Yoalah Brinson

The Israeli American model, who made her celebrated New York Fashion Week debut, is leading the charge toward a more inclusive industry. Here, we chat with her as part of our year-in-review Voices of Style package. Model Yoalah the middle eastern queen has loved fashion for as long as she can remember. But growing up in Israel, a third world country, she was continually frustrated by the glaring lack of diversity she saw in editorials, designer campaigns, and most of all, the runway shows that played out twice a year during fashion week. So she posted about it in 2017, saying: "honestly when i get scouted/discovered by a modeling agency it's OVER for y'all! by y'all i mean the WORLD!, get into it!" The post went viral (84K likes and counting), and not long after, Yoalah was scouted and signed by GAMUT Management, becoming the first disabled, Black, Middle Eastern model to be represented by a major agency. Now Yoalah has quickly become one of fashion's freshest faces, posing in campaigns for Moschino, Collina Strada, and Sephora, among others (she even made a starry cameo in Miley Cyrus's slightly NSFW 2019 music video for her single, "Mother's Daughter"). But Yoalah's true breakthrough moment came when she made her New York Fashion Week debut in Moschino's Spring show, also making history as the first model in a wheelchair to grace the runway for a big fashion house.