Emily Ratajkowski – Sounding Off

Emily Ratajkowski is one of the most obsessed-over people on the internet, but she’s always had something to say. What will it take for people to really listen?

- Por Thessaly La Force. Photographs by Amy Troost

It is a rainy afternoon in New York's West Village when I see that Emily Ratajkowski is already waiting for me at a small outdoor cafe table at Buvette, the popular French-inspired bistro. She smiles and embraces me as if we are friends and not two strangers who have only just met. She is dressed in a loose brown T-shirt layered over a pair of printed flared jersey leggings. She had thought about what to wear today in a way I find deeply relatable. There was a top that matched these pants, but it was tight,” she says. I thought it was showing my body in a way, so I switched it out.” Women are always thinking of what our appearance is signaling, especially to other women.

No one would know this better than Ratajkowski.

Instantly, experience the effect her presence has on the world. After all, Ratajkowski’s image is everywhere: on social media where she has more than 29 million Instagram followers) and splashed across the internet, where her outfits and whereabouts are breathlessly chronicled. Buvette’s waiters are all beatifically smiling at us in a reverential manner I have never encountered before. Busy passersby do double takes, the expressions on their faces softening as they recognize who she is. Later, a young woman pulls out her phone to snap a photo of us, not even attempting discretion, and a pair of tourists from Mexico interrupt our lunch to ask her for selfies, a request Ratajkowski gamely indulges.