Callum Harper lays it all on the table

Photographs Jeremy Liebman
Fashion editor Helen Seamons
Stylist Dione Davies

Harper first walked a runway show in 2022 for British-Chinese label Mithridate. Aged 23 now, he has become a rare thing in the industry: a high-fashion male model with mainstream appeal. He has walked for Gucci, Hermès, Zegna, Ulla Johnson, Feng Chen Wang, Diesel and Todd Snyder – and appeared in campaigns for Karl Lagerfeld, Kenneth Cole and Tommy Hilfiger – while simultaneously posting lucrative sponsored content for mass-market brands to a social media following of more than 4m people.

His most popular posts offer a cheeky chappy’s insight into the world of haute couture – a warts-and-all take on the highs, lows and endless embarrassments of modelling life, delivered in goofy voice and from unflattering angles, often with garbled gaffes and strange asides. Pacey clips are cut to take viewers backstage, between shows, and into his personal life, revealing more than a polished catwalk snapshot. In a typical TikTok video, titled “What it’s like to be a model in Paris during fashion week”, Harper gallops between castings, queuing alongside other runway hopefuls, laying bare his experiences. “I’m not gonna lie guys,” he says to camera, post-casting. “I’ve seen many a keener client in my time.” And then: “They seemed to be taking pictures of the models they liked. Did they take my picture? Um, no.”

Still, Harper gets plenty of work. He is signed to a year-long contract with Dior. (He’s wearing a Diorling cap and T-shirt today, as well as super-wide jeans and a pair of leopard print loafers he “found in Chicago”.) He moved to New York in 2024, realising he booked better jobs there than in the UK. “My audience really skews American,” he says. “They find me funny. It’s great content, Brit-in-USA.” The UK slang helps: “Oh bloody blimey,” he exclaims in a filmed review of his first peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. A TikTok tracking his inaugural trip to Target has reached 25m views. “And I’m more creative here. I wake up and think: ‘Shit, I’m in New York, this is sick!’ There’s so much to do and see, and so much content to be made. I feel inspired. I didn’t get that in Stratford.”

A few days ago, Harper walked a show for the American brand Kith, their first in six years. “They shut down a whole street in Soho. It pissed it down. And yesterday…” He pauses briefly. “OK, I may have a little cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2. It was fucking crazy. I had my own cast chair. I sat next to Anne Hathaway. It was amazing. They ended up giving me some lines, asked me to improv, to flirt and talk bollocks about modelling and fashion week in a party scene. I was gassed. Gassed! I’ll show you.”

He reaches for his phone, scrolls to yesterday’s photos: a picture of him tootling about on set in Balmain couture, a black lace number; another of a monitor beaming out a feed of him in action.

A message pops up and Harper reads it. “Oh no,” he says, “that’s so annoying.” I ask what’s irritating him.

“I made some content yesterday and wanted to post it. But I texted the people at The Devil Wears Prada and they’ve said absolutely fucking not.”

He reads aloud the producer’s message. “I’m sorry. The concern is that they let you post and then everyone else will want to. They love the idea of you posting stuff closer to the time of release, so can you please save it for May.”

He returns the phone to the table.

“May? It’s fucking August. I’ve got to sit on this? It’s such bullshit.”

Usually, he says, he’d press ahead and post. Part of Harper’s charm is the sense that his output is unfiltered. Fashion and beauty businesses have long relied on carefully constructed screens to maintain an air of aspiration, mystery and exclusivity around brand identity. Breaks in that fourth wall outside a PR team’s control are, therefore, fascinating to anyone purposefully kept at a distance. In his videos, Harper presents viewers with a tantalising peak behind the curtain; a refreshing dose of authenticity. The snippets he shares capture the glitz and glam, yes, alongside his flops and failures, all tightly edited.

“I’ve always said that if I’m going to film the fashion industry, I’ll be completely honest with everyone, take them through the real experience. It’s what’s most relatable. And you get the most sympathy and attention for it, honestly.” But this time he’ll hold off on posting. Harper is planning a pivot into acting. He is taking classes and recently signed to a London agency. At his first in-person audition, six months ago, “I was shitting myself. It was so nerve-racking. Without my acting coach I’d be a little lost donkey.” The casting process is familiar to him, but acting “is much more brutal. In modelling they’re judging your looks, which you can only do so much about. But in acting you’re rejected based on talent and ability. It cuts deeper.”

Harper understands that sharing behind-the-scenes footage from within a meaningfully discreet industry is “a risky game. I’m generally happy to piss a lot of people off. It’s got me into a lot of shit, but has helped me in most ways.” Some casting directors love what he does, particularly in New York, where the social-first, vlog-it-all approach is accepted if not encouraged. But in Milan and Paris, the schtick is less charming. “It’s more conservative there,” he says. “They want models to look good, but to be boring and stagnant. The biggest casting director in the industry is very traditional and hates what I do. It’s against the grain.” He mentions Kit Price, another young British model building an audience in similar ways, and a friend of Harper’s. “We’re the kids running along the block holding a camera, screaming at their phone. It’s very different to how things once were.”

This has at times caused Harper headaches. “I’ve had brands outraged,” he says. “Like, last year, with Thom Browne.” Harper was optioned, then confirmed, for the luxury US brand’s show. “I vlogged the casting and the fitting, and then posted it. Only, I’d accidentally included a clip I’d filmed of a board with all the models on, but they weren’t confirmed yet.” The brand wasn’t thrilled. “Fucking outraged, actually, made me take it down, then dropped and blacklisted me. Gucci had an issue with the first ever show that I properly vlogged, which was theirs. They fucking hated it – I never worked with them again for modelling. But I’m very pro ‘let’s fucking change it’, so, I do it this way.”

It’s not only industry etiquette that Harper objects to. He’s troubled by certain aspects of the fashion business, though for now, at least, sees these concerns as beyond the scope of his output. “When I stop modelling,” he says, “the way I’m bashing fashion week will be insane. The runway industry is fucked,” he believes. “It treats models horrendously.” There’s the pressure placed on models’ bodies, some of whom are so thin they “look like they’ll be blown over by the wind. I think it’s getting worse… Did you see the Zara thing?” Last month, a handful of the brand’s ads were banned for depicting “unhealthily thin” models. “That can’t go on,” he says.

Pay poses problems, too, he feels. Women are paid better than men, “which they should – it’s a lot more competitive. But the guys get paid fuck-all. The day rates are shocking.” He points to the financial realities his peers face, “out of pocket every fashion week, every runway”. Brands, often worth billions of pounds, “don’t pay for anything – travel, accommodation – unless they’re direct-booking you, which they rarely do.” Models, therefore, explicitly invited to castings by brands, are expected to cover their own costs without any certainty of work following. “Like models from Australia who’ll spend five grand on a return ticket to fly to Milan and Paris and end up with no shows and no work… It’s not fair.”

“The rest of it,” he hastily adds, “is so much fun and I’m trying to make the most of it.” There’s such a thrill from “seeing yourself in a store, or on a billboard. And the adrenaline of walking a runway – there’s nothing like it.” Harper’s success comes not just from these commercial achievements, but also leveraging the industry’s problems to his advantage.

We meet again the following morning, this time on the rooftop of the Penny, a hotel in Brooklyn. Harper grew up in Gloucester. “My mum is an HR manager,” he says.

He looks at me curiously.

“What’s your family like?” he asks.

“Northwest London Jews,” I say.

“Oh, Jewish! I thought you had some spice in there. I would have said Greek. I wish I had a little more spice in me, honestly.”

Harper went to a local comprehensive. He was “that kid who would work really hard and do staggeringly average.” Covid meant he didn’t sit A-levels as the exams were cancelled and replaced by algorithm- and teacher-predicted grades. He earned a place at Cardiff Metropolitan University to study business management. “I dropped out two weeks before starting. I wanted to go to drama school.” He was accepted on to a London acting course and the week before the move, contacted every modelling agency in London he could find on Google.

“I don’t know what came over me. ‘Fuck it,’ I guess. ‘Let’s see.’ I sent photos to 20 and had a response from only one.” This agency snapped him up and between acting classes and hospitality jobs he’d attend whatever fashion industry events he could.

“But nothing. I’d almost given up. In the two years I was with my first agency, I’d had what, two castings?” Neither led to bookings. Then, at a party, “The host looked at me and said: ‘Who the fuck are you?’ He told me to meet him the next day, which I did, at Soho House.” Harper landed a look-book shoot for Alter, Monaco royalty Pauline Ducruet’s label, and was signed by Menace Model Management immediately after.

It only paid £200, which is “not quite quit-your-job money, but I was so happy to receive it. I walked my first show at London fashion week for Mithridate just two weeks later.” He vlogged that runway show. “I thought people might be interested.” When the first video did well, I thought: ‘I could be on to something here.’”

Immediately after that London gig, Harper was en route to Tokyo – a training ground for fresh-faced models. “I had a good look for Japan, because I’m a pale ginger. My agent said: ‘You just need to be on set, developing, becoming a good model, learning about the industry.’” He sacked off drama school and headed over, recording and posting constantly. “Vibing with a camera? It’s how I coped. Every day. Everything that was happening.” After rents, flights and costs were recouped by the agency, “I’d made, like, £500 profit for two months’ work.” Was it worth it? “The best thing I ever did. I came back having developed as a model. I looked better: my hair looked good, my skin looked great. And,” most importantly, maybe “I learned how to do the social media stuff. It took off.” He’d built up a 700,000-strong TikTok following.

Signing to a social-media agency helped him monetise that. Part model, part influencer, Harper is a new breed: a model with a profile that lets him lead the dance with businesses and brands, while, unlike his predecessors, curating an image and personality himself, away from the whims of the tabloids. His own platforms remain his bread and butter. “I make 90% of my money through brand deals on social media, and 10% through modelling.”

In the 2023 season, he walked for Gucci, MSGM and Zenya in Milan. Before being signed in France, designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin had DMed Harper directly, asking him to walk in Paris. A New York agency snagged him, too. “I did fashion week here, and hit 1m followers on TikTok.”

Harper’s a different man when dressed up on set, someone else’s camera facing in his direction. Every movement is considered, limbs and features delicately adjusted between clicks. His playful youthfulness is tucked away, traded for straight-faced professionalism and cheekbone sharpening angles. That other side of him – the social media kook – he tells me later, “is definitely me, just on crack. When it’s just me and my phone, with nobody around, I feel free. I can be entirely myself, not shy. I’m quite an anxious person, but in front of my phone, I find I’m not. I just say the most random bollocks.”

Harper will turn to longer-form video content soon as YouTube beckons. “It’s more rewarding and more money per view.” Facebook, meanwhile, remains an important stream of income. “That’s how I have such a big mum audience,” he explains. “The mums love it. A lot of yummy mummies.” Under each of his Facebook posts, an army of women earnestly cheer him on, and console him through disappointment with technicoloured gifs. “There are so many mums commenting on my posts. They’re kinda scary? They get quite protective, but are supportive: ‘Oh my God, I want to adopt him and look after him!’ My mum gets jealous. You’ll find some comments underneath from her: ‘He already has a mother, thanks.’”

A video Harper uploaded in June encapsulates his approach to business. Invited for a Prada casting, he documented the entire process. “I knew I wasn’t going to get that job. They do this every year: option me, but there’s no commitment from them. It’s just a tickle of the bollocks. When I received that same email again, I thought: ‘How do I make a good video out of this?’ The next day, I’m filming myself rushing on to the flight to Milan.” Along with most of the models dashing to Italy, Harper covered his own costs.

He filmed the dash to the pre-casting, where success would mean a spot at the main casting for further whittling down, before another set of eliminations at the fitting. “Even that’s not a guarantee: I’ve fitted for designers, even been confirmed, then been dropped. You never know for certain that you’re walking until the show has started. Some are awful for it. They’ll pull out models in the lineup , and just say ‘no, we’re cutting your look’. It’s so cutthroat.” Until you step out, payment isn’t guaranteed either.

It’s why social media is Harper’s primary focus: if he’s footing the bill to get in these rooms, it pays to use the situation to his advantage. “At the end of the day, modelling will come to an end. You can only do it for a certain amount of time before you start looking crusty. Socials, and everything else aside from modelling, is really the priority. I’m so lucky to have that medium. There are so many others who don’t.”

Harper didn’t make it past that first Prada round. “I knew I wouldn’t, I knew it. But I’m so glad I filmed the whole thing: me travelling there, speaking about it. There were signs in the casting rooms saying no filming. I fucked that off.” It became one of his most-viewed viral videos. “Things like that are always worth it for me, and for Kit, or Alex Consani or whatever, who can make the content around it.”

A few weeks later, there’s a post on Harper’s TikTok. He’s unboxing a hamper-full of Prada-sent gifts, including the “sluttiest sandals ever seen”; it has clocked up hundreds of thousands of views already.

Main image: sweater, trousers and boots all by Prada

Grooming by Laura Costa

Styling assistant Dylan Keyoni