Cameron Russell spent the last twenty years working as a model for clients like Prada, Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, H&M, Vogue and Elle. With over 40 million views and counting, she gave one of the most popular TED talks of all time on the power of image. She is the co-founder of Model Mafia, a collective of hundreds of fashion models striving for a more equitable, just, and sustainable industry, and was the force behind campaigns including #MyJobShouldNotIncludeAbuse, which brought the #MeToo movement to fashion and #SupplyChange, which revealed the link between fashion’s leather supply chain and deforestation in the Amazon and built pressure for and knowledge of immediate solutions.

Her first book, How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone, a political coming-of-age memoir about twenty years spent working and organizing in the fashion industry came out this year from Random House. Her next book is about care work, gestation, and climate catastrophe.

In her work as a researcher, artist, and teacher, this semester Cameron is co-teaching a Transnational Feminisms class at UMASS Boston that will culminate the an installation , zine library, and quilting bee opening to the public on December 8th and made in collaboration with undergraduates, long time collaborator photographer Mei Tao, and co-teacher Candace Figlametti celebrating diverse efforts to repair and remake the fashion system from across the globe.

Cameron Russell & Mei Tao: The Art of Care combines archival images and audio, text, text(tile), photographic portraits and stills, sculpture, craft, participatory archiving and ongoing care work by Cameron, Mei, and their community, in an effort to record and immerse audiences in the creative expression of caregivers, rarely shared beyond the home. The work is an urgent reminder that caring for and loving one another is a sublime expression of our humanity and effort to name and practice The Art of Care: making life affirming, sustaining tangible alternatives to the violent systems that surround us every day. In 2025 the show was installed in Cambridge, MA at gallery 263, Mexico City at Proyectos Públicos, and Tucson, AZ at Camp Hope.

Fashion & Imagination festivals. If fashion isn’t about buying and selling things, than what is it? From raves, to ballrooms, to craft, fashion is a culture of embodiment and expression, a container for grief and pleasure, self-determination and creation even in spaces where freedom is limited. From farms to labor organizing, fashion’s long history includes many more healthy systems that care for life, than the destructive ones that dominate our understanding of fashion today. In playful and critical conversations, performances, workshops, and in one semester long university course, we are building opportunities to examine a broad range of ways fashion is and has been a powerful tool for survival and liberation.

Her work as an organizer and interdisciplinary artist leverages creative collaboration and collective storytelling to build a more livable world.

Awards and accolades: 2024 Elle Women of Impact Honoree. 2020 inaugural CultureShifter by the Huffington Post. Recipient of the 2018 Harpers Bazaar Women of the Year Award, the GCFA’s Changemaker Award, and she was nominated for a Shorty Award for her work organizing models to expose systemic sexual harassment and abuse in fashion. She has twice been named model of the year (humanitarian and social media star) by models.com, provider of the industry’s most influential model rankings. Her work has been recognized by the New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue, Glamour, Refinery 29, i-D, NYMag, Business Insider, The Telegraph, CNN, NPR, and ABC.

contact

• Inquiries: Christiana Tien Tran (christiana@lumiencreative.com)

• Book specific: Caroline Eisenmann (ce@goldinlit.com), Frances Goldin Literary Agency

• Book Publicity: Michelle Jasmine (mjasmine@penguinrandomhouse.com)