Selena Forrest: fashion's most exciting new trailblazer

Selena Forrest aces the #blessed and #woke tests.

At 18, the model of the moment has already spent two years walking runways for Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Proenza Schouler, starred in ad campaigns for DKNY, has more than 50,000 followers on Instagram and is being widely hailed as one of fashion’s most exciting new trailblazers. But it’s her #sass we fell in love with when we saw her owning the Fendi catwalk in Milan last season with a wink and a strut.

The teenager, who splits her downtime between a midtown apartment in New York and her family home in Los Angeles, has the infectious, laconic charm of a naturalised Californian: self-assured, post-label. ‘I’m more of a try-sexual. I’ll try anything twice,’ she says. ‘Technically I’d be called a bisexual, for instance, but I prefer women. I can see myself marrying a woman for the rest of my life, but I could not see myself marrying a man, no way. I don’t consider myself anything. I want everyone to feel like they can be themselves — unless they’re a serial killer.’

Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, Forrest grew up tough, driving quad bikes with her older brothers Robert, 25, and Anthony, 29, and learning how to shoot bows, arrows and shotguns with her dad, Robert, a former deep sea diver. Her little sister, Dakota, is 15. Her father broke up with her mum, Roxanne, who worked in oil refineries, before Forrest was six months old. Roxanne moved to California while Forrest remained with her dad.

‘I didn’t have to talk to my parents about coming out — my mum already knew,’ she says.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina forced them to flee across the country to California. ‘We had to get out of our neighbourhood. But it wasn’t like a tragic time. I was so you ng that it was fun — we were eating military-style rations that came with candy bars, so I was super happy about that.’

Things got worse before they got better. ‘In America it’s hard — my family fell on hard times, that’s what happened. It’s not about how I got there, it’s about how I got out of there,’ she says. ‘I was in a bad environment before I was blessed with my job. Before I started modelling I lived in a straight trap house — a place where people come and buy drugs and s*** like that. I tried to keep my mind right and have faith in myself and believe in myself.’

At 16, she was scouted while she was at Huntington Beach, California, with her cousins. ‘A security guard stopped us and took the [smuggled] alcohol, which was the downside,’ she recalls. ‘But at the same time there was a lady who came running out of a restaurant and said, “Have you ever thought of modelling?”’ At first, Forrest blew her off. ‘I was hesitant about it. But when I started seeing it was the real deal I started thinking about how can I make this into something that can set me up for life.’

The woman soon introduced Forrest to what would become her first agency. But there were further obstacles. To secure her first modelling job, she removed her own braces with a set of pliers after she was quoted $1,100 to have them taken out, and she still can’t get her head around heels. ‘I’m so used to sneakers,’ she says, preferring to spend her spare time skateboarding or playing basketball rather than working on her walk. ‘When I first started they wanted to put me in walking classes and s***. I was like, oh my God, this is not for me.’

But defying convention has become part of her brand. Opening Proenza Schouler’s spring 2016 show, she added a little victory jig after walking off the runway. ‘I don’t think we’re ever going to get that perfect model walk from me. Not being the norm — I guess that’s part of my thing.’

Despite a successful engagement with Instagram, she tries to steer clear of social media, acutely aware of the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data scandals gripping the States. ‘My dad taught and instilled in me to be private — he said from the get go, before this Facebook s***, that they’re listening to us through our phones,’ she explains. ‘I’m not surprised but it does make me wanna not have all that stuff. They’ve made us so comfortable with this digital, fake world. We’re so dependent on it. It’s just a way to control us and disengage us.

‘Right when we wake up, we’re on Instagram, right when we go to sleep, we’re on Instagram. The first thing I do when I wake up is roll a joint, at say, like, s***, 8.30am or 9am, then I stretch, meditate a bit, do some breathing exercises. Then I start my day from there.’ It seems to be working.

The only thing that worries her at the moment is that girls are ‘in way too much competition with each other’, she says, in modelling as in all walks of life. ‘At castings I make sure I go out and say good luck to everybody — they’re too scared to say that. There needs to be a lot less taking each other down. There’s definitely enough room for all of us at the top. I hope we all make it — I’m not in competition with anybody but my old self.’

Photographs By Carin Backoff Styled By Jenny Kennedy

Hair by Luke Chamberlain for Bumble and Bumble.

Make-up by Sil Bruinsma at Streeters using Herbivore Botanicals.

Fashion assistants: Eniola Dare, Camilla Stella and Connie Parkinson