Model Casey Legler: Is She The Perfect Man?

Meet The First Woman To Be Signed As A Male Model
NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 12: Model Casey Legler prepares backstage at the Michael Bastian fall 2013 fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week on February 12, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 12: Model Casey Legler prepares backstage at the Michael Bastian fall 2013 fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week on February 12, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)

Casey Legler is standing, topless, by our rail of clothes, reading them like they're credits on a film. Some are "drag", some "boy". Some she'll wear if she wants to "serve you 'girl'", some she won't wear at all. As a child, all she wanted to do was sit by a swimming pool in a pink tutu, and read her difficult books. She moved a lot when she was younger, between Louisiana, Florida and Aix-en-Provence, and, noticing that the fashions (and prejudices) in France and America were completely different, Legler "learned early on," she tells me later, "that what you looked like wasn't necessarily who you were". People had "different armour. I realised things only mean what we want them to mean, and it's not appropriate information for differentiation. What you look like is just what you look like. Then there's... everything else."

Legler is 6ft 2in, 35 years old, and the first woman to sign exclusively as a male model. She is muscular and cheery, with the awkward swagger of a rock star. Her voice is soft and earnest, and when she talks, she holds unblinking eye contact. In front of the camera, edges appear. Spikes. She juts her chin; she becomes a boy.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot