Body Count

Paloma Elsesser speaks in a voice that’s honey-soft. One that’s simply, perfectly matched to the deep, sultry gaze she projects from countless images. She’s a world-famous model with what some might call an unconventional origin story. She is also, in many ways, the everywoman. After spending her adolescence in Los Angeles, Elsesser attended college at New School in Manhattan, at first intending to become a writer. It was there she found (and later lost) her footing in the downtown party crowd. She eventually got her big break when Pat McGrath scouted her via social media. Now, here she is: a model of Chilean, Swiss, and African American descent with international covers, campaigns for the likes of Nike and Fenty Beauty, and, most recently, the first plus-size winner of the 2023 British Fashion Awards’ Model of the Year. When the 32-year-old says that her personality is “grating,” it’s hard to imagine anyone sharing that view. Perhaps she’s come to see herself in such a contrarian light in an industry wherein those like her, who deviate even slightly from a white, thin norm, are pushed into a box defined by their otherness. Her face lights up recounting her boyfriend’s description of her: tough.

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Ser Serpas, too, came up Los Angeles—albeit a different version of the city—and was called across the country by the same New York, blurry, glamorous, and nocturnal. The 28-year-old artist, who briefly worked in the fashion world at a time when trans identity such as her own was entering the public consciousness in a new way, now channels her fascination with editorial transformation and scene-setting into her multidisciplinary practice, as seen in this year’s Whitney Museum Biennial. Serpas’ sprawling installation, taken through back entrances..., 2024, takes over the institution’s lobby gallery. Its full title is a disjointed and rhythmic poem. Its contents an equally poetic composition of gritty discarded objects sourced from the streets of Brooklyn: a wire laundry cart upside-down on an exercise bench, a disco ball, a tattered sofa draped with a dusty American flag, a step-ladder pierced by pool cues.

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Both women have a prescient understanding of the charged, transformative nature of the stage: its history, its subtext. Its ability to subvert, amplify, and complicate long-held narratives around beauty, art, and identity. Through their respective practices, they each embody the pressure and the freedom that come with taking said platform and commanding it. Longtime acquaintances, the model and the artist can’t quite remember where they first met—sometime amid the frenetic haze of the late aughts or early ’10s before their respective careers took off—but they relish the opportunity to connect over that which nurtures them behind the scenes, from New York’s close-knit creative community to the routines and scents that ground them. — Rachel Summer Small

Ser Serpas: We’ve been around each other since I first moved to New York. What part of LA are you from again?

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Paloma Elsesser: I grew up in Mid-City, like Highland and Olympic. What about you?

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SS: I’m from East LA, near Roosevelt High School. I didn’t drive, so I wanted to get out as soon as possible.

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PE: I felt that same tension growing up there, a desire to get out. It wasn’t that I was disliked or unseen, but I definitely felt misunderstood and disconnected. I drove before I was allowed to drive. Then I started going to New York in the summer because my older sister lived here. In LA, I always felt I had to fight for people to understand what was going on.

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SS: I think if I had driven, it would have changed my experience of the city. But being tied to where I went to school and to public transit in LA warped my view of the city a bit.

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PE: We grew up in the same city but different LAs, I imagine.

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SS: There are so many different LAs. I first started coming to New York on trips for different nonprofits that I was working with. At that point, I already wanted to start going to the clubs.

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PE: Same! I was always a messy, turnt up girl. I didn’t grow up with any financial privilege, but I have a lot of privilege in that I went to private school. For me to exist in those spaces, I was always tinkering: Tinkering with how to get out, tinkering to be understood, tinkering to understand myself. I was always bartering with my environment. Then I felt this weird relief when I would go to New York. I felt like I didn’t have to barter so much. It just made more sense.

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SS: What was your first job in the city?

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PE: I worked at a T-shirt store, and then I went back to assisting. (I was a third-tier personal assistant in Los Angeles.) I worked at this weird little streetwear magazine, called Frank 151. Then I worked at La Esquina, and then Miss Lily’s. I was a troublesome girl. I was Evie Zamora in Thirteen. I was like that when I was in middle school and then high school, too. I was always the gnarliest, the baddest, like, I’ll show you how to steal your parents prescriptions and sneak out of the house and drive the car drunk, and all these horrible things. When I got to New York, I was finally with my contenders. These were my equals. There was so much beauty. I met so many of these kinds of fragmented, chaotic characters, which I’m really happy about, even though it was a dark time. A lot of them have passed away. But I also met Julia [Fox] and Richie [Shazam] and Briana [Andalore]. Nobody knows that I’ve known those girls for so long. I’ve been sober for 12-and-a-half years—I met them before that. But it was just trouble. My life was just to party. I used to live and lived to use. School, the money, the paranoia, everything became really small. My life was just centered around the night. There used to be a spot every night. Do you remember that era? It was, like, Don Hill’s and Westway.

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“When visibility overrides the purpose, which it often does, visibility is painful.”
— Paloma Elsesser

SS: Absolutely. That’s what I was seeing from afar before I moved and tried to throw myself into it. My first job in the city was as an assistant to Susanne Bartsch working at the Chelsea Hotel, and I was terrible. Hari [Nef] got me that job. I didn’t flunk out of it, but after a bit I was like, Whoa, okay. I love nightlife and was definitely very messy. But you have to put yourself around people who you both admire the tenacity of and want to have as much self-control as, but also who want to have the same level of fun. Also those spaces are where the creative life of the city is. You go through the phase of living for and with the party in your route to wanting to be around the cultural producers in town.

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PE: Obviously, it was dark internally, but it was still such a sacred time. I still feel protective of the nightlife in New York because in some ways it’s still what fortifies and inspires me. It was my first and foundational point of connection with the city and so many people who I love and treasure.

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SS: I admired you as a model from the beginning, from when you were first doing beauty campaigns to more editorial work. One of my first jobs after Susanne was at Milk Studios. Then I was working for Ian Bradley for a moment, and all my coworkers were fashion girls. I modeled for a bit. I still think about the way that I work in this way: I’m gathering and setting up editorial moments for this physical matter from this residue of being in front of the lens. I’m obsessed with physicality and what models do. I’ve heard you talk about being a muse. How do you think about this while you’re modeling on a job? What kind of modes do you go into?

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PE: I, too, am obsessed with physicality. It’s the evidence of connection. How does the body interact with the world? How do we interact with each other? What is an embrace of the mind? What is an embrace of the spirit? What is an embrace of art? I’m fascinated by bodies in general. What’s hard about fashion, as beautiful and expansive as it can be, is that it has a very limiting lens on people and personhood. Because it is a place of commerce. With art, there’s more permission to expand on the nuance of the person.
In the very specific modeling space, I act as kind of an agitator to a conversation that has always been precipitated by how fat-phobic the industry is and how racist it is. But I always struggle with being told, Well, you’re a body positive, hero-legend person. Of course, I believe in body positivity as a useful movement for people to not hate themselves. But I also speak consciously and openly—and I have throughout my career—about never explicitly allying with a one movement or idea or thing. My interest in expanding the idea of beauty and fashion isn’t just to sell a movement or to be like, I love myself every day. It’s actually about a display of how I live in the world. Like yours, my fascination with physicality, with identity, with connection, is about the ways that we can serve each other in different ways, forms of connection. Of course I care about diversity and inclusion in the modeling industry, but chiefly I care about people: what they do and why they do it. Our community in the New York fashion world is just deeply fab, wholeheartedly. There are all different body types, there are many different genders...

SS: It’s a fab meritocracy. I always have my fashion girls.

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PE: Because I’m a very sensitive person, I’ve historically felt inherently weak, or that I’m on thin ice all the time. My boyfriend’s always saying, “You’re tough.” Not, “You’re so strong,” or “You’re brave.” Just, “You’re tough.” I love hearing that. Because, fuck, I am tough. It is tough to exist, period. And then it’s definitely tough to exist in this body—that in the context of the world is beautiful, and acceptable, and very normal—in an industry that makes you feel like a leper. When visibility overrides the purpose, which it often does, visibility is painful. It’s a really difficult place. I used to be like, I’m too sensitive for this industry, but I’m actually tough.

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SS: What do you take with you when you travel, to center yourself? I know you have a spiritual life.

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“I'm fascinated by bodies in general. What's hard about fashion, as beautiful and expansive as it can be,
is that it has a very limiting lens on people and personhood.”
— Paloma Elsesser

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PE: I do. I’ve been sober for so long; I have to. I have a different spiritual life. It acts as an interruption to my own cyclical thinking—you know, you can’t cure your thinking with your thoughts. I often bring things with me that offer gentle interruptions: a book, my iPad. I need things that physically root me to where I’m at. A skincare routine that feels really familiar. I’m also really weird. I like to stay in the same room everywhere I go: at the Sunset Tower in LA, at Chateau Voltaire in Paris, and on the eighth floor of The Standard London, where the rooms have a little jacuzzi outside. I’m really specific because I travel so much, and I have to bring familiar things into a very unfamiliar context. Most people go to work and see the same people everyday. We see different people every single day, every time we engage with our work. What do you take with you when you travel?

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SS: I have a travel yoga mat. I need to have a physical practice when I travel. It starts my day off with a serotonin boost. I usually get books wherever I go. I have a giant perfume collection and rotate them per trip based on what kind of vibe I want to give off.

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PE: What are your top three of all time?

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SS: One is Magie Noire by Lancome. It smells like black magic. There’s this Japanese perfume called Neandertal that’s shaped like a flint rock. It’s dusty, metallic, and probably smells like what a flint rock smells like when you try to start a fire with it. Then there’s this really sexy one called Fumabat. It’s like sex in a bottle. It smells like a fireplace and some cigars and a hint of caramel.

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PE: Like a kind of smoked out, ember-y vibe?

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SS: Yeah, I like smelling like a sexy ashtray.

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PE: It’s funny because I love perfumes as well, and I have so many, but I only wear three. I actually quite like floral scents.

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SS: What are your three?

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PE: One is by Serge Lutens called Nuit de cellophane. One of my best friends is a really rich girl from the Palisades. Her mom would buy her all these fancy perfumes. I remember smelling it back then, and her being like, “Oh, you can have it.” I told her, “No, I’ll leave it here. And anytime I use it, I’ll use yours.” She still has the original bottle, which is very sweet. Once I got a couple of dollars I bought it for myself, and it’s still a very special scent to me. I feel like because I have a quite grating personality, I like to bring levity, or a floral, green note to my scent. I love Carnal Flower. And then J.Lo Glow. I’m obsessed. It has a necklace that says “J.Lo.” It’s iconic. I’m a collector. I just love things and not because I like junk—but I love the way that things manifest in people’s lives. I love ceramics and skincare and chairs. Textiles, pens, mustards, literally. Slippers, scarves, pajamas.

SS: I get really attached to most of the things that I find in other cities and work with. I didn’t keep that much for myself until I came back to New York. I moved places three times: Switzerland, and then I was in Tbilisi in Georgia for a bit, and then I was in Paris. There was definitely a lot I got attached to. I would say my favorite object right now is this funky candelabra I found. I’m a big candle person. I don’t light them all the time. I have a fire-extinguisher-hose type of thing that I could have used for a sculpture in another life, but now it has a candle on it.

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PE: What are the ways that objects are a part of your art practice?

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SS: They’re all worn-down, like teddy bears, because of the way people have used them. You can feel that people spent time with them. In a semi-romantic way, I attach people’s lived experiences with things that they have abandoned at some point. Then they’re flung on a stage and do this acrobatic-like contortion with another thing, and then suddenly they’re an art object, and there’s something to be looked at again. In terms of the person who has really influenced my taste: I want to be the trans-sexual Indiana Jones all the time. I love a distressed-leather dandy moment.

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PE: I’m really happy to have this chat with you. And I’m excited that you’re in New York. Now we need to have a summer saunter.

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SS: I would love that. Do you go to the beach out here?

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PE: I do. In general, I do love wholesome outdoor activities. I can pick you up, I have a car.

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SS: That’s all I need to hear.

Model PALOMA ELSESSER at IMG MODELS.
Hair Stylist RYAN MITCHELL at STREETERS.
Makeup Artist JANESSA PARÉ at STREETERS.
Manicure HONEY at EXPOSURE NY.
Contributing Photo Direction SARA MOROSI.
Photo Assistants PATRICK LYN and HENRY LOPEZ.
Digital Technician ZORAN JELENIC.
Fashion Assistant SEBASTIAN ACERO.