Breaking Boundaries with Koi King

October 18, 2022

In the fashion industry today, transparency is emphasized and authenticity and representation are vital. So many times we’ve seen ads highlight and showcase the old, same old, same old, yet we are currently living in an age where that just isn’t cutting it anymore. So who do we turn to when making that change? We look to industry trailblazers who are leading the way and opening up spaces for diversification and accurate representation. And that’s where we turn to and chat with model, chef, and musician Koi King who is doing their part in changing the script.

Having been scouted during the BLM protests in 2020, King is more than just the labels that the industry likes to box people into. They are all of the beautiful intricacies and intersectionalities of what makes a person authentic and real. office had the opportunity to talk to the multifaceted creative about how they get started on their modeling journey, what representation looks like, and what makes them, them.

Interview by Cassie Jekanoski
Photographer: Chiemeka Offor
Stylists: Ife Ibraheem and Grace Miskovsky
Makeup: Aliyah Abeni-Taylor

Continue reading for an exclusive interview below.

How are you doing today?

I'm doing pretty well. I'm actually getting ready because after this, I'm gonna go to boxing class. It's cool. I mean, I'm in a pretty good mood and I feel like I've been biking more often. So I feel like my moods just been improving from biking. So it's a good morning.

Yeah, I feel like that's the best part about New York is just being able to bike everywhere.

Yeah, it saves so much time.

Talk to me about how you got started modeling. How was it in the beginning of your journey?

I feel like, since I was in high school, everyone was like, "Koi, you should model." And I thought about it once I graduated, but the track I was on was that I was a chef. So I was more focused on being in the restaurant, cooking food, and learning about stuff like that. Then when I moved back to New York, like 2019, I was like, "You know what, maybe I should do this." So I started freelancing. It was very low key just because I was still working in restaurants six days a week. 2020 I was out protesting and that's how Liv scouted me. She was like, "Hey, are you represented?" And I was like, "No, not really, but I freelance." And then she was like, "Well, do you want to be represented?" And I was like, "Yeah, I'm down." Because of the pandemic I had stopped working in restaurants, and I was trying to figure out what my next move was gonna be. I ended up booking my first job with Diesel which was really cool. I ended up meeting with One Management in the office and I was hella nervous because it's a huge agency. I was really nervous because one, I knew that for the industry, I'm short. And the other thing that I was more concerned about was being non-binary and how they would represent me. And also me being disabled, and how they would represent me in the best way for all these intersectionalities. But so far, it's been a wild ride, and I'm learning so much of the industry and just how I want to present myself to the world. I'm just glad that I have Liv and my agents at One. So it's been a pretty interesting ride so far.

I feel like everything sort of aligned for you, and got you to where you are today. Just in recent years, I feel like the industry has grown and progressed a lot, however, there are still things that need to be done. How would you like to see the modeling industry continue to change?

Well, everyone uses catchphrases, like, "Oh, you know, we're inclusive," but when I look at agency rosters, with their inclusivity, I don't see it. It's one thing to go out into the public and be like, "We're inclusive, we're trying to make changes," but you're not hiring models that are also following that need for change. We see it a lot, especially in this industry, where it's a trend to be inclusive. It's a trend to be the one person that's including everyone when it shouldn't be a trend. We're humans, we're not meant to all be the same. So when you're telling me that you're inclusive, but I see no non-binary models on your roster, I see no disabled models on your roster, and most of your models are white, it's not giving.

How would you say that MultiiMedia and One back you and see you for who you are?

I think it's really important for models to really vibe with their agents, and really let them know what it is they need from them. Because one of my first conversations with Liv was, "Yeah, you're gonna represent me as a model, but I'm a human that does so many other things. And that's not the only thing I want you to push for me, especially when you're talking to other people, because I'm still a chef at heart." I still cook when I need to, I make music, and I make art. When it comes to One, my biggest thing with them was really advocating for me, especially before I even get into the room. One I'm non-binary-- that's my biggest thing. I'm disabled and of course, a lot of the times when people look at me right off the bat, they can't tell. That's the thing with invisible disabilities is that unless people are really paying attention, they can't really tell that I am. When I go into these castings, I tell my agents at One, "Did you let them know before I go in?" I think that's my biggest thing that I've taken from both my agents is them just being like,"Just go in there and be yourself." And if they don't hype you for being yourself, then fuck it. Either way, you're gonna continue to do what you need to do, as long as you're doing it as yourself.

In one of your Instagram posts, you made the comment saying, "My very existence breaks boundaries." Can you elaborate on that?

Because of all my intersectionalities, being a black, non-binary person from the Caribbean. That shaped my whole life and just having a lens on life that I think a lot of people didn't have. I say that my existence is, in itself, a protest. Because if the times were different, I definitely wouldn't be alive. I think I think about that every day, especially with the laws changing, and our rights being taken away. I think about it every single day, because I know that there are people in the world that wouldn't, to this day, want someone like me to exist. I want to show other people that they too, can be themselves wholeheartedly, and still be fine. When I go out into the world, I keep that at the forefront of my mind, because I know that it's true. I know that if the laws were to change a lot of people would be against my existence.

Would you say that you use modeling as a vessel to leave your mark and to tell your story?

Yeah, it definitely is one of them. So when I'm on set, I try to articulate that as much as I can. So those conversations can be had and people keep certain things at the forefront of their mind when they're on set with other people who may look like me. I also do it through my art, and through my music, because I feel like my whole purpose is to create. And in that sense, I get to create things that might help someone else, while also sort of putting out what I need the world to see for myself. So it's kind of like a win-win situation.

Has there been a favorite campaign of yours where you felt your most authentic self?

Yes, the Marc Jacobs campaign I did for the Perfect Fragrance came out last month. From beginning to end, I think that was one of my favorite campaigns I've done just because of how they coordinated it and the fact that they really let everyone be themselves on set. We got to pick out exactly what we would wear on a regular basis, how we wanted our makeup to be done, and our hair. Also just the kind of questions we were asked. I feel like being on that set and doing that project was one of my favorites. One because, it was based around my queerness, which isn't something that I get to talk about within the campaign universe. It's like, "Oh, you're queer, cool." But that campaign I feel like they took their time to be like, "Okay, what is it that you as a queer person like? What changes do you want to see and how do you feel like you're represented? How do you think that your existence is perfect?" And I know a lot of people hear the word perfect, and they're like, nobody's perfect, but it's like perfect in your own self.

It's nice when you're on set to be seen as you versus just as the figure that is pushing a product. Because at the end of the day, we're all people we have our stories to tell.

For sure. It's just like, yeah, it's a model with a pretty face who's selling you a product, but it's a human with life experiences with things that they like to do.

When do you feel your most beautiful?

This might be chaotic, but honestly when I'm in the middle of a breakdown, because I feel like that's when I have the most important realizations about what I'm trying to do. And understanding why I'm in the middle of a breakdown. I think for me, it's beautiful, because I'm someone who has DID, so a lot of the time my alters and I are always going back and forth on decisions and things we want to do and choices we have to make. So when I'm in those moments of chaos and I feel like I'm crashing, I take a moment to really see the beauty and the fact that I'm only thinking that I'm crashing, because I want things a certain way. That's when I take the time to be like "Hey, Koi, you've done so much, you've come such a long way, and you're gonna continue to do so much. This little thing that's bothering you right now is not that big of a deal." I think that's when I feel most beautiful because I'm making space for myself to feel okay. Even in the moments where I know I don't, I'm still giving myself that space and I'm still giving myself that love. I feel like it's easy to love other people especially when they're having a hard time, but to love yourself, when you know that you're not really in the right space of mind, or you're not really having the energy to do a lot is when I feel my most beautiful.

You kind of talked too a little bit about your other interests and passions, like being a chef, art, and music. Can you talk a bit more about what those look like?

I feel like all of them are connected or come back around at some point. For my modeling, I feel like my art comes out in that way. Whenever I model I think about the silhouettes and the shapes I'm making. When I'm painting, I'm truly connecting it to everything in my life because sometimes when I paint, I never usually have a full idea of what I'm painting. I just let my mind be like "Here's a brush, here's the paint, here's the canvas." So by the end of the painting, I usually realize that I'm talking about stuff in my paintings that I've been thinking about what's going on around me. Now when it comes to my music, it all relates back to experiences I've written about. I think that because I'm so centered around all of the things I like to do, they all come back to each other. So even sometimes when I'm cooking with my friends or just making family dinner, I'll have some idea for a song and I'm like, "Oh shit, hold on, I need to write this down!"

If you could describe Koi in three words, what would they be?

I'd say unpredictable, student, and light.

I like that you chose “student” because I feel like we're always learning and we're always growing.

And that's why I say that because I'm a student of life. I feel like no matter how old I get, they're still going to be things that I don't know that I'm learning. And I think that people sort of overlook that part of life where it's like, you don't know everything. We don't know everything and we're never going to be able to know everything. So just learn what you can learn and listen to what you don't know. I say light because I feel like that's my main thing that I try to do. Wherever I go, I just try to bring light to people, because I feel like I know what it's like to not have light around you, and feel like everything is dark. So I try my best to just help people see that.

And then unpredictable…

Unpredictable, because I never know what I'm going to do. People always inquire, and I'm like, I won't know until it's happening. So you can never predict what's going to happen.

If you could tell your younger self something with everything you know now, what would you tell them?

Stop worrying. I think as a kid, I was riddled with anxiety about life. And it's weird to think about it and say that now because I was always the kid that had all the questions-- I had so many questions and the burning need to know the answers to them. I was just worried about what I would do with my life especially when I figured out that I was queer. I was stressed because I come from a religious Rastafarin family. So I think I'd just tell younger Koi to chill out and really enjoy being a kid. Because I feel like when you're a child, you don't really realize that that's the only time you'll get to be a child. I think it's important for us to recognize, especially as adults, that when we do eventually have kids that we don't make the same mistakes.

Is there anything else that you would like to add?

I think the only thing I'd want to say is for people to really start paying attention to what they say, and how they put it out into the world, especially with what's happening right now. It might seem like everything is chaotic. But it's really important for us to find community and ground ourselves in community and within each other. Because at the end of the day we need each other. We need human connection and I think that's the strongest thing that we have as humans is our connection to each other. So I think that now more than ever, it's important for us to continue to do that.

Fashion

Happy 424 Day!

Simon Rasmussen — What's going on?

Guillermo Andrade — Right now we're just setting everything up.

So, what are you doing, is it a party?

Well, I kind of felt universally forced, right? Because 4/24/24, I was just like, I don’t really have a choice here. The stars also just kind of aligned, so to be honest, I got this settlement that came with a bunch of clothes so I had this idea to give back to the kids who fuck with us by allowing them to buy our shit first. Not handing stuff out for free, but to do it in a way where we could skip the middleman of the industry, so to speak, and not allow clothes to disappear into the abyss of Farfetch or whatever else. So what we’re going to do is a sort of warehouse sale, which we’ve never done before so that was really exciting for me. I didn’t want to do just another warehouse sale, so it’s like a sample sale turns rager. We teamed up with Adidas and a couple of other sponsors, then drinks, DJs, and a performance.

Sick, I love it.

Yeah. My dream sample sale. Also, it’s not just hoodies and t-shirts here in there, it’s proper collections from the past three seasons. I’m also not picking and choosing, trying to make it accessible, like this was the only way I could afford to buy shit when I was a kid, bro. Sample sales were the thing I looked forward to the most.

I feel you. In New York, there's the annual CDG sale, which is when I used to cop all my CDG.

The only time I could afford Rick. I flew to New York once for a Rick sample sale and I was like, Wow, I can't believe I got invited. And it was mental. I still have those pieces. I will never sell them. Not even because I got 'em cheap. It was also just really fun. Even on the flight to New York, I was like, I can't believe I'm going to New York for a sample sale, what a fucking loser I am. But it was like the adult version of when I was a kid and I was like, Wow, I can't believe I'm 20-something and I'm still doing the thing I was doing in high school. So I hope we can create moments like that for kids here in LA.

Yeah. I love that. It’s important to connect with them; they’re essentially creating the brand. If you don't have them, good luck.

I mean, yeah. Fuck, bro. It's cool that we've been around for this long. I mean, it got a little rocky there for a second I think, for all of us. So coming out of it, tomorrow is a celebration. And it’s like an odd day of the week. It's a Wednesday, super random. And now that we've set it up, the homies are all like, Yo, I'm coming. I'm coming. Let me jump on stage, let me do this, and that's really what it's always been about. It's not some other strategy to get likes on the internet.

That’s how the best things happen, you just couldn’t help yourself. It was intuitive.

Yeah, it all came together in a really nice way.

Would you say that’s how 424 started as well? I remember we met in like 2010 on Fairfax and I was visiting with Rasmus…

Oh bro, it’s probably the time when I started the branch… do you remember Cecilia from Black Dakini? She’s the one that introduced me to CIFF and honestly, I didn’t even care what she was doing, I was just like, I’m coming, I’ll go with you. She said she’d give me half of her booth and I said, Awesome count me in. At the time, I had just gotten my green card and I wasn't allowed to ever leave America, so Copenhagen was one of the first cities I went to when I could finally travel. I mean, you see what we did at CIFF bro? It became our fucking hub for half a decade.

That was a moment for sure.

I remember the first account I got was Antonioli, and he came super gangster, being like, You're going to sell me these clothes. And I was like, bro, I didn't come to sell clothes. I'm just kind of catching a vibe with my homie and I made these things. And he's like, No, you're going to sell it to me. And then I was like, Oh my god that’s Claudio Antonioli. So then I went home, I googled wholesale, and figured that shit out. [laughs]

[Laughs]

Like you said, I couldn't help myself, but I didn't just make t-shirts and hoodies either. I was really on my Rick wave, so I made my version of the Rick things. It was that meets like The Boondock Saints, because I'm still a little bit of a Cali bro, sort of rock kid, but not really. I like hip-hop, but I like the way the rock stars look. I like the contrast. I thought it was cool. After that, I just never stopped.

It was clear to me when I first met you that you were onto your own thing in LA. It made a lot of sense, and it was so cool. It was before 424 was its own brand; you just had the store and this really cool curation.

It was all my shit, bro. I was very, very invested in sharing all of these things that I was finding from all over the world, like Astrid Anderson. She was one of those designers at the time, so important to 424. The connection to Copenhagen specifically for me was huge. I had a big fan base there. It was incredible. And then here in LA, we were sharing the things that we were a part of and finding; it was still the early days of Fear of God, Rhude, Martine Rose. A lot of these brands, we were the first store to ever sell it — we were selling Hood By Air on the West Coast.

You had Rick as well, I remember.

Oh yeah. It took me a long time. But I got Rick, bro. By the time I had to close the store on Fairfax, I already had a Raf Simons account. I had reached my ultimate dream. It was really all the stuff I wanted to wear at the time. It was dope. The best of the best.

We had an office magazine newsstand in there as well.

Oh yeah, we did! I came to visit the one you had, and I was like, Yo, I got to bring this whole fucking thing over here. But yeah, in LA, after two days people forget you exist, but everyone’s been super supportive. We’re all 10 years older now. We've been around forever at this point.

It can be dangerous to take those breaks when you’re figuring shit out, but there’s something very genuine to this comeback you’re having.

Thank you, thank you. We’ve been in and out of those fucking showrooms in Paris for long enough. I've been in and out of these factories for the past 10 years of my life. We had to figure something out. And I think now really diving in, being in Italy full time and being there to develop these products over time, I think that the whole thing just really shows the suppliers respect you more. The people who are making your goods understand why you're making them. And I think now I finally got to the place where I'm not making Italian things, I’m making my clothes, I'm making Cali-centric shit, but with that European technicality and execution. With this Fall / Winter collection, it clicked.

So what’s the vision for the next year? What are you manifesting?

I'm just fucking relentless, bro. This is the way I want to live my life. Now that we are more aligned, more prepared, and have more experience, moving forward it is just more of becoming a fully functioning company that can provide and create opportunities for all of the people around me. We’ve been operating just on instinct for a long time.

Sustaining a business is scary, trust me I know.

Scary as fuck, dog. I just opened a store next to Bottega, bro, and it’s like what am I even doing? You have to just believe in the thing you're doing more than anybody else.

100%, and it seems like that’s what you’re doing.

And fashion’s kind of a competitive sport, as much as people don’t think it is. We can reach a certain level without losing ourselves. My biggest ambition at the moment is to create something that, when you leave one of our neighbors you come into our place you don’t feel that the level has been sacrificed at all. And it’s not easy.

Definitely. I wish I could be there tomorrow.

Thank you, bro. 10 years now. You’ve always shown me so much love. We have to do a booth or have the office part of the next 424 day. Shit let’s do a 424 day in New York.

That would be sick. Let's do it. I'm here. Let’s catch up soon.

Next season’s right around the corner so I’ll see you in Paris.

Yes, see you in Paris and Happy 424 day!

Fashion

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Words and photos by Izzy Capulong

The Spanish-born London-based designer has been well-loved for his genderless tailoring, latex mastery, and overall message of empowerment. Dressing everyone from ravers to A-listers, De Javier’s latest drop pushes his design repertoire to a new level. “While designing for my celebrity clientele and showcasing my creations on the runway has always been my dream,” he notes, “It’s equally important to me that my brand resonates with a wider, more diverse audience.” While this collection’s medium has shifted from corsets to sweatshirts, the classic LDJ avant-garde sensibilities remain. Bikinis and booty shorts are shamelessly emblazoned with “PUTA,” blazers are constructed with ample shoulder padding, and I had my eye on the cheekily-named “Faguette Bag.”

The Puta collection will be available exclusively on emcee.

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