There is something quietly poetic about a young woman making her modelling debut on the very runway her mother once owned. But for Lily Brant, who walked in Alaïa's spring 2027 show during Paris Fashion Week, the moment was less about legacy and more about love — for a house, a designer, and a family history that goes back to childhood dinners in a hallowed Parisian atelier.
A Childhood Spent Among the Clothes
Brant, now a Ford Models signee and a film and business student at college in St. Louis, grew up in the orbit of the late Azzedine Alaïa through her mother, supermodel Stephanie Seymour, who was one of the designer's great muses. For the Brant children, his home — which doubled as studio and shop — was a place of wonder. While the adults sat down to dinner, Lily and her brothers would slip away to explore the rails of clothes.
"That was our kid time. My brothers would dress me up in the pieces and take photographs. I felt like a little doll."
At 13, Alaïa gifted her a little black dress of her own — one she still keeps to this day. "It's like a shirt on me now!" she laughs. She hopes to pass the pieces he gave her down to her own children one day. His warmth, she says, left a lasting impression: "He was always just the sweetest presence and had such a kind soul. He would always give me hugs, and he treated me like family."
From Intern to the Runway
The relationship with the house didn't end with those childhood memories. At 17 and 18, Brant spent two summers interning at Alaïa, moving between the PR department and the atelier — cutting fabrics, making material boards, helping with invitations and working backstage at shows. "Everyone there is so sweet and talented and genuine, and it feels like home," she tells Vogue.
Walking this season was, by her own reckoning, a full-circle moment. "I feel so lucky that I got to walk in the show, and that I got to work there, and that I just have this special connection," she says. Back in St. Louis, preparation was characteristically wholehearted: she practised her walk in the hallway and — on Seymour's recommendation — on a treadmill in heels, often borrowed from her mother's wardrobe. Once the family arrived in Paris, mother and daughter finally practised together.
Mermaid Energy and Maternal Wisdom
Seymour's advice was both practical and rather marvellous. She urged her daughter not to copy anyone too much, to find her own style, and above all to be confident. She also revealed her own secret weapon.
"She said sometimes when she would walk, she would channel whatever would help her feel confident — sometimes pretend she was a gazelle prancing around, or a mermaid."
Father Peter Brant, meanwhile, offered the more grounded counterpoint: don't get stressed, concentrate, and you'll do a great job. The Paris trip was something of a working family holiday — while Brant was occupied with castings and fittings, Peter Brant was preparing for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe horse race.=
A Calm Debut, a Bright Future
The day of the show itself was, by all accounts, notably serene. With a 3 p.m. call time, Brant slept until around 10, had breakfast, took a bath, applied face masks, and met friends for lunch before heading to the venue. "I just tried to take it easy," she says — a composure that speaks well of a young woman navigating one of fashion's most emotionally charged debuts.
For Lily Brant, the Alaïa runway was never simply about fashion. It was the culmination of a lifelong relationship with a house that treated her, quite literally, as one of its own.
