month.
Richardson’s rise was not entirely overnight. By July 2026 she was already being photographed in Paris during couture week street-style coverage, an early sign that casting directors and photographers were circling long before the Spring 2027 castings opened.
The depth of the season matters as much as the names on it. Seven Vogue-highlighted shows means seven separate casting teams, creative directors and design houses looked at a first-season model and put her on the runway — and her Valentino and Victoria Beckham appearances sat outside even that official highlight list. It is the booking pattern of a model the industry expects to keep, not a one-show novelty carried by an unusual backstory. Every season produces a breakout story, but Richardson’s is the rare one that starts in a national laboratory. From one of the most secure workplaces in America to the runways of Balenciaga and Chloé in a single leap — it is the kind of career change fashion will be retelling for years.
Kit Butler Fronts Karl Lagerfeld’s ‘From Paris With Love’ and MANGO Man’s Savile Row Story
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From Lagos to Six Major Runways: Nimota Daudu Named a Vogue Breakout Model of Spring 2027
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We Speak Fashion
Kit Butler Fronts Karl Lagerfeld’s ‘From Paris With Love’ and MANGO Man’s Savile Row Story
Kit Butler is having the kind of year that confirms a top model’s staying power. The British model fronts the menswear tailoring story of Karl Lagerfeld’s Fall Winter 2026 campaign, “From Paris With Love,” and leads MANGO Man’s Tailored by Richard James collection — two campaigns built entirely around his command of a suit.
For Karl Lagerfeld, Butler embodies the house’s menswear codes through sharp, traditional suiting, photographed by Matt Easton and styled by Isabelle Kountour. The campaign, which puts Paris Hilton front and center with Jon Kortajarena also in the cast, pairs Butler with NOT-KARL, a digital character nodding to the house’s founder, who appears as his companion inside a vintage television set.
At MANGO Man, Butler carried the Tailored by Richard James collection — the Savile Row tailor’s collaboration with the menswear line — through a campaign shot across London’s cobblestones and Georgian terraces. The collection leans into earth tones: tobacco brown suits cut close to the body, houndstooth blazers in warm camel, and a double-breasted standout in stone.
It is familiar territory for Butler, who was scouted while helping his uncle build an aerodrome and made his debut opening Stuart Vevers’ Coach menswear show in London. Represented by Next London, his mother agency, along with Soul Artist Management in New York, Bananas Models in Paris and Fashion Model Management in Milan, he holds a place in Models.com’s Icons and Top 50 rankings and a spot in the BoF 500.
The campaign run builds on recent seasons that included Dolce & Gabbana’s Fall Winter 2025 campaign, photographed by Steven Meisel. The Business of Fashion, which counts Butler in its BoF 500 index of the people shaping the industry, describes a model who gave up a typical high-school existence playing rugby to become a favorite for heritage houses like Burberry. Add a VMAN 56 cover photographed by Luigi & Iango earlier this year, and Butler’s 2026 underlines why heritage houses keep calling: nobody on the current menswear board wears a suit quite like him.
Ten Years With Gucci: Alton Mason Takes VMAN Behind the Scenes at the Spring 2027 Milan Show
From Cybersecurity at Los Alamos to the Paris Runways: Lucia Richardson Breaks Out at Spring 2027Esther Kim’s Spring 2027 Sweep: Seoul Model Lands Prada, Celine, Calvin Klein and SchiaparelliFrom Lagos to Six Major Runways: Nimota Daudu Named a Vogue Breakout Model of Spring 2027007 First Light Passes 7 Million Wishlists and Celebrates With Jack the BulldogEscape the Backrooms Announces the After Party, Three New Levels Coming This DecemberPlanet Zoo 2 Opens Its Gates With Aquariums, Aviaries and Wildlife ReservesJagex Partners With Games by Malcs to Publish Melvor Idle 2: A RuneScape Adventure-
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