Alex the GREAT

ALEX CONSANI was a bored TEENAGER in the suburbs during Covid, making TIKTOK VIDEOS to KEEP herself AMUSED. NOW she is ONE of the WORLD’S most FAMOUS SUPERMODELS, trying her hand at ACTING, moving into her BIG-GIRL HOME, and entering her “EXPERIMENTAL ERA.”

- LYNETTE NYLANDER

It’s a cloudless spring Saturday in Brooklyn, and I am texting Alex Consani to find a spot to meet.

We had planned to meet at a restaurant in Fort Greene, her new neighborhood (she just moved into a brownstone there), but she’s had a change of heart. She suggests a social-enterprise coffee shop called Peace Cafe, tucked away on an unassuming thoroughfare in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where she is tight with the owner and keen to visit, as she used to live nearby. “It’s owned by a really cute woman who turned the space into a coffee shop with community events,” Consani says. It’s closed, so we pivot again. “I need to drop my bike off to get fixed. Can we meet at Brooklyn Ball Factory?” It’s a neighborhood Japanese café, the sort that only the ones who know know about, on an otherwise sleepy street where Williamsburg meets Bushwick.

Consani’s entrance says a star has arrived. A black Suburban SUV pulls up to the café, and a driver opens the door. She pops out, hair pulled back in a chignon, Gentle Monster sunglasses capping off her supermodel-cum-It-girl air. Her limbs and eyes jostle for attention (incredibly long and piercingly blue, respectively). She offers a warm embrace before apologizing for the change in plans. Gesturing to the car, I ask if this is the usual way things go, now that she’s a supermodel. “I just have him because I had a job,” she says. “My bike that I need to get repaired is in the back! Girl, I am not that fancy!”

“Oooooohhhh, you fancy!” says Consani, eyeing my bag (a hard-earned Chanel, afforded only after months of saving) as we walk toward the counter to place our orders. “I tried to get some of Matthieu’s shoes. I thought they were on hold in Paris, but they said no,” she says, laughing. It’s somewhat comforting to know that even the model in the Chanel show can’t skip the lines at Rue Cambon.